Employee Relations Lead - Americas

Company Description

Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. Min fees. Max ease. Full speed.

Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their life easier and save them money.

As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money. For everyone, everywhere.

More about our mission.

Job Description

We’re looking for a Regional Employee Relations (ER) Lead to join our ER team in the Austin office. This role is a unique opportunity to have an impact on Wise’s mission and assist our Wisers, Leads and teams in delivering a seamless employee experience throughout the entire ‘Wiser’ journey.

This role will report to our Global Employee Relations Lead based in London.

Your mission: 

As one team, our Employee Relations’ (part of People Services) vision is to create fast, convenient, transparent Wiser support, powered by smart tech and human advice. To help us get there, you’ll have the exciting opportunity to own Employee Relations (ER) matters across the Americas region, providing important insights and sound recommendations for policy and process changes, and ensuring key stakeholders are continually informed of legislation, law and regulation updates.

You’ll also provide input on team goals, KPIs, efficiencies, process improvements and future optimization of our regional ER team, through deliverables in local and global projects.

You'll be supporting a team of People Advisors from an ER perspective, assisting them in navigating the complexities of advisory and case management. Your leadership will contribute to the cultivation of a safe, inclusive workplace—an environment where employees thrive and contribute to the overall success of Wise.

Here’s how you’ll be contributing to the team:

• Allocate new ER cases to Advisors taking into account volume and complexity
• Independently own ER matters end-to-end, supporting and advising Wisers and Leads through a significant volume and range of complex situations (from internal conflict management to external escalated cases), and balancing our exposure and appetite to risk in the process (liaise with internal and external counsel on complex cases)
• Analyze Employee Relations trends and recommend solutions to address systemic issues, enabling the business to make sound and proactive decisions and take strategic actions where needed in conjunction with the Global ER Lead.
• Improve on critical commercial outcomes by proactively identifying challenges and managing risks associated with individual cases, being prepared to challenge and be challenged and use advanced techniques to determine best outcomes.
• Strengthen our collaboration between ER function and People Partners, equipping both teams with informed data insights to drive empowered stakeholder relationships. 
• Coach and upskill ER People Advisors in navigating end-to-end management of Employee Relations cases with increased complexity, sensitivity, regulation and risk, and cross-sharing recommendations and learnings from specific cases to enable further development across the Global ER team.
• Act as a point of escalation for Employee Relations cases with deeper complexity/severity (e.g. disputes, hearings, tribunals).
• Provide important insights and sound recommendations for policy changes (local and global), ensuring key stakeholders are continually informed of legislation, law and regulation updates.
• Develop capability of Leads to independently handle a range of Employee Relations matters, developing management styles to foster positive working relationships with Wisers.
• Collaborate with Global ER Lead and other Regional ER Leads on future ER Strategy and associated projects
• Champion and role-model our values and culture, supporting the continual embedding of them in everything we do and enabling an inclusive environment where everyone can do their best work.

This role will give you the opportunity to:

• Contribute strategic thinking towards the bi-annual planning cycles: attend global review sessions, collate data on team performance, share ideas for improvements and lead new projects.
• Create continuous improvement within the team: partner with your global team to recommend new approaches and changes in policy and procedures, co-creating solutions with a global and mass customization outlook.
• Maximize advisory impact and partnership: collaborate with the People Partners (HRBPs) and senior stakeholders to share advisory data and trends to drive empowered and inclusive stakeholder relationships.

About you:

• Employee Relations Lead expertise in high-growth environments - no matter the challenge, you bring thought leadership and take ownership in dealing with ambiguity and shifting priorities in a scaling, global team and you are ready to take your existing experience to the next level.
• Subject matter expert in employment law and ER advice: Senior Leadership will look to you for sound advice on a variety of complex cases
• Strong growth mindset: being resilient to and excited about change in a hyper-growth environment, with the opportunities it brings and the multiple projects you’ll be involved with simultaneously.
• Data driven: you always start with data, facts and insights to help inform your approach through storytelling to solving problems and analyzing needs.
• A heap of empathy and emotional intelligence: you’ll need to be able to communicate effectively and inclusively, both in person and in writing, and deal with confidential information in a professional manner.
• Adaptable and resilient: you’ll be as comfortable working with ambiguity as you are with certainty, as we need someone who can be agile enough to respond to changing priorities, but be able to have big-picture proactive thinking for the long-term path ahead.
• Collaborative: with tested mediation skills, you guide a vast variety of stakeholders, building and fostering relationships over time, but also not afraid to challenge through healthy discussions.
• Initiative and tech savvy - we’re not about “one size fits all” or looking for off-the-shelf solutions; we need you to think creatively and customise your outlook.

Some extra skills that would be great:

• Employment law degree 
• Financial services experience: you possess deeper insight to empower our team further with our commercial strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Key Benefits: 

• 🚀 RSU’s in a rapidly growing company
• 💻 Flexible working model – During the first six months, you’ll be in office most days of the week to become fully immersed in Wise’s culture and ways of working. After the initial period, you’ll be in office at least 3 days per week.
• ✈️ Wisers can work remotely for 90 days a year. By ‘remote’ we don’t just mean from home, but from wherever in the world you choose to
• 💪 An annual self-development budget
• 🩺 Medical, dental, & vision insurance – including HSA and FSA options
• 💝 Company-paid: Life Insurance, Short & Long-Term Disability, and an EAP program
• ☀️ 25 days PTO, 15 sick days, 11 bank holidays, 5 compassionate leave days, 3 paid “Me” days and a paid volunteer day, annually
• 🏝️ A paid 6-week sabbatical leave after four years
• 👶🏼 18-weeks of paid parental leave, after a year with us
• 💰 401k with up to a 4% employer match
• 🏆 BuiltIn Award winner for Best Places to Work and Best Large Places to Work
• Click HERE for more info on our benefits (Austin)

#LI-KE1

Additional Information

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

We’re proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.

Every Wiser should feel that they can be themselves at work.

Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to share their contributions towards mission zero and able to progress in their careers.

Having diverse teams that reflect our diverse customer base helps us build a better product. We can be more creative and empathetic to our customer’s needs and make sure we leave no-one behind on our journey to mission-zero. 

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.
Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.

If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs.

Keep up to date with life at Wise by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram.