People Partner Lead, CX

About the Role:

We're looking for a senior People Business Partner to support our Customer Experience organization at Gusto. This role reports into Gusto's Head of People and serves as an embedded, execution-oriented partner to the CX Leadership Team — someone who advises and then stays in the room until the work is done.

This is a senior partnership role with a team management component. You'll spend most of your time working directly with CX Senior Leaders — the leaders who run one of our largest, most operationally complex functions — on org design, workforce strategy, and the harder talent conversations that only land when there's real trust. At the same time, you'll directly empower 2 People Partners who deliver the day-to-day: coaching frontline managers, managing ER volume, and executing People programs across a large, distributed org.

You earn trust through follow-through, not decks. You stress-test thinking and then own the outcome — from org change communication to the last Workday update. You don't identify primarily as a strategist. You identify as someone who gets things done, and your ability to work alongside senior leaders is a byproduct of that credibility — not the other way around.

We are in an active build phase — this role requires someone who arrives ready to construct and deliver, not inherit and sustain.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Build trusted partnerships with the CX Senior Leadership Team — understanding org dynamics, surfacing friction early, and driving decisions on talent strategy, workforce planning, and org design — staying accountable for outcomes, not just recommendations.
• Lead the harder conversations: delivering candor to senior leaders on their own effectiveness, navigating performance decisions on high-profile talent, and partnering through significant org changes end-to-end.
• Directly empower and develop 2 People Partners (team of 3 total) who deliver coaching at scale and execute People programs across frontline CX teams — setting a high bar, giving direct feedback, and keeping ownership with your team.
• Synthesize People data — attrition signals, gPulse results, absenteeism trends, ER case patterns — into clear, actionable reads for CXLT before they have to ask.
• Build lightweight, scalable People processes, operating mechanisms, and repeatable playbooks — reaching for AI when the work is repetitive or data-heavy rather than waiting for a perfect framework before shipping a good one.
• Support and operationalize core talent programs including performance cycles, calibration discussions, promotion processes, and senior leader enablement.
• Reinforce high performance standards, accountability, and clarity around expectations, feedback, and growth at the leadership level.
• Serve as the liaison between CX and Gusto's broader People team (Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, L&D, People Ops), translating company-wide programs into what they mean for the CX org — and surfacing CX context back to the center.
• When org changes are decided, own end-to-end execution — transition planning, communication sequencing, Workday updates, leader enablement, and follow-through until nothing is left unresolved.

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 10+ years of HRBP or People Partner experience, with meaningful time supporting large operational or customer-facing organizations — Customer Experience, contact centers, non-exempt or hourly workforces, or similar. Background at high-growth SaaS companies — ideally founder-led or recently public — supporting CS, CX, or customer-facing orgs preferred.
• A builder's instinct. You don't wait for the perfect framework before shipping a good one. When you hit a repetitive or data-heavy task, your first move is to ask "can we build something to handle this?" — and then you go do it. You ship lightweight, scalable processes and playbooks, and you do it fast.
• Demonstrated ability to operate at every altitude — a frontline escalation at 9am and an org design conversation at 3pm, with equal confidence in both. You've built enough credibility through execution that senior leaders pull you in; you're trusted enough to push back, and reliable enough to be handed the execution afterward.
• Prior people management experience required. Demonstrated ability to develop and coach a team of PPs while maintaining your own senior client relationships — sets a high bar, gives direct feedback, and keeps ownership with the team.
• A track record of owning programs end-to-end — not just designing them. You've run a performance cycle, a reduction, or a leadership change from kickoff to close, and you know what it takes to get all the way to done.
• Strong operator mindset. You've executed complex People work end-to-end — not just advised on it. You know what a well-run reorg or high-stakes talent decision looks like from the inside.
• A strong bias toward action and a high speed of execution. You'd rather move and adjust than wait for the perfect answer — and when you decide to move, you move quickly.
• Comfortable working with People data — attrition, engagement, ER trends, workforce analytics — and translating it into a clear story for a CX VP without over-engineering it.
• You build credibility through follow-through. Leaders trust you because you do what you say you'll do.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity, hold a lot of detail, and stay organized across a large and dynamic org.
• Sound judgment that accounts for Gusto, not just CX. You make People decisions that hold up beyond your client group — ones your COE partners can build for and that don't create one-off exceptions that ripple across the company. You proactively build COE relationships because you know that's what makes the model work.
• AI-forward mindset. You actively use AI to work better — surfacing insights faster, reducing administrative drag, improving how you communicate at scale. You're curious about what AI can do for People work and you experiment rather than wait.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is between $158,300 - $195,237/year in Denver and between $185,955 - $229,345/year for New York/San Francisco. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.