Employee Relations Lead

CLEAR - Corporate; New York (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Catered lunches

Fully stocked kitchens

Wellbeing stipend

Healthcare plans

OneMedical membership

CLEAR Plus membership

401(k) with employer match

Job summary

CLEAR - Corporate is seeking an Employee Relations Lead for our Airport Operations team in New York. You will oversee ER issues across stations, run investigations, and coach leaders to ensure fair, consistent outcomes aligned with policy and law.

You will partner with Legal, People, and Operations to standardize processes, manage leave and accommodation cases, and strengthen the employee experience across the fleet. This role is NYC-based with a 5-day in-office expectation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of HR and Employee Relations experience, including real time support for hourly/frontline teams and handling complex ER matters.
• Ability to earn trust with operational leaders quickly and coach them through difficult calls.
• Ability to read data and translate it into action.
• Strong multitasking skills in a fast-changing environment.
• Clear, effective communication at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Own employee and labor relations across stations; conduct investigations; determine fair, defensible outcomes with Legal input.
• Lead timely, thorough workplace investigations into complaints, misconduct, policy violations, and other ER matters.
• Coach leaders on corrective action, conflict resolution, policy interpretation, and consistent employment practices.
• Manage and ensure consistency in workers’ compensation, LOA, and accommodation cases with Leave Administrators and Legal.
• Support unemployment claims by reviewing circumstances, preparing responses, and ensuring documentation supports company decisions.
• Identify ER trends and partner with People leadership to develop proactive improvements that reduce risk and improve the employee experience.
• Partner with People, Legal, and Operations on process improvements to ensure ER practices are applied consistently across stations.
• Maintain confidential case documentation and ensure ER decisions comply with policies and employment laws.

Skills

HR experience

Employee relations

Stakeholder coaching

Data interpretation

Communication

Job description

CLEAR is building THE secure identity company of the future. Our mission is to make experiences safer and easier—physically and digitally. With more than 43 million Members and a growing network of partners across the world, CLEAR's secure identity platform is transforming the way people live, work, and travel. Whether it’s at the airport, stadium, or throughout your everyday life, CLEAR unlocks the magic of frictionless experiences.

The Employee Relations Lead serves as the centralized employee relations (ER) partner for our Airport Operations team. In this role, you're the consistent thread ensuring employee relations issues are handled the same way, every time, no matter where they happen. You're the person leaders lean on to make good calls, and the person team members know is invested in their success. This role puts you in the middle of it all - maintaining oversight across the entire fleet while coaching station leaders, resolving employee relations issues with consistency and fairness across the field, and building an exceptional team member experience that helps CLEAR thrive.

What you'll do:

• Own employee and labor relations across your stations: run investigations, dig into root causes, and land on outcomes that are fair, defensible, and consistent, working closely with Legal along the way.
• Lead timely, thorough, and objective workplace investigations involving employee complaints, misconduct, policy violations, and other employee relations matters.
• Coach and advise leaders on corrective action, conflict resolution, policy interpretation, and consistent employment practices, so issues are addressed early and handled appropriately and consistently.
• Manage and ensure consistency in workers’ compensation, leave of absence (LOA), and accommodation cases, including reviewing claims and requests, with our Leave Administrators, Legal, and ensuring decisions align with company policy and applicable laws (e.g., FMLA, ADA, state and local leave laws).
• Support unemployment claims by reviewing separation circumstances, preparing accurate and timely responses, and ensuring documentation supports company decisions.
• Identify employee relations trends across case, claims, leave, and accommodation data, and partner with People leadership to develop proactive solutions that improve accountability, reduce risk, and strengthen the employee experience.
• Partner across People, Legal, and Operations on process improvements and larger initiatives, ensuring ER, leave, accommodation, and claims practices are applied the same way at every station.
• Maintain accurate, confidential case documentation and ensure all ER decisions comply with company policies and applicable employment laws.

How you'll measure success:

• Fewer repeat employee relations issues, and faster, smarter resolution when they do come up.
• Leaders and managers putting the training and programs you build to real use.
• People processes running consistently at every station.

What you're great at:

• 5+ years of HR and Employee Relations experience, including real time supporting hourly or frontline teams and handling complex employee relations matters.
• Earning trust with operational leaders quickly, and coaching them through hard calls with good judgment and empathy.
• Reading data and what people are actually telling you, then turning both into action.
• Juggling a lot at once without losing the thread, in an environment that shifts week to week.
• Communicating clearly at every level - whether that's a one‑on‑one coaching conversation or a room full of station leaders.

How You'll be Rewarded:

At CLEAR, we help YOU move forward - because when you’re at your best, we’re at our best. You’ll work with talented team members motivated by our mission of making experiences safer and easier. Our offices are bright and energetic with an open concept and plenty of conference rooms and casual co‑working spaces. We also offer catered lunches every day and have fully stocked kitchens. Outside of the office, we invest in your well‑being and learning & development with stipends and reimbursement programs.

We offer holistic total rewards, including comprehensive healthcare plans, family‑building benefits (fertility and adoption/surrogacy support), flexible time off, annual wellness stipend, free OneMedical memberships for you and your dependents, a CLEAR Plus membership, and a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match. The base salary range for this role is $100,000 - $140,000, depending on levels of skills and experience.

The base salary range represents the low and high end of CLEAR’s salary range for this position. Salaries will vary depending on various factors which include, but are not limited to location, education, skills, experience and performance. The range listed is just one component of CLEAR’s total compensation package for employees and other rewards may include annual bonuses, commission, Restricted Stock Units.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.

CLEAR provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities or protected needs. Please let us know if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include, but are not limited to, time off, extra breaks, making a change to the application process or work procedures, policy exceptions, providing documents in an alternative format, live captioning or using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

We are committed to a transparent and secure hiring process. All communications related to this role will come directly from a CLEAR employee through valid CLEAR channels (e.g., a valid @clearme.com email address or verified CLEAR LinkedIn profile). We encourage candidates to remain alert to job scams and to report any suspicious activity.

This role is based out of our Headquarters in NYC and has a 5 days in-office expectation.