People Operations Manager

Reports to: COO

Department: Operations

Salary: £42,000 - £45,000

The Role

We’re looking for a highly organised People Operations Manager to own the coordination of recruitment, onboarding and day-to-day people operations.

You’ll work closely with the COO, founders and team leads to ensure every hire follows a structured process, every employee has a consistent onboarding experience and leadership has complete visibility over workforce planning and capacity.

This role sits at the heart of the business and will play a key part in helping Solar on Steroids scale without losing the culture, quality and agility that have driven our growth so far.

Key Responsibilities

Recruitment & Talent Acquisition

Own the operational recruitment process from approval through to offer.

Responsibilities include:

• Managing recruitment pipelines
• Posting vacancies
• Screening applications
• Scheduling interviews
• Coordinating interview stages
• Managing candidate communications
• Preparing offers and contracts
• Maintaining recruitment trackers
• Building talent pools
• Delivering an outstanding candidate experience

Workforce Planning

Support the COO with workforce planning and hiring coordination.

Including:

• Hiring plans
• Capacity tracking
• Recruitment forecasting
• Annual leave visibility
• Upcoming onboarding requirements
• Probation tracking
• Weekly workforce reports
• Headcount planning support

You’ll help ensure hiring remains proactive rather than reactive.

Hiring Readiness

Before any offer is made, you’ll coordinate the company’s Hiring Readiness Checklist.

This includes confirming:

• Reporting line
• Functional trainer
• Onboarding owner
• Start date
• Equipment requests
• System access
• 30/60/90-day plan
• Capacity confirmation

No new hire progresses until every stage has been completed.

Onboarding

Coordinate a structured onboarding experience for every employee.

Including:

• Welcome communications
• Contracts and documentation
• Equipment and access
• Company induction
• ClickUp setup
• Training schedules
• Probation planning
• First-week experience
• 30/60/90-day planning

You’ll work closely with functional trainers to ensure every new starter has a clear path to becoming fully productive.

People Operations

Own the day-to-day administration of the people function.

Including:

• Annual leave
• Sickness management
• Payroll preparation
• Personnel records
• Contracts
• Policies
• HR documentation
• Probation administration
• Performance review scheduling
• Employment references

Leadership & Operations Support

Support the COO by maintaining visibility across the people function.

Including:

• Recruitment dashboards
• Workforce planning reports
• Capacity reporting
• Hiring metrics
• People KPIs
• Probation tracking
• Leadership meeting preparation
• Action tracking
• Recruitment forecasting

You’ll help ensure leadership always has accurate, up-to-date information to support decision-making.

Continuous Improvement

Help improve how the business recruits, onboards and develops people.

Including:

• Improving onboarding
• Simplifying recruitment processes
• Building and maintaining SOPs
• Improving documentation
• Supporting AI and automation projects
• Working alongside the Systems Architect
• Supporting ClickUp and operational workflow improvements

Decision Authority

This role owns the operational coordination of recruitment and people operations.

Responsible for:

• Recruitment coordination
• Candidate communication
• Interview scheduling
• Onboarding coordination
• People administration
• Workforce planning support
• Capacity reporting
• Recruitment tracking
• Maintaining HR documentation
• Leadership reporting

Final decisions remain with the COO and Founders for:

• Headcount approval
• Organisational structure
• Reporting lines
• Salary decisions
• Promotions
• Final hiring decisions
• Probation outcomes
• Workforce strategy

What Success Looks Like

Within your first six months:

• Recruitment follows one consistent operating process.
• Time-to-hire has reduced through better coordination.
• Every new starter completes a structured onboarding programme.
• 100% of new hires have documented 30/60/90-day plans.
• Weekly workforce planning and capacity reports are delivered consistently.
• Leadership has complete visibility over recruitment, onboarding and workforce capacity.
• Recruitment administration no longer sits with the founders.
• Managers understand their responsibilities throughout the employee lifecycle.

You’ll Be Great If You…

• Love bringing order to fast-moving environments.
• Enjoy building processes rather than working around them.
• Can manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Communicate confidently with people at all levels.
• Naturally identify problems before they become issues.
• Thrive in growing businesses where no two days are the same.
• Want to help build a company, not just work within one.

Experience

We’re open to different backgrounds, but you’ll likely have experience in one or more of the following:

• People Operations
• Talent Acquisition
• Internal Recruitment
• HR Operations
• Operations Coordination
• Executive Support
• Recruitment Agency or In-house Recruitment

Experience within a scaling SME or high-growth business would be highly advantageous.

Skills

• Excellent organisational skills
• Strong written and verbal communication
• High attention to detail
• Commercial awareness
• Strong prioritisation skills
• Confidence working with multiple stakeholders
• Comfortable using technology and AI tools
• Ability to improve and document operational processes

Nice to Have

• CIPD Level 3 or Level 5 qualification (or working towards one)
• Experience in an in-house People Operations or Talent role
• Experience recruiting across marketing, sales or technology functions
• Experience supporting a scaling SME or startup
• Familiarity with UK employment law and HR best practice
• Experience using HRIS or ATS platforms (e.g. Rippling, BambooHR, Workable or Teamtailor)
• Experience using ClickUp, Notion, Monday.com or similar workflow tools
• Experience producing people metrics and leadership reporting
• Experience coordinating onboarding, probation and performance review processes
• Interest in AI, automation and operational improvement