Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.
Last year, more than $3.3 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers.
HR Goes First --- this is our belief at Upwork. Human Resources drives key initiatives, pushes ourselves to confront our hardest problems openly, and prioritize difficult conversations to generate constructive collaboration. If you have always thought that HR could have more impact, could drive stronger results, could be an active center of leadership and innovation in the business, we want to talk to you.
We are seeking an experienced and proven leader to join as our Vice President of Human Resources. Reporting to our Chief People Officer, you will drive Upwork’s success by bringing your business acumen, commitment to our mission, and high performance and accountability strategies to our people leadership team to help us scale. You will utilize and continue to develop your high growth company experience, ruthless prioritization. program design, quantitative and qualitative data insights, and communication skills to drive impact for Upwork’s business priorities. You will oversee and evolve our internal HR Business Partnership, Learning and Development and nascent Organizational Wellbeing teams. With these intersecting groups, you will manage relevant platforms, design optimal people growth programs, and accelerate our performance management practices. You will build a high performance culture with strong engagement. This will drive business results by delivering measurable and sustainable value-added solutions and pushing growth and innovation through all people programs. As a consultative and trusted advisor to the most senior leadership of Upwork’s team, you will be the first point of contact on numerous critical HR and Development matters.
- Inspire, lead, motivate and empower our teams of HR and Development professionals as they engage throughout our business.
- Coach and develop the HR team to continue going first and driving innovative business initiatives at strategic levels throughout the company.
- Push forward key business strategies through actionable People initiatives and spearhead ongoing organizational initiatives that enable and improve a high performance company culture as we grow and scale.
- Actively partner with and amplify Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and ensure Upwork is an incredible place for anyone and everyone to belong and achieve.
- Lead and create ways to promote our culture throughout the organization to drive enhanced employee engagement.
- Be attuned to the specific needs of Upwork’s culture, identify root cause opportunities to increase engagement and provide leadership to the teams supporting them.
- Develop strategies that emphasize employee development and well-being with a keen understanding of how to measure and goal set to ensure considerable progress.
- Ensure accountability through analytical rigor and deep analysis on effectiveness and competitiveness of existing programs; establish and drive key metrics including usage, engagement, and cost analyses for people programs.
- Pushing the Chief People Officer, and HR leadership team to elevate their work, accelerate their programs, and drive greater impact through providing solutions and modeling speed and impact in all you do.
- Innovate and react quickly as business and market realities change, staying up to date on best practices and trends; ensure compliance with applicable legislation - work to ensure our approach fits for both our Corporate and Hybrid workforce.
- Lead change management and communications of overarching people philosophy and practices with managers, team members, and throughout Upwork’s Hybrid Workforce.
- Build strong partnerships with the Total Rewards, Talent Access, Payroll, Legal, Stock, Internal Communications, Finance and Accounting teams as well as our 3rd party vendors
- 12+ years experience in progressive HR roles.
- Strong communication and influencing skills; effective listener, ability to connect and influence actions and outcomes with employees at all levels in the organization.
- Track record of strong business partnership with leadership within a dynamic, fast paced environment, including a reputation as a passionate positive agitator.
- Examples of where you’ve already demonstrated our philosophy of HR Goes First, by leading prior teams through challenges and opportunities to pressure test your approach.
- Experience leading talent development with concrete examples of successful org wide programs related to performance and innovation.
- You devote time to and are passionate about educating, mentoring and teaching partners and more junior team members the values and business impact behind comprehensive HR processes
- HR thought leader and subject matter expert: you have in-depth knowledge of HR laws, strategies, policies, and practices and are able to represent Upwork in external situations.
- Deep analytical skills with the ability to identify or build core metrics and drive key insights and recommendations through data and trend work.
- Proven ability to design, track, prioritize and drive to success multiple concurrent projects with a strong operational background and mission centric emphasis.
- Hands-on leader. You’re resourceful, forward-thinking, drawn to building from ambiguous and unsolved problems and have an own the outcome mindset.
- Influence and partnering with a diverse group of stakeholders, able to partner with deeply technical as well as operational, business-minded leaders on key people issues. You excel at openness and flexibility with internal clients, balanced with maintaining consistency and equity in people philosophies and practices
At Upwork, you’ll shape talent solutions for how the world works today. We are a remote-first organization working together to create exciting remote work opportunities for a global community of professionals. While we have physical offices in San Francisco and Chicago, currently we also support hiring of corporate full-time employees in 15 states in the United States. Please speak with a member of our recruitment team to determine whether you are located in a state in which we are hiring corporate full-time employees.
Our vibrant culture is built on shared values and our mission to create economic opportunities so that people have better lives. We foster amazing teams, put our community first, and have a bias toward action. We encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and grow together through development opportunities, mentorship, and employee resource groups. Oh yeah, we’ve also got amazing benefits.
Check out our Life at Upwork page to learn more about the employee experience.
Upwork is proudly committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we never discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
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