People Operations Manager

Honeydew•New York, NY

About The Position

Honeydew is hiring a People Operations Manager to help scale its people operations as the company grows from approximately 240 to more than 450 employees over 14 months. This individual-contributor role partners with managers and employees on organizational structure, leveling, performance, development, and sensitive employee matters, while building scalable, compliant people systems and documentation. The role supports either the Care Delivery organization, including a largely remote hourly, non-exempt workforce, or Business teams and providers, primarily an exempt, salaried, and 1099 population. The manager will learn the business and map organizational structures and people risks, then audit and formalize systems and processes for a doubling of headcount. This work includes compensation and promotion cycles, benefits administration and open enrollment, employee relations processes, and policies for each state where Honeydew employs people. The role will also strengthen continuous feedback and performance processes and develop coaching and training frameworks for managers. It is an individual-contributor position with a stated path to leadership as the People team expands. The role combines trusted manager advising, employee relations, HR operations, people data and metrics, leveling and progression frameworks, audits and compliance, change management, and employee experience. The manager will support employees throughout their time at Honeydew, contribute to retention and engagement for a diverse, distributed workforce, and improve workflows—using AI to accelerate repetitive documentation, tracking, and reporting where appropriate. The role has a strong preference for hybrid work from Honeydew’s New York City office, but may be remote for the right candidate.

Requirements

Experience supporting a technology or technology-enabled startup during rapid growth from approximately 100 to 500 or more employees; experience through more than one such growth period is preferred.
Significant experience supporting remote, technology-enabled hourly, non-exempt teams alongside salaried knowledge workers; experience only with physical workforces such as retail, hospitality, or manufacturing is not considered a fit.
Hands-on ownership and administration of Justworks or an equivalent PEO and an HRIS, including the ability to identify and resolve payroll errors at their source.
Practical, multi-state compliance experience involving wage and hour matters, leave, and accommodations.
Business acumen, including connecting people decisions to revenue drivers, team dependencies, and organizational design tradeoffs.
Ability to manage concurrent projects and workstreams with high standards and attention to detail.
Creative, operator-minded problem-solving skills, including asking clarifying questions and bringing forward solutions.
High emotional intelligence and resilience under pressure, with the ability to have difficult conversations while helping people feel supported.
Sound judgment and discretion in sensitive employee matters.
Legal and compliance fluency.

Nice To Haves

Experience building AI-powered or agentic workflows and curiosity about their applications.
Experience transitioning international contractors to an employer of record (EOR).
Healthcare or care-delivery experience.

Responsibilities

Partner with managers and employees on team structure, leveling, performance, development, and other people matters.
Learn how the business operates and map team structures, cross-team dependencies, and people risks.
Audit and formalize people systems and processes to support rapid headcount growth.
Build or improve compensation and promotion cycle infrastructure, benefits administration and open enrollment, employee relations processes, and policies for every state where the company hires.
Support a continuous feedback and performance cycle and develop manager coaching and training frameworks.
Advise and coach managers through performance plans, team dynamics, employee development, attendance questions, and employee engagement.
Handle sensitive employee relations situations, including leave and accommodation requests.
Own HR fundamentals, people data and metrics, leveling and progression frameworks, and operational and administrative People work.
Support audits and compliance work with internal and external partners, including counsel and the PEO.
Lead change management so that process changes are communicated clearly and gain buy-in.
Support employee experience, retention, and engagement across a diverse, distributed workforce, including internal communications, the employee wiki, and People team updates.
Build or improve trackers, templates, workflows, and other operating processes.
Lead cross-functional projects such as performance review cycles, leveling frameworks, or compensation benchmarking.
Own portions of company-wide initiatives such as open enrollment or new-state policy rollouts.
Compile data for audits and identify trends to raise with leadership.
Present process or policy changes to managers and explain their purpose in a resonant way.
Respond to employee questions about benefits or equity vesting and support onboarding and offboarding.
Use AI to accelerate repetitive documentation, tracking, and reporting work.