Talent Operations Manager

Who We Are

Every college grad deserves a fair shot at a meaningful, upwardly mobile career. That’s the promise of higher education in America, but the payoff depends on who you know, not just what you learned. Since 2014, COOP Careers has worked to close the social capital gap by recruiting and investing deeply in diverse, low-income, and first-generation grads from the City University of New York, California State, and other public universities.

Our flagship program is a unique digital apprenticeship: Peer cohorts of 16 motivated, underemployed grads meet nightly for 18 weeks (200 hours) to learn technical skills, build community, and jumpstart careers in digital marketing, data analytics and tech sales. Each cohort is led by a team of four cohort captains, near-peer program alumni who serve as coaches, mentors, and guides on top of busy day jobs at local ad agencies and tech companies. In parallel, we help these employers meet, interview, and hire more and more diverse candidates.

We’ve run over 150 cohorts since 2014, with over 2,000 alumni in our first seven years.

Four-in-five alumni overcome underemployment within a year, earning an average of $50,000 after 12 months and over $60,000 after three years. COOP aims to reach 10,000 alumni in our first decade (December 2025), fueling upward mobility and fulfilling the promise of higher education through digital skills and peer connections.

What You Will Do

At COOP we believe the personal is the professional. Therefore each day the Talent team strives to foster a culture built on bringing your authentic self to work, meaningful connections with your manager and teammates, and a healthy dose of optimism to keep us working toward our mission. We do this by focusing on hiring extraordinary people, developing their strengths, and promoting from within. 

A successful Talent Operations Manager will be an organizational expert, enjoy communication with others, and be a proactive problem-solver that enjoys taking initiative on projects. You will ensure accurate and timely execution of tasks and also help identify ways to improve talent processes to ensure consistency and integrity of information in our environment of high-growth. Thus, you should feel confident managing several projects at the same time and enjoy the challenges of building a successful organization powered by talented individuals.

Responsibilities

General HR & Compliance (50%)

• Main point of contact for general HR, timecard and payroll inquiries by regularly monitoring our team inquiry email address and responding within a timely manner
• Become an expert at Zenefits, COOP’s HRIS database; make recommendations for improvements and audits
• Play a seminal role in on-boarding and off-boarding employees across the organization
• Ensure integrity of Form I-9s, anti-sexual harassment certificates, personnel files and all other compliance information in our HRIS (Zenefits)
• Maintain a thorough understanding of current employment laws

Payroll (25%)

• Own and oversee the processing of full cycle exempt, non-exempt multi-state payroll
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local payroll, wage, and hour laws and best practices 
• Ensure accurate change management to payroll systems and effective communication to employees

Benefits (25%)

• Process benefit enrollments, 401k contributions, changes, and terminations for all benefit plans through our HRIS system 
• Leads benefits onboarding session for each new hire and answers one-off questions on benefits from employees
• Organize annual renewal of benefit programs during Open Enrollment
• Manages leaves of absence including FMLA, STD, LTD, PTO, state specific PFL, company specific leaves, and Workers’ Comp
• Communicate how to fully utilize benefits such as gym reimbursement, EAP, therapy and other benefits to employees 
• Work with the Senior Director of People in the vision, planning, development and compliance of competitive and equitable benefits and compensation for organization
• Performs other duties as assigned

Qualifications

• 2-3 years of experience working in human resources with 1 year minimum of that experience being in payroll/benefits required

• Experience with maintaining an HRIS (preferably Zenefits) is required

• Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources, Organization Management, or Public Administration, or SHRM-CP/PHR credentials a plus but not required

• Familiarity with laws, regulations, and best practices applicable to payroll, benefits and compliance preferred

• Ability to work independently, lead by example, and motivate and influence positive behaviors

Who You Are

• Workload Guru. You enjoy breaking down projects into each step, executing them effectively, and feel comfortable adjusting course as needed. 
• High Attention to Detail. You have a keen eye for detail and enjoy double and even triple checking your work for accuracy.  
• Customer Service Oriented. Strong customer focus and effective use of consultative approach when working with employees.
• Equity Builder. You actively seek out avenues for addressing structural inequities in your work and have the ability to sustain commitment to this work despite overwhelming nature of the problem
• Adaptable. Willingness to adapt and contribute to COOP’s feedback-driven culture

What We Offer You

This is an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated professional to assume a pivotal role in the evolution of a fast-growing, highly-respected organization. We are prepared to offer a very attractive compensation package, including: 

• Base salary of $60-65k (commensurate with experience)
• A generous and flexible unlimited vacation policy, including holidays and office closed the last week of December (12/25-1/1) and the first week in July (7/4 - 7/8)
• Hybrid work environment and flexible scheduling
• Up to 100% employer-funded comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage for you (dependents may be added to coverage at additional cost)
• $1,500 annual professional development budget (prorated based on start date)
• Flexible spending account benefits (healthcare, dependent care, and commuter)
• 401(K) retirement plan with 4% employer match

Remote Working Policy

Due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to follow all CDC and state-mandated guidelines, and all COOP team members are working remotely and will continue to do so through June 2022. For July - December 2022, teams will co-work at a mutually-convenient WeWork location once a week as decided by each team and its director. Flexibility may be provided based on individual circumstance, subject to approval. Our goal is to move toward a more permanent hybrid workplace starting in January 2023 and would therefore require that this role report to COOP’s local office on designated days, as directed by COOP, for some of the work performed during your employment.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

COOP provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. We seek to build a diverse staff representative of the communities we serve. All qualified applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.