HR Generalist

WhiteCap Search; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

WhiteCap Search is seeking an experienced HR Generalist to own the day-to-day HR functions in a fast-growing, multidisciplinary environment spanning art, fashion, retail, and hospitality.

The role emphasizes building a formal onboarding program, scaling HR processes, and partnering with leadership on employee relations, compliance, recruitment, benefits, and payroll. A strong Justworks background is highly preferred for this senior-level position.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive HR experience.
• Strong knowledge of employment laws and HR compliance.
• Demonstrated experience managing employee relations and disciplinary matters.
• Experience developing and implementing HR policies and procedures.
• Strong onboarding and employee lifecycle experience.
• Recruiting and talent acquisition experience.
• Experience supporting benefits and payroll.
• Strong hands-on experience with Justworks strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Onboarding & Employee Experience: Build and implement a formal, consistent onboarding process; establish timelines, milestones, documentation, and ownership; ensure new hires are fully prepared prior to their start date; coordinate onboarding across managers and leadership; create a consistent process for orientation, paperwork, systems access, benefits, policies, and introductions; identify bottlenecks and improve onboarding experience.
• HR Operations & Process Development: Take ownership of day-to-day HR operations; assess existing processes, gaps, and inefficiencies; centralize and formalize HR policies, procedures, and documentation; establish HR workflows and scalable processes.
• Employee Relations & Compliance: Manage employee relations, including disciplinary actions and documentation; guide leadership on HR policies; maintain confidential records; ensure compliance with laws; mitigate HR and compliance risk.
• Recruiting & Talent Acquisition: Support recruiting across functions; identify staffing needs; manage processes from candidate identification through onboarding; establish organized recruitment workflow.
• Benefits & Payroll: Support benefits administration; assist with payroll questions; maintain HR data; coordinate with partners to ensure accuracy.
• HR Systems & Technology: Work with Justworks, Homebase, Monday's ATS, Slack, Google Workspace; leverage tools and AI to improve HR efficiency.

Skills

HR Generalist

Employee relations

Onboarding

Policy development

Employment law

Communication skills

Independent ownership

Education

Bachelor's degree in HR / related field

Tools

Justworks

Homebase

Monday.com

Slack

Google Workspace

Job description

Our client is a fast-growing, multidisciplinary organization that brings together several unique business verticals across art, fashion, retail, café/hospitality, and creative brand partnerships.

The company has a creative, multicultural, and inclusive culture and is at an exciting stage of growth where it is building greater structure and infrastructure across the organization. Technology and innovation are important to the company, including the use of modern tools and AI to improve efficiency and operations.

This is a great opportunity for an HR professional who enjoys building, creating structure, and having a direct impact. The HR Generalist will work closely with leadership and have significant ownership over onboarding, employee experience, HR processes, compliance, recruiting, and culture.

For someone coming from a creative agency, fashion, art, retail, hospitality, media, or similarly multidisciplinary environment, this offers an opportunity to bring their HR expertise into a unique and evolving organization where they can make a meaningful impact.

HR Generalist

Location: Brooklyn, NY
Schedule: Monday-Friday, On-Site
Employment Type: Contract
Experience: 7+ Years

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced, hands‑on HR Generalist to take ownership of the day-to-day HR function for a growing, multidisciplinary organization operating across creative, retail, café, art, fashion, and brand partnership environments.

A top immediate priority for this role will be building and implementing a structured onboarding process. The organization currently does not have a formalized onboarding program, creating bottlenecks and inconsistencies for new hires. The successful candidate will take ownership of onboarding from start to finish, ensuring new employees are prepared before their start date, properly documented, introduced to the organization, and set up for success.

Beyond onboarding, this individual will be responsible for building structure around the broader HR function, including employee relations, compliance, documentation, policies, recruiting, benefits, payroll support, and employee engagement.

