HR Associate

Applications will close Friday 30th October 2026

We are hiring an HR Associate to help run the systems and operational side of People Operations at CEA. You will own the processes that move people into, through, and out of the organisation: onboarding, contracts, expenses, payroll inputs, state and city tax filings, and the HR systems that connect them. You will have real ownership of how these processes work, and the role includes projects to improve them with automation and AI. This position reports to Keighly Baron, HR Manager.

About CEA

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) stewards the movement of people putting effective altruism principles into practice to solve the world’s most pressing problems. We are working to build a flourishing future by applying evidence, reason, and compassion to challenges like global poverty, animal suffering, and existential risks.

Our work centers on growing and supporting a global community of people who rigorously analyze where they can do the most good and take action on those insights. Current strategic priorities include increasing understanding of effective altruism and its principles, growing the number of people who are motivated by EA principles to take significant action to address pressing problems, and diversifying funding sources for high-impact work.

We had significant success in 2025, building momentum within CEA. Our headcount grew from 42 to 66 core staff. Program participation (e.g., events, courses, groups) grew by 20-25% year over year. We merged with EA Funds and are rapidly scaling up our capacity for grantmaking and associated fundraising.

In 2026, we have maintained ambitious momentum while building the foundations for a step-change in the wider EA ecosystem’s growth trajectory from 2027 onwards.

About the People Operations team

People Operations at CEA is a small team that handles the full employee lifecycle for a distributed, international staff. The team covers compensation and benchmarking, international employment compliance, payroll and benefits administration, onboarding, employee relations, and policy. You will work most closely with the HR Manager and the People Operations Specialist, and with colleagues in Business Operations, Finance, and Legal.

About the role

You will take over a set of operational responsibilities that are currently spread across the team. You will also own projects: rebuilding the onboarding and offboarding workflow, building an HR metrics dashboard and a compliance calendar, and using AI to speed up drafting and routine requests.

We expect the role to be roughly half operations, a quarter systems and process projects, and a quarter onboarding, handbook, and employee experience. Early on you will work with review before anything goes out (contracts, tax filings, payroll inputs). As you continue to onboard, that review loosens, and after probation you will move to fully owning payroll.

Key responsibilities

Operations

Prepare and track state and city tax registrations and filings, including annual benefit reporting. Work with Business Operations to escalate filing notices to Gusto.

Process expense reimbursements in Expensify for the US and UK, including routing reports to the correct approver when needed, and handle Deel expense approvals. Process UK taxable expenses through payroll.

Administer contracts for staff, contractors, and EOR team members. This covers generating agreements from approved templates, routing them through DocuSign, and filing them. Run the contractor onboarding process, including UK right-to-work checks where needed, invoicing instructions, and point-of-contact guidance.

Coordinate pre-clearance checks: run the process, collect documents, and track status against criteria set by the HR Manager.

Collect and validate payroll inputs for the US, UK, and Deel before the People Operations Specialist runs and approves payroll. After probation, take on full ownership of the process.

Provide first-line benefits administration, including enrolments, changes, and employee questions.

Run offboarding logistics, including removing access from systems and coordinating equipment returns with Business Operations.

Keep HRIS data accurate in Humaans, run reports on request, and reconcile accruals between Gusto, Deel, and Humaans.

Produce monthly HR and Finance reporting.

Send NDAs for work trials and set up email and Slack access for work-trial candidates and contractors.

Onboarding and employee experience

Run onboarding end to end: offer letter, I-9 (US) and right-to-work and DBS (UK) checks, welcome emails, first-day calls, manager communication, and the HR and manager checklists in Asana and Humaans.

Set up new joiners in our systems: Gusto, Ethena, 1Password, email and Google Groups, Slack, and Polly. Match new joiners with buddies.

Collect onboarding feedback and use it to improve the process.

Handbook and knowledge base

Maintain the staff handbook in Notion: formatting, version control, routing pages to reviewers, tracking sign-off, and keeping benefits and policy details accurate.

Write and maintain onboarding and manager documentation, and keep Notion tidy by clearing defunct pages and assigning page owners.

Update the website team page when people join, leave, or change roles.

Systems and process projects

• Build AI workflows for contract drafting, an internal HR FAQ, and role updates.

• Build an HR metrics dashboard covering headcount, turnover, and internal mobility.

• Build a compliance calendar of recurring deadlines across jurisdictions. State and city filing dates will be the first entries.

• Be the day-to-day contact for Humaans, including onboarding workflows, work anniversary and birthday automations, annual public holiday updates, and the quarterly call with our customer success manager.

• Maintain Polly (adding and removing team members and updating reporting lines).…

Source: Jobspresso (https://jobspresso.co/job/hr-associate/)