People Operations Manager

Embarc Advisors•Chicago, IL

4d•Remote

About The Position

Imagine being part of an organization that challenges and inspires you to do your best work, where you're encouraged to refine your expertise, expand your capabilities, and contribute meaningfully from day one. At Embarc Advisors, we prioritize professional growth, value innovative thinking, and recognize the impact of each team member. Join us, and be part of a firm where your potential is cultivated and your achievements are genuinely rewarded. About Embarc Advisors Embarc Advisors was founded to break the mold of traditional finance careers - built by a former Goldman Sachs banker and McKinsey consultant who saw a better way to do this work. We're one of the fastest-growing firms in our space, with revenue up nearly 3x over the past three years and multiple repeated rankings on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies. We're scaling fast, and we're doing it without sacrificing the culture that got us here. We deliver best-in-class advisory work across M&A, capital raising, outsourced corporate development, and strategic CFO services--partnering with lower-middle-market companies at every stage of their growth journey, from first capital raise to exit. We run like an elite team, not a traditional firm: trust-based, purpose-driven, and relentless about getting better; Kaizen isn't a poster on the wall here, it's how we operate. EOS gives us the structure and accountability to move fast without losing alignment, and it's exactly what lets us attract driven professionals and serious clients alike. Embarc Intro Deck here: https://docsend.com/view/bej7d89ncu2mma4m Role Overview Job Type: Full time Position Location: Remote (applicants residing in Mountain and Central time zones are preferred) The People Operations Manager manages the day-to-day people operations of Embarc Advisors, serving as the firm's primary point of contact with its PEO and owning recruiting, onboarding/offboarding, and professional development across all three practice groups. Additionally, this role oversees workforce performance, including staff needs forecasting and offshoring relationships to ensure growth requirements are met. This role ensures the firm stays compliant as a multi-state employer, covering payroll, benefits, and 401(k) administration, while taking on a broader mandate: owning HR budget alignment and cost management, leading vendor and benefits negotiations, bringing compensation expertise to offer and bonus design, building performance-metric frameworks for staff, and managing capacity and utilization planning across practice groups. The role applies AI tools broadly to optimize HR processes as the firm scales.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in human resources, people operations, or a related role.
Bachelor's degree with relevant undergraduate focus.
Exceptional organizational and project management skills.
Strong written and verbal communication abilities.
Ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously while remaining calm, maintaining attention to detail, and aligning with broader business priorities.
High level of professionalism and discretion handling confidential information.
Strong judgment, business acumen, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to learn quickly and make informed decisions.
Demonstrated ability to be proactive, responsive, and comfortable anticipating needs before being asked.
Entrepreneurial self-starter mindset and dedication to improving processes and creating structure.
Advanced proficiency with Microsoft 365, including Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Able to work within HCM software modules.
Experience using AI tools to drive automation, organization, and efficiency.

Nice To Haves

Experience operating effectively in a fast-paced and evolving environment.
Experience in professional services, consulting, finance, investment banking, M&A advisory, legal services, accounting, or a related industry.
Familiarity with iSolved software, Docusign, and project management tools.

Responsibilities

Serves as the firm's primary point of contact with its PEO for HR administration, benefits enrollment, payroll processing, and compliance filings.
Coordinates open enrollment, benefits changes, and leave administration in partnership with the PEO.
Maintains accurate employee records and ensures data consistency between internal systems and the PEO platform.
Fields employee HR inquiries and resolves or escalates to the PEO as appropriate.
Manages full-cycle recruiting: job postings, sourcing, screening, interview coordination, and offer administration.
Partners with practice leads to establish hiring criteria and structured, work-sample-based interview processes.
Administers employee referral programs and recruiting-related reporting (pipeline, time-to-fill, source effectiveness, cost-per-hire).
Owns new-hire onboarding, paperwork, systems-access coordination with the PEO, orientation, and 30/60/90-day ramp plans.
Designs and delivers professional development and training programs; tracks completion and effectiveness.
Supports career-pathing and competency frameworks in partnership with practice group leaders.
Manages termination processing (voluntary and involuntary), including PEO coordination, final-pay compliance, and COBRA/benefits-continuation notices.
Conducts exit interviews and tracks attrition trends (voluntary vs. involuntary) by practice group.
Ensures terminations follow documented, legally compliant processes consistent across all states of operation.
Ensures compliance with multi-state employment laws in partnership with the PEO and outside counsel as needed.
Coordinates 401(k) plan administration, enrollment, contributions, compliance testing, and annual filings, with the plan provider and/or PEO.
Coordinates immigration and work-authorization matters in partnership with the PEO, outside counsel, and affected employees, including sponsorship needs, required documentation, filing timelines, and ongoing compliance.
Oversees payroll accuracy in partnership with the PEO, including multi-state tax withholding, and resolves discrepancies promptly.
Maintains and updates the employee handbook and HR policies to reflect current multi-state requirements.
Partners with the COO to build and manage the annual HR, benefits, PEO, and recruiting operating budget, tracking expenses against plan and flagging variances.
Leads negotiations with the PEO, benefits carriers, 401(k) provider, and recruiting vendors to secure favorable pricing, terms, and renewal rates.
Identifies and executes cost-reduction opportunities across benefits design, staffing levels, and vendor contracts without compromising employee experience or compliance.
Brings compensation expertise to market benchmarking, offer structuring, and bonus/incentive plan design; partners with leadership on pay equity and positioning.
Designs and implements performance-metric frameworks and scorecards by role, tied to the firm's EOS scorecard and practice-group KPIs.
Tracks individual and team performance data, partnering with practice leads on review cycles, calibration, and development planning.
Manages capacity and utilization planning across Strategic Finance, Transaction Diligence, and Corporate Development, forecasting staffing needs against workload and pipeline.
Partners with practice leads to flag capacity gaps or overages and inform hiring, cross-staffing, or workload-rebalancing decisions.
Applies AI tools across the employee lifecycle to optimize processes, screening, policy drafting, performance-metric analysis, communications, and reporting.
Evaluates and pilots emerging AI/HR-tech tools, recommending adoption where they improve efficiency, accuracy, or cost.
Builds and maintains HR dashboards and metrics (headcount, attrition, time-to-fill, ramp success, benefits utilization, cost-per-hire, capacity/utilization).
Proactively identifies and implements process improvements across the employee lifecycle.