Director of People Operations

Principium Psychiatry | Midtown Manhattan | Full-Time, In Person

Build the people function that helps scale a growing mental healthcare company

Principium Psychiatry is seeking a senior, hands-on People Operations leader to become the primary owner of our people function.

Principium is a growing, multi-state mental healthcare company providing sophisticated outpatient psychiatric services, including medication management, psychotherapy, telehealth, ketamine treatment, Spravato, TMS, ECT, intensive outpatient programming, and forensic psychiatric services.

We are a well-run company with strong existing systems, employment documentation, and operational infrastructure. As we expand our clinical team, offices, states, and service lines, we are ready to transfer ownership of People Operations to an experienced leader who can strengthen what already exists and build the infrastructure required for our next stage of growth.

This is a high-trust role reporting directly to the Founder and CEO. It offers significant autonomy, visibility, and influence over how the company grows.

The Opportunity

The Director of People Operations will own both the operating infrastructure and leadership dimensions of the people function.

You will serve as the company’s senior internal People Operations resource: advising the CEO and managers, handling employee-relations matters, improving organizational systems, and ensuring that essential HR workflows operate accurately and consistently.

This is neither a narrow corporate HR role nor a purely administrative position. It is an opportunity to own a meaningful function inside a growing healthcare company and help shape the organization as it scales.

The right candidate will move comfortably between strategic judgment and hands-on execution. You should be capable of coaching a manager through a difficult conversation in the morning, resolving a payroll or leave issue that afternoon, and improving the underlying process so the same problem does not recur.

What You Will OwnPeople Operations Leadership

Serve as the primary internal owner of People Operations and HR.
Report directly to the Founder and CEO and advise on workforce, organizational, and employee matters.
Resolve routine issues independently and escalate only matters requiring CEO judgment, legal review, compensation approval, or significant policy decisions.
Bring consistency, maturity, discretion, and follow-through to the people function.
Help determine how the function should evolve and when additional People Operations support should be added.

Employee Relations and Manager Support

Serve as the first point of contact for employee concerns and workplace issues.
Coach managers on performance, attendance, conduct, communication, feedback, and difficult conversations.
Lead or coordinate investigations, corrective-action processes, and performance documentation.
Distinguish routine matters from sensitive, legal, or high-risk concerns.
Coordinate with employment counsel when appropriate.
Help managers apply policies consistently while maintaining sound judgment and humanity.

Payroll Workflow, Timekeeping, and Leave

Own the people-side payroll workflow in coordination with our payroll service, bookkeepers, accountants, and finance partners.
Review employee timekeeping, including part-time clinician and non-exempt employee hours.
Ensure payroll inputs are consistent with employment agreements, company policies, and applicable wage-and-hour requirements.
Own PTO, sick leave, vacation, medical appointments, attendance, and schedule-change workflows.
Address employee questions, discrepancies, and edge cases promptly and accurately.
Maintain clear documentation and reliable controls.

Onboarding, Offboarding, and Employee Administration

Own onboarding for clinicians and business-team employees.
Coordinate employment documents, payroll and benefits setup, policy acknowledgments, systems access, and first-day readiness.
Build a polished and consistent onboarding experience that reflects Principium’s standards.
Own offboarding, including documentation, final payroll inputs, benefits transitions, company property, and access removal.
Maintain complete and organized personnel records.

Benefits, Policies, and Compliance

Own employee-facing benefits administration and coordinate with brokers and vendors.
Maintain the employee handbook, policy library, and acknowledgment processes.
Support HR compliance across New York, Connecticut, California, and additional states as the company expands.
Translate legal and regulatory requirements into clear, workable company processes.
Ensure policies are communicated, documented, and implemented consistently.

Recruiting and Organizational Growth

Partner with the CEO and leadership on workforce planning, role design, compensation structures, and hiring strategy.
Support recruiting for clinicians and business-team employees.
Own offer documentation, hiring workflows, and the transition from candidate selection to successful onboarding.
Help Principium build an increasingly sophisticated talent and management infrastructure.
Develop reporting and visibility around staffing, attendance, PTO, onboarding, turnover, and other people metrics.

What Success Looks Like

Employees and managers have a trusted, responsive People Operations leader.
Routine employee-administration issues no longer require direct CEO involvement.
Managers receive practical, consistent guidance.
Payroll, PTO, leave, onboarding, benefits, and employee-relations workflows are accurate, timely, and well documented.
Sensitive matters are recognized early and escalated appropriately.
Existing systems become increasingly scalable and sophisticated.
Principium can add clinicians, employees, offices, and service lines without creating disproportionate administrative burden.
The People Operations function grows into a durable organizational capability.

Who You Are

You are an experienced HR or People Operations leader who combines mature judgment with a willingness to remain close to the work.

You bring:

Approximately 7–12+ years of progressive HR or People Operations experience.
Broad ownership across employee relations, payroll workflow, benefits, onboarding, leave administration, policies, documentation, compliance, and manager support.
Experience building or significantly improving HR systems and processes.
Strong judgment regarding confidentiality, consistency, documentation, and escalation.
The ability to operate independently without relying on a more senior internal HR leader.
Comfort working directly with a founder, CEO, or senior executive team.
A practical, business-minded approach to HR.
The ability to communicate clearly with clinicians, employees, managers, vendors, counsel, and senior leadership.

Experience in healthcare, behavioral health, professional services, multi-site operations, founder-led companies, or growing small-to-midsize organizations is strongly preferred. Multi-state HR experience is also highly valued.

PHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, or related certification is preferred but not required.

The Person We Are Looking For

You are not looking to occupy one narrow lane inside a large HR department. You want meaningful ownership.

You enjoy building systems, but you do not distance yourself from the workflows those systems are meant to support. You can think strategically while remaining accountable for execution. You understand that the credibility of a People leader comes from judgment, responsiveness, consistency, and follow-through.

You should be able to tell the CEO:

“I’ve handled it. Here is what occurred, here is the documentation, here is the applicable policy, and here is the one decision I need from you.”Location and Schedule

This is a full-time, in-person role, Monday through Friday, at our Midtown Manhattan office on East 42nd Street, immediately near Grand Central Station.

Principium is an on-site healthcare services company. Our clinicians, patients, and operating teams are present in our offices each day, and on-site People Operations leadership is essential to how the company functions.

This is not a hybrid or remote position.

Why Principium

Direct partnership with the Founder and CEO.
Genuine ownership of an important company function.
The opportunity to shape a growing multi-state mental healthcare company.
A strong existing operational foundation—not a turnaround or cleanup assignment.
Meaningful work in a field that directly affects patients, families, clinicians, and communities.
The opportunity to build a function that can grow into a broader People Operations team.

To Apply

Please submit your resume and a brief note addressing:

The HR or People Operations functions you currently own.
A system, workflow, or process you built or significantly improved.
Your experience advising managers or senior leadership.
Your availability to work in person Monday through Friday in Midtown Manhattan.

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