HR Lead (Head of People)

Hedepy; Polska; Remote; PLN 393,000 - 568,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free psychotherapy sessions

Direct CEO reporting and board access

Remote-first, async-friendly

Job summary

Hedepy is seeking a Head of People to own and optimize HR across 9 European markets, reporting to the CEO and sitting on the leadership team. You will automate routine tasks, design scalable processes, and lead a growing contractor network without expanding the HR team.

You will ensure compliant contracts, payroll, and people programs while supporting managers and employees across diverse locales. You will drive conversations, care, and strategic HR initiatives that truly support mental health

Qualifications

• 4+ years of HR experience in international company (50–200 people)
• Hands-on operational HR: contracts, onboarding, offboarding, recruitment as needed
• Independent labor law judgment in at least one CEE jurisdiction
• Proven automation experience with Make or similar, and active AI tool usage
• Track record of end-to-end HR process ownership
• Strong people skills with ability to handle hard conversations
• English at C1 level; leadership/board communication
• Native or fluent in Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian or Romanian
• Scale-up DNA: building processes with limited information, delivering results

Responsibilities

• Own the full employee lifecycle for internal team: hiring, onboarding, retention, offboarding, exit interviews
• Lead and develop the Recruiter (Veru), including priorities and capacity planning
• Run contracts and labor law setup across 9 countries with external counsel as backup
• Own monthly payroll cycle across CZ, SK and PL with external payroll partners
• Redesign HR processes for scale and automate using AI/Make or similar
• Build and track people metrics used by leadership from internal data
• Support leadership with people aspects of new markets and setups
• Be the go-to person for handling conflicts, exits, and sensitive conversations

Skills

HR management

Operational HR

Labor law

Automation (Make)

ATS (Workable)

AI tooling

People leadership

English (C1)

CEE language proficiency

Scale-up mindset

Tools

Make/Automation

Workable

Job description

Hey there!

We are Hedepy, a scale-up and a leader in holistic mental health support for individuals and companies in Central & Eastern Europe. There are 70+ of us working remotely across 9 European countries. In 2025 we facilitated over 300,000 therapy sessions, and we are just getting started.

Lukáš (our CEO) is looking for a Head of People to take full ownership of our HR function. You report directly to him, being part of the leadership team and present to the board.

This is not a greenfield role; the function exists, and the processes work. Now we need to carry a growing contractor network across 9 countries without the HR team growing with it. Your leverage is automation, sharp prioritisation and the authority to cut scope.

One thing we are picky about. We want someone who automates the boring half so there is time left for the half that cannot be automated: the conversations, the care, support of our managers. We help people take care of their mental health for a living. It would be odd if our own HR only worked on paper.

Your mission

• Own the full employee lifecycle for our internal team: hiring strategy, onboarding, retention, offboarding, exit interviews
• Lead and develop our Recruiter (Veru), including her priorities and capacity planning
• Run the contractual and labor law setup across 9 countries: contracts, addendums, B2B structures, and the compliance calls you make independently, with external counsel as backup rather than default
• Own the monthly payroll cycle across CZ, SK and PL together with our external payroll partners
• Redesign HR processes that do not scale, and automate them yourself with AI, Make or similar tools
• Build and track the people metrics leadership actually uses, from our internal data rather than an off-the-shelf HR suite
• Support the leadership team and the potential expansion with the people side of new markets and new setups
• And last but not least, be the person people come to when something is not working, and then actually fix it. Hard conversations, conflicts, exits, and teammates who need help

Requirements

What we’re looking for in you

Must-have:

• 4+ years of HR experience, including 2+ years owning the HR function in an international company of 50 to 200 people
• Hands-on experience doing the operational HR craft yourself: employment and B2B contracts, addendums, onboarding and offboarding admin, and stepping into recruitment when needed
• Independent labor law judgment in at least one CEE jurisdiction (CZ, SK or PL), including contract drafting and routine legal decisions without waiting for counsel
• Proven experience building working automations yourself in Make (or similar) and an ATS such as Workable, plus active use of AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT or similar) in your daily workflow for drafting, analysis and reporting. We will ask about this concretely
• Track record of building or rebuilding HR processes end-to-end and owning the result, not only the design
• You are as good with people as you are with systems. You can hold a hard conversation, sit with someone on a bad day, and tell a manager something they do not want to hear. We will ask you about a process you rebuilt and how you knew it started working for people, not only on paper
• English at C1 level, written and spoken, including leadership and board settings
• Native or fluent level in Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian or Romanian
• Scale-up DNA. You have worked somewhere the process did not exist yet and you built it anyway. You decide with incomplete information, you are fine with priorities changing mid-quarter, and you ship the version that works now instead of waiting for the perfect one. Small budget, no team, still done. :)

Nice to have:

• Experience in a remote company running B2C and B2B models side by side
• Payroll or contractor setup experience in HU, RO or other CEE markets beyond CZ/SK/PL
• Experience supporting physical locations alongside a fully remote team

Benefits

Why join us

• Free psychotherapy sessions on Hedepy
• A real mandate: direct CEO reporting, a seat in the leadership team, board exposure
• Full autonomy over how the HR function is designed, tooled and automated
• Remote-first, async-friendly, flexible hours
• International team from 10+ countries, plus team offsites and workations
• Ideal start date in the middle of November, beginning of December at the latest