Approximately 50% of the foundational HR processes are already in place, but they need to be centralized, formalized, and consistently executed. This is an opportunity for a senior HR professional who can step in, assess what is currently working, identify gaps, and build a more organized and scalable HR infrastructure.

The ideal candidate has 7+ years of progressive HR experience, strong knowledge of employment law and compliance, experience handling employee relations and disciplinary matters, and a demonstrated ability to build HR processes from the ground up. Strong hands‑on experience with Justworks is highly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

Onboarding & Employee Experience

• Build and implement a formal, consistent onboarding process.
• Establish onboarding timelines, milestones, documentation, and ownership.
• Ensure new hires are fully prepared prior to their start date.
• Coordinate onboarding across managers, leadership, and new employees.
• Create a consistent process for orientation, paperwork, systems access, benefits, policies, and introductions.
• Identify and eliminate current onboarding bottlenecks.
• Establish a positive and professional new-hire experience.
• Develop processes that support employee engagement, retention, and commitment.
• Manage employee milestones, including anniversaries, birthdays, employee lunches, feedback initiatives, and other culture-building activities.

HR Operations & Process Development

• Take ownership of the organization’s day‑to‑day HR operations.
• Assess existing HR processes and identify gaps, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks.
• Build, formalize, and centralize HR policies, procedures, and documentation.
• Establish consistent employee guidelines and HR workflows.
• Develop scalable HR processes that support organizational growth.
• Create structure and accountability around employee lifecycle processes.
• Serve as the primary HR resource for employees and leadership.

Employee Relations & Compliance

• Manage employee relations matters, including disciplinary actions, write‑ups, performance issues, and related documentation.
• Provide guidance to leadership regarding HR policies, procedures, and employment practices.
• Maintain accurate and confidential employee records.
• Ensure HR practices comply with applicable federal, state, and local employment laws.
• Develop and maintain HR policies designed to protect the organization and its employees.
• Partner with leadership on sensitive employee matters and help mitigate HR and compliance risk.
• Apply a thoughtful, professional, and consistent approach to employee relations.

Recruiting & Talent Acquisition

• Support recruiting efforts across the organization’s various business functions.
• Partner with leadership and hiring managers to identify staffing needs.
• Coordinate and manage recruiting processes from candidate identification through onboarding.
• Help establish a more organized and efficient recruiting workflow.
• Utilize the organization’s ATS and recruiting tools to track candidates and hiring activity.

Benefits & Payroll

• Support employee benefits administration.
• Assist with payroll‑related processes and employee questions.
• Maintain accurate employee information within HR systems.
• Serve as a resource to employees regarding benefits and payroll‑related matters.
• Work closely with internal and external partners as needed to ensure accurate and timely HR administration.

HR Systems & Technology

The HR Generalist will work with a variety of technology platforms, including:

• Justworks - significant hands‑on experience strongly preferred
• Homebase
• Monday's - ATS/recruiting platform
• Slack
• Google Workspace
• Project management and collaboration tools

The ideal candidate should be technology-forward and comfortable leveraging modern tools, automation, and AI to improve HR efficiency and processes.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive HR experience
• Strong HR Generalist background with experience independently managing a broad range of HR functions.
• Strong knowledge of employment laws and HR compliance.
• Demonstrated experience managing employee relations and disciplinary matters.
• Experience developing and implementing HR policies and procedures.
• Strong onboarding and employee lifecycle experience.
• Recruiting and talent acquisition experience.
• Experience supporting benefits and payroll.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Justworks strongly preferred.
• Homebase experience preferred.
• Strong organizational and project‑management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise sound judgment.
• Ability to work independently and take ownership of responsibilities.
• Comfortable operating in a fast‑paced, evolving environment.

Ideal Industry Background

The ideal candidate will have HR experience within a creative, multicultural, inclusive, and fast‑moving environment. Experience in one or more of the following industries is strongly preferred:

• Creative agencies
• Fashion
• Art / Design
• Retail
• Hospitality / Cafe