People Partner, Engineering

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 300,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy. 

About the Role:

As our business scales and becomes more complex, and as we add hundreds of new Gusties each year, we need to ensure that our strategies for engagement with our employees are positive, engaging, values-driven and compliant. 

As a Lead People Partner, you will lead a team of People Partners and drive people strategies and solutions for the Engineering organization and up-level the People Partner craft within Gusto. 

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

You thrive in a fast-paced and challenging environment, have a passion for building and refining processes and practices, are strong in influencing and mentoring others, and build strong relationships with executives, leaders and employees. You are an HR thought leader who can balance the need to be a Strategic business partner along with a roll up your sleeves attitude.

• Empowers team of People Partners to influence business and talent initiatives that support short and long-term business goals, including driving practices that enable high performance and operational excellence
• A trusted advisor and thought partner to business leaders and their teams
• Establishes and develops broad strategy and translates into multi-functional objectives; diagnose, translate, and define current and future business needs into an overall integrated People/Talent Plan
• Provides strategy, vision and direction to team of People Partners; lead efforts with the People Partner team and the organization you support to achieve People objectives, including attracting, hiring and onboarding great talent, developing and retaining Gusties, and achieving our goals around representation and inclusion
• Build strong partnerships across the People team roles and functions (Invite, Talent Development, Compensation and Benefits) as well as lead as part of a larger People Partner team to create a consistent Gustie experience.
• Designs, influences and implements company-wide policies and practices, ensuring operational effectiveness
• Serve as a change agent and member of your organization’s leadership team to help drive strategic growth plans and objectives across the organization.
• Provide organizational development interventions and support including organization design, development solutions,  leadership coaching, and proactive change management.
• Engage in strategic workforce planning by assessing organizational capabilities; identify competency and talent gaps, ensure development of people resources; and introduce succession planning.
• Initiate and maintain effective communications with leadership and employees; provide coaching and guidance on matters related to performance management, offer feedback on style and behaviors to improve employee productivity and engagement.

Here’s what we're looking for:

Experience:  8+ years of People Partner experience w/ 4+ years operating as an HR Business Partner/People Partner in a large to mid-size tech company supporting GMs, Engineering, Product Management, Design, or Data teams. In addition, 3+ years in people management with a skill for motivating and mentoring talent to do the best work of their careers.

Skills:  

• Strong executive presence, proven ability to influence and coach leaders, and exceptional interpersonal skills are key
• Strong strategic thinking and business acumen with the ability to understand and align People initiatives with business objectives, translating strategy into plans for execution 
• Ability to lead a team of highly skilled individuals to do their best work 
• Excellent communication skills and ability to clearly and concisely communicate to employees of all levels effectively 
• Ability to manage multiple stakeholders and competing priorities with a sense of urgency and the ability to pivot quickly based on changing needs of the business
• Significant experience with workforce analytics plus the ability to use data and reporting to drive strategic decisions
• A proven track record of developing and lea