HR Generalist - Employee Lifecycle Operator

Description

Human Resources Generalist

Follow-Through Fanatic | Employee Lifecycle Operator | HRIS Craftsperson

Do you keep a running mental list of the three follow-ups nobody else remembered? Are you the person a nervous manager calls before a hard conversation, and do you actually like getting that call? Do you read a new state leave requirement and immediately start counting which employees it touches? Do you get a small hit of satisfaction when an employee change lands in the HRIS clean the first time? Do you believe HR gets judged on whether the work got done, not on how good the slide deck looked? If so, keep reading…

The team at RTA is looking for a Human Resources Generalist: our Follow-Through Fanatic, Employee Lifecycle Operator, and HRIS Craftsperson all rolled into one. RTA already has established HR programs, policies, systems, and benefits, so this is not a build-it-from-scratch role. It is about owning the daily execution that keeps all of it running: employee changes, benefits and leaves, onboarding and offboarding, documentation, and the manager questions that show up without warning. The people who build our software support fleets that carry kids in school buses, first responders in emergency vehicles, and patients in ambulances, and they need an HR function they can count on. This position plays a key part in not only the success of our company, but ultimately in the success of every person on our team.

What We're Looking For

• In general, someone who: Feels at home being a member of a healthy team. This means they aren't afraid to mix it up or be held accountable by the team, and they are willing to hold others accountable as well. People with trust issues and insecurity need not apply. No, seriously.
• Passionately cares about our clients and helping them be more successful. Our clients are fleet managers, parts clerks, automotive technicians who maintain everything from squad cars to school buses so that everyone comes home safely at the end of the day.
• Thinks of themselves less, while not thinking less of themselves. They are other-centric and compassionate.
• Is willing to lift boxes, clean floors, and hold doors if that's what it takes to get something done.
• Loves to read, learn, grow, and stretch themselves. Bonus points for each book you've read by Patrick Lencioni.
• Is constantly looking for more: more to learn, more to do, and more opportunity.
• Has fleet or field-services industry experience. Preferred but not required. If you speak the language of fleet, you'll hit the ground running.

Specifically for this job, someone who:

• Closes loops. An employee asks a question, a manager needs documentation, a benefits issue needs fixing, and you own it until it is done, not until it is handed to someone else.
• Has personally run the work across employee relations, benefits, leaves, onboarding, and offboarding. You have done it yourself, not supervised people who did.
• Can coach a manager through a hard conversation without taking it over, and writes the documentation that holds up if the matter goes further.
• Lives in the HRIS. You would rather correct the record today than explain the error at the next payroll run.
• Knows which matters you handle and which ones go to leadership or outside counsel, and never guesses at that line.
• Already uses AI to do this job better, because at RTA that is the baseline, not a bonus. You draft and pressure-test documentation with it, summarize policy and leave requirements with it, and pull the busywork out of recurring HR tasks, always inside RTA's approved tools and data-handling rules, and you know exactly where a human has to review before anything reaches an employee file.
• Keeps five employee matters moving without dropping the sixth, and does not need a reminder about a deadline.
• Improves what already exists instead of rebuilding it. When you find the broken step, you fix that step.

Somewhere in this company, someone is about to have the hardest month of their year: a leave they did not plan for, a diagnosis, a family emergency, a manager conversation they are dreading. How that gets handled is the entire job. Are you the person who makes it feel manageable? Apply.

This Role Probably Is Not for You if...

• You want to build an HR department. RTA already has the programs, the policies, the systems, and the benefits. This job is running them well, every day, and if that sounds small to you it will bore you by month three.
• You hand things off. If your instinct when a benefits issue gets messy is to loop in someone else and move on, an employee waits two weeks for an answer and that is on you.
• You need a clean queue. Some days are a leave request, a termination, an open enrollment question, and a manager in a panic, all before noon. If context switching rattles you, this will wear you down.
• You treat documentation as an afterthought. What you write gets read by an attorney someday. If you round the corners, you create the problem you were hired to prevent.
• You are loose with confidential information. One offhand comment about someone's medical leave costs you the trust of the whole company, and you do not get it back.
• You think AI has no place in HR. RTA is AI-forward and this role is where a lot of that shows up. If you are waiting for someone else to figure out how it fits into employee documentation, policy research, and recurring HR work, this is not your seat.
• You wait to be told. Nobody here is going to hand you a task list every morning.

