Position: Head of People
Salary: GiveWell offers a competitive benefits package benchmarked to the San Francisco Bay Area where we are based. Salary is commensurate with experience.
Location: Oakland (preferred); remote work largely within US timezones is possible.
Visa sponsorship: Please note that for this position we're currently not accepting applications from candidates who need authorization to work in the U.S.
Timeline: We're reviewing applications on a rolling basis.
About GiveWell
GiveWell's goal is to identify the giving opportunities which can most cost-effectively improve health and human wellbeing around the world.
Our top charities accomplish a huge amount of good. They deliver basic commodities (for example, anti-malarial nets or deworming pills) and cash to the global poor. At our recommendation, donors directed $140.9 million to these charities in 2018. We roughly estimate that these funds prevented 30,000 deaths, dewormed 38 million children and gave cash to 11,500 poor households.1 We also made an additional $16 million in incubation grants to support work that may lead to new top charities in the future or better information on current top charities.
GiveWell is expanding our team so we can broaden the scope of our research and look for charities that might have even more impact per dollar donated than our current top charities. More in this blog post. Highly effective people in operations will be integral to that expansion, and thereby to the success of our mission and the level of positive impact GiveWell can enable.
By joining GiveWell, you will have the opportunity to directly influence our success in scaling our operations, identifying highly impactful charities, and directing millions of dollars in funding to some of the poorest people in the world.
About the role
GiveWell aims to maximize philanthropic impacts on global health and human well-being. Our people are the ‘force’ that enables us to achieve that aim. It is thus essential that our environment—our norms, principles, practices—attracts exceptional people and supports them in pursuing outsized impacts. As GiveWell’s first Head of People, you will be responsible for cultivating that environment: setting our people up for success, generating an outstanding employee experience, and structuring systems that enable a fast-growing organization to consistently scale excellent performance.
You will report to the Director of Operations and work directly with the CEO while largely owning your core portfolio of HR, people, and culture. You can anticipate being asked to:
Performance Management
- Coordinate Talent Development: Create individual (e.g., coaching opportunities and feedback) and group solutions (e.g., training programs) to improve capabilities at all levels of the organization, including management and line staff.
- Review and improve performance management approaches to develop and retain existing staff. Upgrade our performance review templates and methodologies.
- Design organizational structures and career pathways that encourage effective operations, and also support mutually beneficial growth opportunities for maturing employees and efficient succession and contingency planning.
Engagement and Culture
- Understand, support and embody a culture that reinforces our mission and values, sustains morale, engages multilateral feedback, embraces and is resilient to growth, and attracts incredible new talent to accelerate a continuous improvement mentality.
- Champion a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace and design and implement practices to support their achievement.
- Optimize the employee life cycle: From recruitment through alumni status, people’s interactions with GiveWell should be positive. You will identify and shore up gaps in our current approach to the various stages of the employee relationship.
Recruitment and Onboarding
- Design and deploy recruitment strategies to attract exceptional people: GiveWell is growing fast and building out its senior staff. You will partner with other GiveWell leaders to develop strategies, tactics, and tools to attract and recruit talented individuals.
- Strengthen relationships with third parties that multiply GiveWell’s reach and access to a diverse and qualified talent pool.
Policy and Program Implementation
- Establish people-oriented policies and practices that are aligned with, and enhance, our mission and core values, and see that they are adhered to consistently.
- Optimize employee compensation and benefits programs to ensure market competitiveness and reflect our values and the needs of our people.
- Manage our external human resources partners (including payroll, retirement programs, and international employment) and ensure GiveWell is compliant with all labor-related regulations. Facilitate annual programs such as the employee engagement survey(s), open enrollment, and 403(b) testing.
About you
You are energized by people and wake up excited to help people succeed and thrive. You are a master of interpersonal relations and possess a perpetual interest and proven track record in helping organizations integrate policy, psychology, communications, and culture to improve organizational performance.
We are looking for someone with full-spectrum people operations experience who has spent several years in a senior people role. Bonus if you have been the first or second people person at a growing, mid-size organization. We realize no one person is likely to embody all of the below characteristics, but we expect many of them to align with your current abilities, and we expect that you are eager to grow and develop your capabilities across these areas.
To be successful, we expect you are:
- Mission-motivated. You are excited to be a part of something meaningful that is bigger than the organization and maximizes the impact of financial contributions to improve global health and human wellbeing. You desire to work with other genuinely kind, mission-driven people.
- An experienced people professional. You have successfully implemented HR programs in a staff-driven organization with extremely high expectations. You deeply understand the nuts and bolts of designing highly effective attraction, recruitment, engagement, and performance development and management practices, particularly developing high performing leaders, teams, and employees.
- A critical thinker and excellent communicator. You are thoughtful and analytical, utilizing qualitative and quantitative information, testing assumptions, and balancing business and moral imperatives. Not much escapes your attention, including the fine print. You communicate proactively and productively in both oral and written exchanges and convince others to pursue actions via clear, informed, and actionable advice.
- Collaborative. You have the ability to partner with all levels of the organization and work through others to drive impact and achieve results. People are eager to work with you and you can lead or consult as the situation demands. You share feedback with and seek feedback from others constructively.
- Responsible for your results. You strive for excellence in yourself and the people around you. You keep an eye on the fundamental goal of a project and use your judgment and discretion to prioritize your work effectively. We don’t expect perfection, but when you make mistakes, you embrace them as a means to spark improvement and growth.
- Industrious, creative, and good humored. You are resilient and adaptable. You enjoy and are adept at implementing bespoke and scalable solutions to critical challenges—find a way or make a way—and are not afraid to challenge the status quo. You bring a positive attitude to the table.
To apply
We only accept applications through our website.
Apply here: http://www.givewell.org/about/jobs/head-of-people-application
You may also send additional material, such as a letter of recommendation, to support your application; this is not required. Please send those materials to jobs@givewell.org.
We plan to respond to all submissions. Please contact jobs@givewell.org with any questions.
Additional information
Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. Here’s a secret: there's no such thing as a "perfect" candidate. GiveWell is looking for exceptional people who want to help create a place where everyone can thrive. So however you identify and whatever background you bring with you, please apply if this role would make you excited to wake up everyday.
GiveWell accommodates flexible and remote working. We support and encourage flexible working, including flexible hours, regular work-from-home days, part-time work patterns, and periodic remote-work stints. The majority of our staff, including senior management, work flexibly in one way or another. Our preference is for staff to work from Oakland. As a general rule, requests to work remotely outside the U.S. will be allowed at GiveWell’s sole discretion and generally for locations that are within three hours of the Pacific Standard Timezone. Exceptions to this general rule may be made, but only in exceptional circumstances.
As part of our dedication to the diversity of our staff, GiveWell is committed to Equal Employment Opportunity without regard for race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, protected veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion. People of color, people with disabilities, women, and LGBTQ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at jobs@givewell.org.
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Calculations in this spreadsheet.
