HR Consultant

Hi! We’re Bright + Early, a company that builds great places to work. We’ve worked with everyone from startups to tech giants, governments and international nonprofits to help them design future-forward and human-first workplaces. From compensation and career paths to performance reviews, onboarding programs, inclusive policies, and organizational design, we build custom systems shaped around each client's culture and goals. We also act as trusted coaches as they navigate the highs and lows of running organizations and caring for the people inside them.

We also value community; We open-source our work via Early Magazine, publish a biweekly newsletter full of community resources, and donate a percentage of our revenue to the Bright + Early Better Workplaces Fund, a group of charities that support underrepresented groups in the workforce.

Now, we’re growing and looking to add a full time senior-level HR practitioner to our team. In this role, you’ll have your own portfolio of clients, working with some as their Half Time Head of HR, and with others on specific projects, where you’ll design, build and launch compensation programs, performance systems, career paths, or another part of how work “works”. You’ll have the high level support of a Director, and work from a base set of B+E best practices, but otherwise have a high level of ownership and autonomy in your work. Many of our clients have atypical structures, and you should be able to think outside of the box and build something that resonates- even if it hasn’t been done that way before. If this excites you, you might be a good fit!

This is a full time, salaried, remote role suitable for someone who’s experienced enough to advise leaders on multiple approaches to a problem, system or policy, but who is still hands-on enough to go ahead and build it. This could be someone with experience leading HR at a few small to mid size organizations, someone with existing consulting experience, or a senior generalist from a larger team looking for more autonomy to build.

What’s Good About the Work:

• You’ll work with a variety of really cool organizations that are bought into building top-notch workplaces. Our clients are solving homelessness, lobbying for climate action, building advanced robotics to solve housing shortages, advocating for democracy, running worker-led co-ops, building self-driving cars, supporting BIPOC health care, and making natural wine- just to name a few.
• You’ll get the excitement of building from scratch, with the backing support of a team and lots of examples, documentation and best practices to draw from.
• The learning experience of consulting for a wide variety of organizations without the need to handle sales or operations.
• You’ll have a “home team” that gets, protects, and supports you. You don’t need to explain to us why a “feedback sandwich” is bad or why pay transparency matters (but you might have to coach other people on it).
• Good balance and benefits (see “What We Offer”).

What’s Challenging About the Work:

• There can be a lot of context switching. We’ve found structural ways to make this easier, but you’ll usually have a number of clients and projects on the go with shifting priorities.
• Emotional labour; acting as a (professional, appropriate) support through tough human scenarios at work can be a reality of HR, even with a supportive team.
• We have high expectations for quality. Expect lots of peer review, collaboration, and high fives on your work, but also lots of questions and feedback! We’re here to make each other better.

What We’re Looking For:

Skills:

Our ideal candidate:

• Is at the experience level where they are comfortable presenting to executives and advising clients directly. That said, you're not alone. We keep an extensive database of our own examples and best practices, and provide unbeatable peer and team support.
• Is happy to build. This is not an advisory-only consulting role.
• Has high digital literacy and is very comfortable using and picking up new tools. Our current approach to AI is curious and hands-on for analysis and administration, while strongly valuing human experience and decision making, authentic voice, and a belief that quality work comes from listening and talking to the people we build things for.
• Knows their way around a model or spreadsheet and can use it to paint a clear story in their work.
• Has strong written communication skills. We want our work to reflect the voices of the organizations we collaborate with, so the ability to write quality, human-sounding copy on your own is an asset.
• Has experience building out and advising on at least half of the following areas of people operations:

• Recruitment/interview processes and employment branding (noting that we don’t do any actual recruitment)
• Compensation design
• Onboarding design
• Career path design
• Performance management design
• Benefit and perk design
• Employee engagement programs, analytics
• Policy and employment law
• Learning and development (training, content creation, facilitation)
• Coaching and supporting leaders on people management
• Organizational change and restructures, acquisitions, etc
• Employee relations, support and conflict management
• Advisory on diversity, equity and inclusion at work

Right now, we are especially seeking candidates with experience in compensation, learning and development, and organizational design. We’re also particularly interested in bilingual (English/French) candidates and those with US HR experience, but these are not a requirement.

