People & Culture Generalist, North America

The People & Culture Generalist serves as the backbone of our North American operations, balancing technical HR excellence with a people-first mindset. This role manages the full employee lifecycle - from offer to offboarding - while ensuring our benefits, payroll, and compliance engines run seamlessly. You aren't just an administrator; you are a partner to our managers and a champion of our company culture.

The Why: SkySpecs is simplifying renewable energy asset management. We’re a fast-paced, proactive team where "staying in your box" isn't a thing. We offer unlimited PTO, a casual environment, and the autonomy to actually move the needle. If you want to own your results and help us build a world-class employee experience, you’re in the right place.

Essential Functions

Employee Experience & Engagement

• Front-Line Support: Act as the primary point of contact for North American employee inquiries (ticketing/email), providing empathetic and accurate guidance on policies and benefits.
• Engagement & Culture: Operate within the Workleap platform; analyze weekly pulse surveys and partner with management to turn feedback into action. Design initiatives to engage a diverse workforce of field, remote, and office-based teams.
• Full Lifecycle Management: Lead the journey from extending offer letters and conducting comprehensive orientations to managing seamless offboarding.

Total Rewards

• Benefits & Retirement: Lead annual Open Enrollment and serve as the liaison for brokers. Manage the 401(k) plan, including non-discrimination testing, 5500 filings, and the annual audit.
• Leaves & Disability: Serve as the subject matter expert for FMLA, Short-Term Disability (STD), and state-specific paid leave programs, ensuring compliance and empathy throughout the process.
• Compensation: Conduct annual compensation benchmarking to ensure internal equity and external competitiveness within the NAM market. Administer compensation changes and annual bonus/merit process.

Talent Operations & Lifecycle

• Onboarding Excellence: Facilitate a seamless transition for new hires by managing offer letters, and welcoming them to the Company through a comprehensive orientation program.
• Talent Management: Facilitate quarterly talent review meetings with management to identify high-potential employees and address performance gaps.
• Employee Relations: Manage the internal ticketing system, providing timely and helpful responses to employee inquiries and resolving low-to-mid-level relations issues.
• Performance Management: Deliver our annual review cycle to employees, work with management on performance intervention when needed.

Technical HR Operations

• People Analytics: Utilize HR data to provide insights on turnover, engagement, and headcount trends to help leadership make informed decisions.
• HRIS: Serve as an administrator for UKG, ensuring data integrity, building custom reports, and optimizing the platform for better user experience.
• System Administration: Manage the full UKG Pro suite and UKG Ready for timekeeping.
• Payroll Support: Provide critical support to the Finance team for salaried and hourly payroll cycles and timesheets to ensure 100% accuracy, including PTO adjustments and bonus entries.

Compliance & Policy

• Multi-State Governance: Manage federal, state and local compliance across ~35 states, ensuring handbook, policies and procedures are current and accurate
• Records & Verifications: Manage employment verifications and maintain digital personnel files with a high degree of confidentiality and accuracy.

Job Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field. SHRM-CP/SCP or PHR/SPHR certification is a significant plus.
• Experience: Minimum of 5 years of progressive HR Generalist experience, preferably supporting a distributed, multi-state workforce.
• Technical Skills: Proficiency in UKG Pro, UKG Ready, Deel, and Workleap are a plus; high proficiency in MS Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUPs) highly preferred.
• Presence: Ability to work Eastern Standard Time standard business hours; Ability to travel to the Ann Arbor office quarterly or more frequently preferred

Competencies

• Business Acumen: You understand how People decisions impact our bottom line and our mission in renewable energy.
• Process improvement: You have a "continuous improvement" mindset, always looking to automate or streamline workflows.
• Communication: You can explain complex benefit structures or policy changes in a way that is easy for employees to digest. You practice active listening and provide stakeholders with useful guidance.
• Problem solving: You don't just find a mess; you build a better system so the mess doesn't happen again. You take initiative and leverage resources to find solutions.
• Organization & Prioritization: A generalist role managing a diverse workforce requires a "black belt" in task management. Prioritization and organization are essential for success.
• Attention to detail: You spot the errors before they become a problem.
• Discretion: You handle sensitive information with the highest level of integrity.
• One Team Attitude: You’re willing to jump in and help wherever needed—no ego, just results.

Physical requirements:

• Must be able to sit for extended periods (up to 8 hours per day) while performing desk-based computer and phone work.