People Operations Specialist

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Salary: £40,000–£55,000 FTE, depending on experience

Location: UK, fully remote

Hours: Full-time or part-time, minimum 32 hours across 4 or 5 days

About the opportunity

Via is partnering with a fast-growing professional services business to recruit a People Operations Specialist.

This is an opportunity to take ownership of day-to-day people operations while helping build the processes and systems that will support the company as it grows.

You'll be the first dedicated People hire, giving you plenty of scope to shape how things are done. From onboarding and employee support to HR systems, documentation and automation, you'll make sure core people processes run smoothly while finding smarter ways to improve them.

It's a hands-on role rather than a management position and would suit someone who enjoys solving problems, supporting people and turning repetitive tasks into simple, scalable processes.

What you'll be doing

• Own the employee onboarding process from offer through to successful start
• Issue contracts and coordinate pre-employment checks
• Maintain onboarding and offboarding processes and checklists
• Act as a first point of contact for managers on day-to-day people queries
• Handle absence and leave administration
• Support employees through sensitive one-to-one conversations with professionalism and empathy
• Prepare and track employee documentation, including changes to salary, hours and roles
• Take ownership of the HR system and ensure employee information and workflows remain accurate
• Identify when issues can be resolved independently and when they need to be escalated
• Build templates and workflows that make recurring people processes easier to manage
• Use AI tools to automate and improve repetitive operational work
• Identify further opportunities to automate processes as the business grows
• Provide light-touch guidance and training to managers
• Use people data to produce useful insights for leadership

What we're looking for

We're looking for someone with strong judgement, organisation and ownership who is comfortable dealing with both people and processes.

You'll ideally:

• Have experience in People Operations, HR, employee experience, business operations or a similar role
• Be comfortable taking ownership of tasks and seeing them through from start to finish
• Have strong organisational skills and attention to detail
• Be confident handling sensitive and confidential information
• Communicate clearly and handle difficult or sensitive conversations with empathy
• Know when to make a decision independently and when an issue needs to be escalated
• Enjoy improving processes without adding unnecessary complexity
• Be comfortable learning and managing HR or operational software
• Have hands-on experience using tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or similar AI platforms to improve workflows and automate repetitive work

Previous experience within a dedicated People or HR team, knowledge of UK employment law or experience working in a fast-growing business would be beneficial, but isn't essential.

We're more interested in strong judgement, ownership and the ability to learn than a specific number of years' HR experience.

Why apply?

• £40,000–£55,000 FTE salary depending on experience
• Fully remote UK role
• Full-time or part-time options
• Minimum 32-hour working week across four or five days
• Flexible working patterns
• Employer pension contribution
• Comprehensive private healthcare
• Mental health support
• Growth shares after successful completion of probation
• Fully paid annual company weekend
• Opportunity to become the first dedicated People hire
• Significant ownership over how the People function develops
• Opportunity to use AI and automation to build smarter ways of working
• Scope for the role to grow as the organisation expands

If you're looking for a hands-on People Operations role where you can own the day-to-day while helping build a function from the ground up, we'd like to hear from you.

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