Mindset

Our ideal candidate:

• Has a learning mindset and a high degree of openness. You'll often be called on to build or do things you haven't done before, and should have a 'dive in and figure it out' attitude along with a collaborative and humble approach to feedback.
• Is comfortable asserting informed opinions and acting as a thought partner to leaders.
• Is passionate about diversity, inclusion, belonging and anti-oppression perspectives in the workplace, and how they impact policy and programs. We believe that standard business practices are built on unequal ground, and it's our job as system builders to be aware of this and to question them.
• Is interested in and curious about the latest tools, software, theories, and techniques in our space.
• Is emotionally intelligent, empathetic (even to those they disagree with), and tactful in tough situations.
• Is conscientious and reliable.
• Wants to be part of a team. We’re not lone wolf consultants here; we’re always collaborating and sharing with each other.

Experience in the tech, creative, or nonprofit worlds is an asset.

What We Offer:

We built the benefits we'd actually want. Here's what that looks like:

• A 4-day work week, every other week: we take every second Friday off without adding on extra hours during the week.
• Health benefits, including paramedical, drug and dental coverage, an EAP, plus an HSA to extend coverage.
• Profit sharing program- we’ve hit (and paid out!) our profit sharing bonuses for the past 4 quarters.
• A parent-friendly and flexible workplace with a 75% top up plan for 4 months of your parental leave.
• 4 weeks of vacation, paid sick days, and 3 spiritual leave days annually for religious or cultural events that are not on the government calendar (even reconnecting with yourself counts here!).
• Investment in your learning and development. We bring in experts for conversations on what's new and cutting-edge in our space, and how we can apply it. We've hosted service designers, leading academics, Indigenous leaders, and many more. There is also a $2,000 per person annual budget for individual learning (courses, conferences, books, etc).

Compensation: $120,000-$135,000 CAD annual base, dependent on levelling, plus profit sharing. The profit-sharing pool depends on our team size and success, but folks in this range were paid out an average of $7-10k from the program over the last year.

Location: We are Ontario-based, but remote first across Canada. We very occasionally gather to collaborate or celebrate, including an annual retreat. You must be located in and eligible to work in Canada to apply.

Reporting: This role reports to Stephanie Bergman, Director of Workplace Design.

Projected start date: August 2026 or earlier.

Process:

Step 1: Application review.

Step 2: Virtual interview with our Directors focused on your background, your experience, and what you’re looking for in a new role, along with an opportunity to ask any up-front and practical questions you have about the role.

Step 3: Virtual interview with our founder focused on your working style, approach, and values as a practitioner, along with an opportunity to ask deeper questions.

Step 4: A take-home activity that enables us to get to know your style and experience as an HR practitioner. This will be presented to our team. The activity won’t include any real/usable work, should take under 3 hours to prepare, and will be compensated with a $250 stipend.

AI Disclosure: We use an applicant tracking system that includes AI tools, though we don't use them - every application is read by a real person on our team.

Accommodations and Accessibility: Bright + Early provides employment accommodation during the recruitment process. Should you require any accommodation, please indicate this on your application, and we will work with you to meet your accessibility needs. For any questions, suggestions, or required documents regarding accessibility in a different format, please contact us at hello at brightandearly dot ca.

Inclusion: At Bright + Early, we are committed to building an environment where everyone feels included, valued, and heard. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are an important part of our everyday work, and it is our belief that they enable us to reach our goal of building programs and processes that change the world of work. We strongly encourage applications from Indigenous peoples, racialized people, people with disabilities, people from gender and sexually diverse communities and/or people with intersectional identities to apply.