Human Resources Specialist

SUMMARY: Provides comprehensive support for a variety of administrative and operational HR tasks within the Firmwide HR Department. Partners closely with Firmwide HR Managers on key initiatives and assists in maintaining HR policies, procedures, and compliance standards. Contributes to departmental projects and helps ensure the consistent delivery of HR programs across the organization.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following.  Other duties may be assigned.

Hiring and Onboarding:

• Assist Firmwide Staff Recruiter with recruiting and onboarding activities, including maintaining documents included in New Hire Folders, and maintaining position descriptions and staff recruitment contracts.
• Review I-9 submissions and work authorization for new hires in UKG. Follow up with HR Managers on any errors.
• Back up Firmwide Human Resources Manager with new hire orientations and processing hires new employees in UKG.

Termination Procedures:

• Communicate termination details to employees in a professional and timely manner.

• Coordinates with local HR Managers and user support teams to ensure smooth offboarding.
• Distributes exit surveys and uploads completed responses into UKG.
• Calculates and verifies PTO and vacation payout amounts in accordance with company policy.

Leave of Absence (LOA):

• Coordinate LOA activities, including tracking, filing, following up for missing documentation, creating letters and notices for Firmwide staff, and UKG approvals or submissions. Maintain letter templates and related attachments.
• Apply internal policies and external regulations to answer employee questions or redirect to appropriate party.
• Revise LOA letters and related communication materials as needed to reflect policy updates or procedural changes.

Compensation:

• On a yearly basis, participate in national and regional salary and benefits surveys, including tracking and follow up if notification for survey open for participation is not received.
• Assist with multi-step compensation analysis and salary grade review for various roles and regions.
• Provide survey results as requested.
• Assist with activities related to end-of-year compensation process.

Database maintenance:

• Assign and track new hire training, annual or biennial required trainings. Responsible for troubleshooting, content refreshes, and vendor management. Follow up with HR Managers for any incomplete training. Create and send monthly report for completed training to CLE Coordinator.
• Audit training database for name/email changes, office transfers, terminations, etc. Conduct yearly content refreshes including assigning testers, testing courses, gathering and submitting feedback, and retesting if needed. Prepare and coordinate office-wide rollout for annual and/or biennial training.
• Update PLI database to add any new attorneys and paralegals and/or remove any terminations. Audit PLI database for name/email changes, office transfers, job title or team changes, etc.

Miscellaneous:

• Draft and distribute Birth and Death Announcement emails.
• Prepare and send monthly Birthday and Anniversary emails to Firmwide staff.
• Respond to verification of employment calls and prepare verification letters as needed.
• Audit HR Access Only intranet documents on an ongoing basis ensuring all items are up to date.
• Re-order personalized memo pads and business cards or office supplies for FWHR.
• Update FW department organizational charts.
• Register and coordinate annual attorney satisfaction surveys for Vault and The American Lawyer. Send weekly participation updates. Process electronic gift cards.
• Assist Staff Training and Development Manager with training programs for staff and firmwide performance management systems.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor's Degree and a minimum of 6 years of relevant Human Resources experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience. Law firm experience is highly desirable.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

• Demonstrated proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite including Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Experience with Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) a plus.
• Proven aptitude to learn new software applications.

LANGUAGE SKILLS:

• Ability to speak effectively with all levels of clients and professional and support staff. Interpersonal communication skills are necessary to maintain effective relationships with partners, attorneys, clients and staff, and to exhibit a high degree of responsiveness, diplomacy and professionalism in these interactions.
• Ability to respond to common inquiries or complaints from all levels of professional and support staff, clients, regulatory agencies, or members of the business community.
• Ability to read and interpret documents such as operating instructions, procedure manuals, general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, governmental regulations, financial reports, and legal documents.

MATHEMATICAL SKILLS:

• Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals.
• Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, proportions, percentages, area and circumference.
• Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, probability, statistical inference and proportions to practical situations.

REASONING ABILITY:

• Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written, oral, or diagram form.
• Ability to deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of instructions and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
• Exhibit independent thinking and decision making.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
• Ability to think strategically, develop tactics and execute pragmatically.

OTHER SKILLS and ABILITIES: 

• Strong analytical and communication skills both oral and written.
• Demonstrated ability to multi-task and be detail oriented. Excellent organizational and planning skills with ability to prioritize multiple tasks and projects in a fast-paced environment with strict deadlines.
• Outstanding creativity; flexibility and persistence; motivation and energy with the ability to work with little supervision and collaborate with other members of the team.
• A tolerance for uncertainty and an ability to prioritize and complete simultaneous projects with minimal supervision.
• A team orientation with a willingness to “roll up sleeves” and operate at whatever level is needed to accomplish tasks.
• Demonstrate good judgment, tact, and flexibility under pressure in a mixed-matrix environment with many stakeholders and potentially competing priorities.
• Ability to exercise discretion with confidential and sensitive information. Ability to demonstrate impeccable integrity in personal and fiduciary matters.
• Must be able to perform essential duties of the position with time constraints and interruptions.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: The physical demands described here are representative of those that should be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, documents, books, pen/pencil, paper, controls and manipulate a keyboard, and input data into a PC; and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to walk.
• The employee is occasionally required to use hands to prepare correspondence and reports on a personal computer.
• The employee is occasionally required to stand and reach with hands and arms. And stoop, kneel, bend, crouch or crawl.
• Ability to operate a variety of standard office equipment including a computer, copy and facsimile machines.
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

The salary offered in any location will be determined by a wide range of factors, including, but not limited to, experience level, education/training, geographic region, and relevant skills.  Associates also participate in a performance- and hours-based bonus program. The expected annual salary for this position ranges from $65,000- $80,000.

Baker & Hostetler LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Salary : $65,000 - $80,000