What the Day to Day Actually Looks Like

• Employee relations: answer day-to-day employee and manager questions, help managers document coaching, corrective actions, and performance plans, and follow up on the actions and deadlines that come out of them
• Investigations and separations: run employee relations reviews and workplace investigations, prepare separation documentation, and coordinate voluntary and involuntary offboarding
• Escalation: apply Company policies the same way twice, and know which matters go to leadership or outside employment counsel
• Benefits: run day-to-day administration of medical, dental, vision, HSA, 401(k), and wellness programs, answer employee questions, and work brokers and carriers directly when something breaks
• Enrollment: process enrollments, changes, and terminations, and execute annual open enrollment
• Leave: administer FMLA, parental leave, short-term disability, and applicable state programs, document ADA accommodations, and track dates, certifications, and return-to-work requirements
• COBRA and records: coordinate COBRA and benefit terminations and keep benefits and leave records confidential and current
• HRIS (Paylocity): keep employee data accurate and enter new hires, compensation changes, promotions, transfers, manager changes, and terminations
• Payroll partnership: work with Finance and Payroll so approved changes land in the pay period they take effect, and audit records and HRIS data for accuracy
• Records and reporting: maintain personnel files and required documentation, prepare routine and ad hoc HR reports, and handle employment verifications and record requests
• Recruiting support: post approved openings in the applicant tracking system, maintain multiple postings and recruiting documentation, and handle interview scheduling. 
• Offers and screening: prepare and send approved offer letters and pre-employment paperwork, initiate and track background checks, and tell candidates what happens next
• Onboarding: enter new hires into the HRIS, coordinate orientation, confirm required documentation, and make sure the manager, the access, and the paperwork are ready before day one
• Employee changes: process approved compensation changes, promotions, and transfers, prepare the change documentation, and coordinate with Payroll
• Compensation and performance cycles: maintain accurate compensation records, assist with benchmarking and annual compensation review, and administer RTA's semi-annual golden quadrant exercise
• Compliance: execute HR policies consistently, maintain required notices, records, and forms, enable mandatory employee trainings, and keep the handbook, state addenda, and policies current as laws change and as RTA adds employees in new states
• Claims: respond to unemployment claims and coordinate workers' compensation claims and documentation
• Vendors and audits: coordinate with HR vendors and benefit providers, support HR audits and information requests, and raise compliance concerns early rather than late
• Continuity: document how the recurring work actually gets done, keep a designated backup in Finance current on the payroll-critical path, and make sure nothing in HR exists only in your head or only in your login
• Employee experience: be the HR resource people can actually reach, execute established engagement, recognition, and wellness initiatives, prepare HR and benefits communications, and coordinate employee surveys
• Where the lines are: you are part of the recruiting process, not the owner of sourcing and closing. You do not process payroll; you make sure Payroll gets clean, approved, on-time data. And we do not have a learning and development function yet, so we would like you thinking about what it should be, even though building it is not this year's job.
• Key Results Areas (aka the Job Outcomes)
• Time to resolution on employee and manager requests. First substantive response within one business day, closed or owned with a date within five. This is the leading indicator for everything else in the role. If it slips, the file audits and onboarding readiness are already slipping too.
• Payroll-affecting data accuracy. Percentage of approved employee changes entered before the payroll cutoff, and the count of retro corrections traceable to HR entry. This is the one with direct dollar consequences, it is almost entirely in your control, and it is the failure employees remember longest. Nobody forgets a wrong paycheck.
• Compliance file integrity and on-time filings. Quarterly audit completeness across personnel files, I-9s, and leave documentation, and every required filing, report, and posting completed on or before its deadline with no extensions and no late notices. EEO-1, ACA reporting, 401(k) census and plan-year support, the OSHA 300A posting window, and state notice refreshes sit on a calendar you own. Nobody notices any of this until there is an audit, an agency inquiry, or a lawsuit, at which point it is the only thing that matters.
• New-hire readiness, two business days out. Access, paperwork, and a first-day plan complete before a start date, every time. This is a cycle-time commitment that sits under time to resolution and gets tracked monthly on the operational dashboard rather than saved for a review.
• Open enrollment execution. Communications out by the published date, every election reconciled to carrier files within five business days of close, and zero missed carrier deadlines. You do not set plan design or cost, so you are measured on the milestones you own.
• Leave documentation. Dates, certifications, and return-to-work plans on file, audited as one of the categories in the quarterly compliance review. A leave gap surfaces in the same review as an I-9 gap, which is where it belongs.
• AI fluency, measured as a lighter manual load. Reviewed at six and twelve months: the recurring work in this seat takes fewer touches than it did when you started, and you can name what you retired, automated, or handed to a system. AI is how most of that will happen, and we would rather see one process genuinely fixed than four automations shipped to hit a number.

Toby Flenderson got run out of the building. Ted Lasso got people to run through walls for him. HR is not the department people love by default, it is the one that earns it one handled problem at a time. Think you can be the one they trust? Prove it.

