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Salary: USD 150,640 - 185,789 / annual
Gusto is seeking an experienced Employee Relations Manager to lead its Employee Relations team, a specialized center of excellence focused on stewarding company culture and ensuring policy-practice alignment across the organization. This role reports to People Team leadership and partners closely with People Partners/HRBPs, Legal, and business leaders on high-risk employee matters.
You will lead and coach a team of Employee Relations Partners handling complex performance and investigations casework. You'll use case data to identify patterns and recommend organizational improvements to enhance employee experience and reduce risk. The role requires deep fluency with employment policy, sound judgment under ambiguity, and people-leadership experience to build a team trusted with the organization's most sensitive matters.
Key responsibilities include:
- Managing, mentoring, and coaching a team of Employee Relations Partners, setting quality standards for documentation and process flow, overseeing caseload distribution, and driving continuous improvement
- Leading or overseeing complex, high-risk workplace investigations with meticulous documentation, partnering with Legal to mitigate organizational and legal risk
- Owning performance-management casework end-to-end, coaching managers through documented coaching plans, PIPs, disciplinary actions, and exits while balancing employee experience, fairness, and business risk
- Translating Gusto's codes of conduct and policies into consistent, fair practice across departments, especially during rapid scaling and structural change
- Enabling managers on performance management processes, difficult conversations, and structural team changes
- Tracking ER metrics and case trends to surface opportunities and recommend actions for managers and People Partners/HRBPs
- Serving as a strategic advisor to senior business leaders on complex personnel decisions
- Operating with urgency and bias toward resolution, prioritizing high-impact issues and applying appropriate rigor based on risk and complexity
- Demonstrating an AI-native mindset by actively using AI tools to synthesize case trends, draft documentation, and spot patterns in ER data while maintaining appropriate confidentiality and human oversight
Gusto supports over 500,000 small businesses nationwide with payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR services. The company has teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, and expects hybrid employees in office locations to work on-site approximately 2-3 days per week.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in human resources, business administration, or related field (advanced degree or JD is a plus)
- 7–10+ years of progressive HR or Employee Relations experience, including direct ownership of ER casework and demonstrated experience leading or supervising a team
- Deep knowledge of employment law (EEOC, ADA, FMLA, FLSA) and experience conducting employee investigations—interviewing, assessing facts, documenting findings, and partnering with Legal
- Strong coaching and mentoring skills with ability to influence, inspire, and guide both within and outside hierarchical lines
- Excellent judgment navigating ambiguity, balancing employee experience, fairness and consistency, business needs, and organizational risk
- Strong data literacy and comfort using case trends and ER metrics to make proactive, defensible recommendations
- Experience operating in a fast-scaling technology company, comfortable with frequent organizational changes and distributed/hybrid team dynamics
