People Operations Associate in London

About the Role

We're looking for a proactive, experienced (4+ years) People Ops Associate to deliver a seamless people experience across TransitionZero, supporting the full employee lifecycle and helping us attract and retain top talent. You’ll report to our part-time maternity cover Head of People to support the team during a maternity cover period. In the long term, you’ll continue to grow your career in a business with a high performance culture that values continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Project management & process improvement - 50%
  • Be the face of the People team to the business, acting as the first point of contact for queries and managing incoming requests (with escalation to Head of People), ensuring a smooth process and effective prioritisation.
  • Project manage important recurring events like performance management and engagement surveys, acting as the central point of coordination.
  • Take responsibility for processes the People team is involved with or leads (e.g. payroll, onboarding and offboarding) and ensure these processes are as effective and valuable as possible.
  • Maintain our repository of employee-related information to ensure it works as a reliable, well-organised resource for the whole business, and is compliant with relevant employment laws (with support from our EoR provider).
  • Own our People systems (Personio as HRIS and ATS) and Leapsome (performance and engagement) to ensure our data is clean, processes work smoothly and logically, and we get return on investment from these tools.
• Employee Engagement - 30%
  • Run our employee engagement surveys, taking ownership of the process from set-up through to analysis and presenting findings to the Head of People.
  • Support the delivery of company-wide training and communications.
  • Own the integration of TransitionZero's values into people processes and policies- ensuring our values are not just stated but actively embedded in how we hire, onboard, develop, and recognise people.
  • Review and maintain people policies to ensure they reflect our values, culture, and current employment law, flagging gaps or updates to the Head of People.
  • Support culture initiatives by contributing to how we communicate and reinforce our values across the employee lifecycle, including through onboarding, performance frameworks, and internal comms.
• Recruitment - 20%
  • Coordinate recruitment processes - managing job postings, scheduling interviews, updating candidates and keeping hiring managers on track.
  • Own end-to-end hiring for lower-volume, non-tech roles where external agencies are not engaged.
  • Act as the internal point of contact for agency-led recruitment, ensuring processes run smoothly and that candidate experience remains high.

About You

You take the mission personally. That means fully committing even when the picture is incomplete, delivering value incrementally and urgently, and holding yourself – and others – to a high standard. You don’t accept mediocre work, but you also don’t faff around: you’re biased towards action and like to chase projects down.

You’re really efficient in how you work and you are comfortable taking on new challenges and working independently. You’re self-aware: you give and receive feedback well, know your strengths and gaps, and make confident decisions despite uncertainty.

You like to win as a team. That means collaborating effectively, pivoting quickly when the mission demands it, and staying laser-focused on what actually moves the needle. You thrive under pressure, lean into change, and bring optimism and curiosity to problems that don’t have obvious solutions.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• 4+ years in a People Ops, HR Generalist, or HR Administrator role — with meaningful exposure beyond recruitment.
• Experience coordinating end-to-end recruitment processes, including managing external agencies.
• Experience in a startup, scale-up, or lean team environment where processes weren't always fully defined.
• Experience with key HR processes such as payroll, onboarding/offboarding, and engagement surveys.
• Solid working knowledge of UK employment law and HR compliance.
• Confident using HRIS platforms to manage data and workflows.

Desirable

• Experience with Personio as an HRIS and/or ATS.
• Familiarity with Leapsome or similar performance and engagement tools.
• Demonstrable experience supporting or owning payroll administration in a UK-based business.

Salary & Benefits

• Enhanced competitive pension scheme - auto-enrollment from day 1
• 25 days annual leave (excluding UK public holidays) and additional discretionary days off such as over the festive period
• 20 days of annual allowance to work from anywhere in the world
• Hybrid working and core working hours model
• Allowance to set up your home office
• Annual budget and dedicated leave time for relevant training courses
• Enhanced gender-neutral parental leave (16 weeks fully paid)
• Private healthcare following the successful completion of the probation period
• Yearly team offsites

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Studies have shown that some people from marginalised or underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet all of the hiring guidelines or qualifications. Whoever you are, even if you don't meet all of the criteria, if you can demonstrate a variety of skills and experience relevant to this role, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we hire! At TransitionZero, we're looking for people who are genuinely passionate about what they do, and we welcome all people, regardless of their background.

If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments to the application or hiring process that may better facilitate your participation, please contact our People Team (people@transitionzero.org) for an informal chat. We will make every effort to respond to your request for assistance as soon as possible.

About us

TransitionZero is a climate tech non-profit founded in 2021. TransitionZero builds software to reduce the time to build clean energy at scale. We pioneer open-access and open-source tools that make electricity system modelling more transparent, accessible, and actionable for governments, financiers and grid operators worldwide.

Our flagship tool, Scenario Builder, enables policymakers, planners and investors to rapidly build, analyse and share energy system and electricity grid models without coding expertise or external consultants. Supported by model-ready datasets, training and market insights, our tools strengthen in-house capacity and support resilient, affordable and locally-led energy transitions.