Qualifications

OK, the boring HR part of the job posting that looks like every other posting out there, but it's necessary:

• 5–7+ years of progressive, hands-on Human Resources experience
• Broad practical experience across employee relations, benefits, leaves, HR operations, performance management, and compliance, with a record of personally executing the work rather than overseeing it
• Working knowledge of FMLA, ADA, FLSA, Title VII, and other applicable employment requirements, including multi-state exposure
• Hands-on benefits and leave administration experience
• Experience with HRIS and payroll systems; Paylocity experience strongly preferred
• Daily working use of AI tools, with specific examples of what it changed about your output
• Writing a manager can use without editing and an attorney can read without wincing
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification preferred

The Bottom Line

You have made it this far, congratulations! We are really looking for people who are ideal team players, with an almost frightening intensity around follow-through, accuracy, and treating people well on the worst day of their year. If you are the kind of person who gets a genuine lift out of closing the loop on something nobody else wanted to own, we want to talk.

Compensation & Work Location

• Reports to the executive team through the Office of the CFO
• Base salary between $90,000 and $120,000 based on experience
• This is a full-time, remote-eligible U.S. role with travel up to 10% based on business needs
• Phoenix metro employees work hybrid (3 days in office)
• Fully remote candidates outside the Phoenix metro area are welcome to apply and will be expected to visit RTA HQ in Glendale, Arizona a few times per year for team events
• This position is classified as exempt and is not eligible for overtime pay

Why Top Talent Chooses RTA

We invest in our people, period.

• 401(k) with 6% Safe Harbor match (100% vested day one)
• Flexible PTO model built on trust and manager-approved time off
• Cigna PPO and HSA medical plan options with company contributions ($780–$1,950 annually)
• Garner Health HRA program: up to $1,000 individual / $2,000 family reimbursement opportunity
• Wellness rewards up to $350 annually
• Virtual care and mental health support resources
• Company-sponsored benefits including dental, vision, EAP, life, STD, LTD, legal plan, and identity theft protection options
• Additional employee perks, wellness initiatives, and discount programs

The Part We're Most Proud Of

• 99% of employees say RTA is a Great Place to Work® (Certified 3 years running, and #34 on the 2026 list)
• 30% ARR growth for two years straight
• We are an AI-forward company building for the future
• Big growth. Real benefits. Strong culture. A team that delivers.
• We see you. You have been reading this for six minutes. Just apply already.

About Us

RTA has been established since 1979 and has the reputation of providing the best customer service in the market. Our purpose is to help fleets succeed. We pride ourselves on creating a caring, family-oriented atmosphere for both staff and clients, and love that our work makes a positive impact on all the lives we touch. Our clients carry kids in school buses, first responders in emergency vehicles, patients in ambulances, food and medical supplies in trucks, and people just taking the bus or train to work. We do meaningful work, and we want our clients to have the best tools available to them.

Our office spaces are open, spacious, and colorful, with an abundance of natural light. We come together often as a company to enjoy freshly baked desserts or awesome lunches, and genuinely enjoy each other's company. We offer some pretty unique perks and benefits, as well as all the standard ones. We're happy to talk through all the options.

Physical & Travel Requirements

This role has the following physical and travel requirements:

• Ability to sit or stand for extended periods
• Ability to work at a computer for prolonged periods
• Ability to travel up to 10% (minimal travel based on business needs)

Heading to RTA HQ?

Coming from the east side? You'll enjoy waving at the traffic going the other way while never having to stare at the blinding sun. It only takes about 25 minutes to get here from downtown Scottsdale in the mornings. We are located close to Arrowhead Mall, with quick access to the 101 from multiple directions.

If all of this sounds like you, and your type of company, then click apply. Seriously, we've asked you five times now, and you are still reading. Bonus points for being thorough.

Reasonable Accommodation

RTA is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process or perform the essential functions of this role, please notify us at [email protected].

Employment Notices

Employment with RTA is at-will. This means either the employee or the company may terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause or notice, subject to applicable law.

Employment with RTA may be contingent upon successful completion of a background check and other pre-employment screenings, consistent with applicable law.

We cannot accept student visas or provide sponsorship at this time.

Equal Employment Opportunity

RTA is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.

Notice of AI Use in Job Application Review

As part of our commitment in creating a fair, efficient, and consistent hiring process we may use artificial intelligence (AI) to help our recruiting teams organize, summarize, and analyze information provided by candidates, including resumes, application responses, and other materials submitted during the application process. AI may be used to identify patterns, highlight relevant skills and experience, and assist in comparing a candidate's qualifications with the requirements of a specific role. These tools are used to improve efficiency and consistency while supporting more informed hiring decisions, which will ultimately be made by the hiring team.