People & Culture Director

The Sandbox
Summary
Join Middle Seat, a digital powerhouse agency, as their People & Culture Director to elevate their HR and people operations. You will be responsible for managing all aspects of people and culture for their fully remote and unionized team. This role requires designing and managing HR systems, ensuring compliance, leading recruitment, and driving initiatives to keep the team engaged and supported. The ideal candidate has independent HR experience in a smaller company, thrives without heavy corporate infrastructure, and is excited to incorporate a strong equity lens to the business. You will report directly to the COO and will be responsible for building and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace culture. Middle Seat offers exceptional pay and benefits, including profit-sharing, fully covered health insurance, generous PTO, and a professional development budget.
Requirements
- 7-10 years of HR experience working with 50โ100 employee companies
- Systems-builder mentality; you are someone who can implement and manage PEOs, HRIS, and benefits platforms yourself
- Remote workforce expertise with experience applying HR policies and engagement strategies to distributed teams
- An equity-driven mindset, with a track record of embedding DEI into policies, recruiting, and culture initiatives
- Discreet and self-directed, equally comfortable writing policies, troubleshooting systems, and coaching managers through complex employee matters
Responsibilities
- Manage all HR operations for a fully remote, majority-bargaining-unit team
- Administer benefits and people systems, partnering with our PEO to ensure payroll, benefits, and compliance run smoothly
- Maintain policies, the employee handbook, and compliance with federal and local regulations (FMLA, ADA, OSHA) and the collective bargaining agreement
- Handle sensitive employee matters, investigations, and conflict resolution with discretion and professionalism
- Maintain and build scalable HR processes for onboarding, offboarding, policy rollouts, and internal communications
- Act as company point of contact for all employee communications
- Optimize the companyโs HRIS, benefits, and engagement tools to make processes efficient and employee-friendly
- Serve as the technical owner of all HR systems (PEO, payroll, benefits platforms, and HR processes)
- Manage company Google Workspace and compliance with IT security policy
- Track and analyze workforce data for capacity planning, retention strategies, and diversity reporting
- Embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into hiring, policies, and team culture
- Foster connection and engagement in a fully remote environment through thoughtful communication, recognition, and team-building initiatives
- Regularly assess team feedback and propose improvements to support a healthy, sustainable workplace
- Serve as the lead point of contact on all new hire onboarding and orientation programs, setting up structures for people-focused areas including new hire onboarding, client onboarding, hiring, people-related process roll outs
- Create professional development opportunities, leadership pathways and mentorship to help develop and retain staff, including managers
- Work with managers to refine, standardize, and manage performance review process and establish effective supervisory relationships and leadership skills
- Counsel the management team of different departments by providing advice on managing employees and cultivating better culture
- Strengthen working relationships between staff and help set successful culture of communication, including guiding Middle Seat culture as fully remote staffers
- Coordinate staff appreciation efforts including end-of-year gifts and organize staff bonding activities such as virtual happy hours, virtual game nights, etc
- Plan team building activities and events, including annual in person and virtual retreats
- Lead recruitment efforts from job posting to offer letter, including front-facing salary negotiations
- Build diverse talent pipelines through strategic sourcing and partnerships
- Partner with managers to implement performance reviews, leadership pathways, and professional development plans
- Lead team member orientation, including working with managers to ensure training is completed for all new hires
- Liaise with union representatives of plans to hire new staff or plans to engage with new independent contractors when appropriate
Preferred Qualifications
Bonus points if you are experienced with unionized teams and collective bargaining agreements
Benefits
- Profit-sharing + 401k match (6%โyes, really)
- Fully covered health, dental, and visionโ100% employer paid
- 20 days PTO + your birthday + work anniversary off
- Unlimited sick leave + 12 weeks paid parental leave
- $350 mental health reimbursement + $100 student loan stipend + $50 cell phone stipend
- $1,000 professional development budget + remote coworking perks + commuter benefits
Share this job:
Similar Remote Jobs

