Human Resources Specialist

Pines Federal; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Pines Federal, a Houston-based law firm serving federal employees nationwide, seeks an HR Generalist to run payroll, administer benefits, and manage onboarding and records. You’ll handle policy inquiries, ensure compliance, and support the performance cycle, onboarding, and offboarding with precision.

You will maintain personnel files, handbook updates, and multi-state requirements, coordinating with brokers and carriers while protecting confidential information. This role is on-site in Houston.

Qualifications

• Three or more years in a generalist HR role covering payroll, benefits, onboarding, and personnel records.
• Hands-on payroll experience in Paychex or a comparable platform.
• Working knowledge of federal and state employment law: wage and hour, leave, classification and recordkeeping.
• Clear, accurate written communication, including the ability to document a conversation so it holds up later.
• Comfort with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, and willingness to learn our systems quickly.
• Discretion in handling compensation, medical and disciplinary information daily.

Responsibilities

• Run payroll and benefits administration for semi-monthly payroll cycles.
• Administer benefits enrollment, changes and terminations; liaise with brokers and carriers.
• Answer routine policy, pay, benefits, leave, and scheduling questions from the handbook.
• Document employee concerns and route harassment/discrimination complaints to the Managing Attorney.
• Support the performance cycle: manage reviews, provide forms, and coach on documentation.
• Own the start-date plan for new hires: confirm systems and access five days before day one.
• Manage onboarding deliverables including offer letters, handbook, payroll benefits, time off and confidentiality.
• Run offboarding with notice and ensure final pay and benefits are handled correctly.
• Build and document the personnel file structure, handbook, multi-state requirements, and HR procedures.
• Maintain daily HR records and update the calendar to prevent surprises.
• Recruit openings in-house: postings, sourcing, screening, scheduling, references and background checks.
• Prepare offer letters and present options and records to the decision maker.

Skills

Payroll processing

Benefits administration

Onboarding

Records management

Policy interpretation

Microsoft 365

Google Workspace

Communication

Tools

Paychex

Job description

Pines Federal is a Houston law firm that represents federal employees nationwide. Our clients are VA nurses, postal workers, Department of Defense civilians, IRS agents and federal employees across every agency. We handle EEO discrimination complaints, MSPB appeals, OPM disability retirement and Social Security Disability claims. We spend our working lives on how employers treat people: what was documented, what was promised, what the record actually shows. That is the standard we hold ourselves to internally, and it is the standard this role protects.

About the Role

Run payroll and benefits.

Responsibilities

• Make sure the data is entered and ready for each semi-monthly payroll in Paychex: hourly time reviewed and approved, new hires and departures applied, rate changes, deductions and benefit elections entered, all before the deadline.
• Administer benefits enrollment, qualifying-event changes and terminations, and be our point of contact with brokers and carriers.
• Be the first person staff come to: Answer the everyday questions on policy, pay, benefits, leave and schedule, from the current version of the handbook rather than from memory.
• Take in employee concerns and document them properly. Complaints of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation go to the Managing Attorney the day they are raised. You record and route them; you do not investigate them and you do not decide them.
• Support the performance cycle: keep reviews on the calendar, give supervisors the form and the documentation standard, and coach them on writing things down while a problem is still a performance problem.
• Get every new hire started right: Own the start-date plan. You will confirm five days before day one that the systems, access, and equipment are ready. You make sure nobody shows up to a desk that is not set up.
• Deliver the people side of onboarding: offer letter terms, the handbook, payroll and benefits enrollment, time off and holidays, and what confidentiality means in a firm holding medical and federal personnel records.
• Run offboarding with the same care: notice in advance so access ends on the last day, equipment back, final pay and benefits handled correctly.
• Build what we do not have yet: We are not handing you a finished system. The personnel file structure, the handbook, the multi-state requirements matrix and our written HR procedures are being built, and you are the one building them.
• That work is specified with you and comes with written deliverables and dates, so it gets scheduled rather than squeezed into whatever is left after payroll. You will be asked to raise a date at risk before it slips, not after.
• Rebuild the handbook against what we actually do, and tell us where the two have drifted apart.
• Keep the firm’s records and obligations straight: Maintain personnel files: complete, current, restricted, with medical and benefits documentation filed separately.
• Maintain the handbook and firm policies.
• Track what each jurisdiction requires. We have employees working outside Texas, and registration, wage and hour, leave and posting obligations follow them.
• Maintain worker classification, and flag a change in duties or work location before it becomes a problem rather than after.
• Keep the daily record of who is in and who is out, and produce the daily HR update with enough lead time that nothing scheduled weeks ago surfaces the morning of.
• Hire the people we need: Run our openings end to end: postings, sourcing, screening, interview scheduling, references and background checks. We recruit in house and do not use outside recruiting firms, so this is yours to run.
• Administer the assessments we use in hiring, and put a complete candidate record in front of the decision maker before an interview, not after.
• Prepare offer letters and confirm acceptance. Whether we open a seat, what it pays, and who we pick are the Managing Attorney’s calls. Running a clean process and presenting the options and record are yours.

The First 90 Days

• By 30 days: Payroll and benefits data entered, complete and ready on time. Benefits enrollments and changes moving inside the carrier windows. You know every personnel file, the current handbook and the holiday schedule.
• By 60 days: Answering routine staff questions without escalating them. Onboarding and offboarding running to our SOPs, with readiness confirmed five days before each start date.
• By 90 days: The first build deliverables accepted: personnel file structure in place and the multi-state requirements matrix complete. The daily HR record and the performance cycle running on schedule. You are telling us what to fix next rather than waiting for us to tell you.

Who Does Well Here

• You can hold a confidence. You will know what everyone earns and a good deal more than that, and none of it travels.
• You write things down, what you write down is right, and you keep your notes secure.
• You know the difference between administering a policy and deciding one, and you are comfortable saying "that is not my call" without dropping the issue.
• You are comfortable being the only HR person in our office.
• You raise a problem while it is still small, including when raising it is awkward.

Qualifications

• Three or more years in a generalist HR role covering payroll, benefits, onboarding, and personnel records.
• Hands-on payroll experience in Paychex or a comparable platform.
• Working knowledge of federal and state employment law: wage and hour, leave, classification and recordkeeping.
• Clear, accurate written communication, including the ability to document a conversation so it holds up later.
• Comfort with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, and willingness to learn our systems quickly.
• Discretion. You will handle compensation, medical and disciplinary information every day.

Required Skills

• Law firm or professional services experience.
• Experience supporting employees in more than one state.

Preferred Skills

• Full-time, on-site, Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central, at our Fondren Road office.
• $65,000 to $85,000, depending on experience.