Talent & Culture Manager

POSITION: TALENT & CULTURE MANAGER

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

REPORTS TO: DIRECTOR OF TALENT & CULTURE

SUPERVISES: TALENT & CULTURE COORDINATOR

FLSA STATUS: EXEMPT

SALARY RANGE: $70,000-80,000/year

ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION

Founded in 1998, LIFT is a nonprofit organization on a mission to break the cycle of poverty by investing in parents. LIFT’s one-on-one coaching program empowers parents to set and achieve goals that put families on the path toward economic mobility – such as going back to school, improving credit, eliminating debt, or securing a living wage. In addition to coaching, LIFT parents also receive direct cash infusions to reinvest in their families and goals. LIFT partners with colleges, governments, and health systems to deliver its services nationwide and operates sites in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. Learn more at www.whywelift.org

LIFT is at an exciting moment in its organizational trajectory. We aim to further scale our impact by 1) making continuous improvements to our direct service model, 2) partnering with other organizations and agencies to deliver LIFT's program and support to the families they serve, and 3) influencing policy change at the local, state, and national level. We are looking for team players who thrive in a growth environment of continuous improvement, are committed to LIFT’s mission, and uphold LIFT’s values of diversity, equity, excellence, hope, and relationships.   

*LIFT is operating under a hybrid remote/in-person schedule, and this role will be expected to work in the office as needed, potentially up to twice a week.  

POSITION OVERVIEW

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced talent/people operations professional to use their expertise to make an impact in a growing, mission-driven organization with opportunities for advancement in a career that brings them joy. The Talent & Culture Manager will be a key member of hands-on team that maintains and applies continuous improvement to the smooth operations of the organization’s talent and culture functions to ensure a supportive candidate and employee experience.

The individual in this role is an experienced talent generalist who can help manage all aspects of the employee life cycle (recruitment, on/offboarding, retention, and employee development) as well as compliance, benefits, payroll, and some key organizational culture initiatives. This role will initiate and support improvements in processes and practices, and the individual thrives in an evolving organization. The person in this role will have proven management and coaching experience to manage and develop the Talent & Culture Coordinator. This position is based in Washington, DC and supports LIFT’s approximately 60 employees and 40 interns across LIFT’s regional sites and national teams.

Travel requirement, in addition to local travel and connection to the DC office, is once a year for approximately 3-4 days for LIFT’s annual All Staff Retreat in one of its regional cities.

• Project Management: Develop and implement project plans for various Talent & Culture-related initiatives, ensuring that projects stay on track and that relevant stakeholders are involved.
• Systems Design & Continuous Improvement: Advise on and implement improvements to Talent & Culture systems, processes, and procedures for greater efficiency and effectiveness.
• Management & Coaching:
  • Manage, coach, and develop the Talent & Culture Coordinator.
  • Employee Relations: Support staff and Talent & Culture Team on employee relations, elevating them to the Talent & Culture Director when appropriate.
• Manage day-to-day people operations with the employee lifecycle:
  • Recruitment: Collaborate with hiring managers while working with contract recruiters to plan and carry out recruitment processes that attract a diverse pool of talented candidates; track and initiate candidate communication; and track and improve upon LIFT’s days-to-hire metrics to fill open roles in a timely manner while balancing race equity objectives.
  • Onboarding: Update, improve upon, and implement standardized onboarding processes that set new employees up for success within the organization.
  • Engagement & Retention: Conduct and act on learnings from employee engagement surveys.
  • Compensation & Rewards: Support the team’s efforts to continuously improve LIFT’s compensation and rewards strategy and manage special projects to drive key changes.
  • Performance Management: Implement and make continuous improvements to LIFT’s performance management process, including managing review cycles; ensuring managers have tools to coach and provide feedback to team members; helping to design and implement LIFT’s professional development initiatives.
  • Offboarding: Manage separation procedures including conducting and deriving learnings from exit interviews, working with managers on transition plans and communication with staff about departing employees, and ensuring departing employees are clear on offboarding process.
• Manage compliance:
  • Compliance and Policies: Leverage network, resources, and legal support on employment laws in LIFT’s physical locations (Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, and New York) and states in which remote employees work; advise on, create/update, and implement policies to ensure compliance; manage updates to employee handbook; manage annual compliance calendar.
  • Payroll: Manage and process payroll changes with outsourced payroll provider; ensure that changes are communicated to appropriate staff and vendors; run reports as necessary.
  • Benefits: Assist with planning, implementation, and management of benefits plans; manage employee benefits communications during open enrollment and throughout the year; work with broker to resolve issues; manage parental leave process.
• Data analysis: Design improvement to data gathering, analysis, and dashboards of talent data around recruitment, retention, compensation, and rewards, particularly as it pertains to equity; support communicating results to Leadership Team and staff.
• Culture: Contribute to a culture of inclusion, well-being, and alignment with LIFT’s values of equity, diversity, relationships, excellence, and hope.

OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE:

• You are committed to LIFT’s mission and values.
• You have 4-8+ years’ experience in people operations, ideally as a generalist in a mission-driven setting.
• Management and Coaching: You have been an effective people manager for 1-2+ years and empower team members to grow and succeed through feedback, coaching, instruction, encouragement, and appropriate delegation. You give and receive positive and constructive feedback and enact change as a result.
• Project Management and Results-orientation: You focus on results and desired outcomes, keeping team and organizational goals in mind. You leverage strong project management skills to create work plans and backwards-plan to keep projects involving multiple stakeholders on track. You are accountable for the quality and timeliness of your work. You use data to understand and act on trends. You are skilled at using programs like Microsoft Excel to analyze talent-related data pertaining to recruitment, performance, engagement, compensation, rewards, and retention.
• Problem-solving: You demonstrate initiative, resourcefulness, and adaptability. You are comfortable in evolving situations and enjoy working toward solutions. You can discern when to elevate issues to others for thought partnership and guidance when needed. You analyze issues and use good judgement to take next steps and/or make sound decisions in a timely manner. You understand the importance of people operations compliance and you have experience leveraging your knowledge of and/or ability to research employment law to implement practical workplace policies.
• Inclusiveness: You contribute to creating a work environment that appreciates diversity and encourages equity. You treat others with respect, listen to and demonstrate appreciation for others’ perspectives, and use culturally sensitive language. You work effectively with others throughout the organization and promote cooperation and commitment within teams to achieve goals and deliverables.
• Communications: You are clear and compelling in both verbal and written communications, drafting emails for org-wide consumption, and you use programs like Microsoft PowerPoint to develop presentations for internal audiences.
• Systems-oriented: You build and strengthen high-functioning internal systems and operations. You enjoy playing around in a system and discovering new ways in which to use it to increase effectiveness for end users.

Don’t think you have everything for this role but are still very interested? Please don’t hesitate to apply. We’d love to hear from you! LIFT believes that diversity in all dimensions of the organization supports and bolsters the innovative thinking essential to its success and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity to all qualified applicants. LIFT’s goal is for our people to reflect the communities in which we live and serve, and to ensure representation of people of color, women, veterans, and individuals with disabilities in our organization.

WHAT WE OFFER:

• LIFT’s compensation philosophy is to pay competitively for our non-profit sector and ensure equity across the organization. The salary range for this role is $70,000-80,000/year. Compensation for the role will depend on several factors including qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience, and may fall outside the range shown.
• LIFT provides an attractive benefits package that includes:
  • Employer-paid health care coverage (100% for employees, 75% for dependents)
  • A 403(b) retirement plan including an employer match of up to 5% after one year
  • 12 weeks paid parental leave
  • Partial cell phone coverage
  • Pre-tax accounts for transit, health, and childcare benefits
  • A generous paid-time-off policy, starting with four weeks in the first year Generous paid-time-off policy starting with 4 weeks in the first year (5 weeks in years 2-4, 6 weeks at 5+ years), Federal holidays, the day after Thanksgiving, Cesar Chavez day, and wellness days including a one-week organization-wide paid closure over the winter holidays (the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays), and a one-week organization-wide paid closure over the summer fiscal year transition (the week in which Independence Day is celebrated)
• To learn more specifics about our benefits and culture please see our LIFT Benefits & Culture Overview at https://www.whywelift.org/careers.

TO APPLY
Please submit a resume.