Senior Employee Relations Partner Non-Investigations

About the Team

OpenAIs People team is committed to hiring engaging and supporting worldclass talent to help safely build and deploy universally beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The Global Employee Relations and People Standards team guides OpenAI through some of its most nuanced and highimpact people challenges. With deep expertise in employee relations investigations compliance and policy we design thoughtful principled solutions that reflect our values and the unique pace of OpenAI. We dont default to rigid frameworks instead we lead with context care and creativity to support our people through complexity growth and change.

About the Role

Were looking for a Senior Employee Relations Partner to focus on noninvestigative matters supporting hightrust highimpact People matters. This includes conflict resolution highrisk performance management sensitive employee exits and navigating workplace dynamics that require thoughtful strategic support even when they dont involve formal investigations.

Were looking for someone who brings creativity flexibility and a deeply humancentered approach to solving People challenges. Youre energized by complexity and nuance and instinctively seek out tailored thoughtful solutions rather than onesizefitsall answers. You dont just apply rules; you understand context think strategically and help leaders make principled decisions that reflect our values and evolving culture. This role is a fit for someone who adapts quickly thrives in uncertainty and focuses on whats possible not just whats standard.

This work requires exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to connect across all levels build trust quickly and guide leaders with clarity and confidence. You should be comfortable in a highgrowth fastchanging environment making sound decisions with imperfect information. You bring expertise in navigating hightension highly escalated employee situations and remain calm clearheaded and grounded under pressure. Youll approach your work with urgency empathy and strong judgment serving as a collaborative partner and steady presence in nuanced People moments. Your impact will help reinforce a culture of clarity accountability and psychological safety and support leaders and teams in doing their best work through times of growth and complexity.

Youll have several responsibilities including:

• Coach and guide managers HRBPs and crossfunctional partners through complex or highrisk employee situations including conflict resolution interpersonal friction performance challenges and difficult conversations. Youll bring emotional intelligence and principled thinking to every interaction.

• Partner closely with our Legal and HRBP teams on strategic performance management offering guidance on performance improvement plans (PIPs) documentation and exit strategies. Youll help ensure decisions prioritize fairness to the individual while also supporting overall team health and business needs.

• Collaborate with crossfunctional partners and leadership to ensure alignment on People decisions organizational changes and policy implementation.

• Lead or support sensitive hightouch employee exits where preserving dignity ensuring compliance and maintaining cultural alignment are all essential.

• Act as a sounding board and escalation partner for workplace culture concerns manageremployee dynamics and early signals of broader People issues.

• Help build scalable tools templates and frameworks that strengthen the ER muscle across the company and reduce overreliance on formal processes or investigations.

• Navigate ambiguity with a proactive calm creative and solutionsoriented mindset helping to clarify issues and move toward resolution in a dynamic evolving environment.

• Use data and insight to identify trends and advise on systemic solutions that promote trust engagement and longterm cultural health.

Well look for these qualities experience and skills:

• A Bachelors degree with 8 years of experience in employee relations or other People experience roles ideally in highgrowth fastpaced and highly dynamic environments. Experience in tech research or missiondriven orgs is a plus.

• A nonconventional mindset. You bring creative outsidethebox thinking to complex People issues and youre not bound by the way things have always been done. You know when structure helps and when a bespoke approach is the better path.

• Proven experience managing hightension highly escalated employee situations with discretion empathy and calm under pressure. You know how to deescalate effectively build trust in difficult moments and support leaders through emotionally charged or highstakes scenarios.

• A proven track record of handling complex performance management sensitive exits and conflict resolution with a steady thoughtful and pragmatic approach.

• Exceptional interpersonal and relationshipbuilding skillsyou build trust quickly communicate with warmth and clarity and can connect with employees managers and senior leaders alike.

• A lowego highownership mindset. Youre equally comfortable advising executives and rolling up your sleeves to finetune a template fix a process or support an employee through a difficult moment.

• Strong instincts for People and culture with the ability to read situations understand organizational dynamics and offer grounded empathetic guidance.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills especially when navigating sensitive or highstakes conversations.

• Comfort operating in ambiguity and rapid change with the ability to move quickly and decisively while staying aligned with OpenAIs mission and values.

• A commitment to fairness discretion and principled decisionmaking. Youre thoughtful balanced and cleareyed even under pressure.

Workplace & Location

This role is based in our San Francisco or New York office and we offer relocation assistance to new employees for officebased roles.

Our offices use a hybrid work model: three days in the office per week with optional work from home on Thursdays and Fridays. Our openplan offices have heightadjustable desks conference rooms phone booths wellstocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks and more.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that generalpurpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core and to achieve our mission we must encompass and value the many different perspectives voices and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race religion national origin gender sexual orientation age veteran status disability or any other legally protected status.

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For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities and requests can be made via thislink.

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At OpenAI we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.