People & Finance Associate

KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a national network of free, open enrollment, college preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and life. There are 255 KIPP schools across the nation and the District of Columbia, serving more than 100,000 students. Nationally, KIPP students are graduating at 3x the national average for low-income students.

Founded in 2008 with 50 students in 5th grade, KIPP Columbus currently serves nearly 2,000 students in grades Kindergarten through twelfth.  The mission of KIPP Columbus is to create a system of schools where students develop the intellectual, academic, and social skills needed to understand and take action on issues they encounter in everyday life.

KIPP Columbus continues to rank as one of the top five schools for academic growth of any school in the state of Ohio, and is a top performing urban school in the state for academic growth. In our second class of graduating high school seniors in the spring of 2021, 100% of students were accepted to college with over $20 million in merit scholarships from colleges and universities awarded.

In addition to academic excellence, KIPP Columbus also partners with more than 100 community organizations to provide extracurricular activities, programming, health and wellness services, meals, and more to KIPP students, families, and the broader community. KIPP is also a member of the Ohio High School Athletic Association, offering more than 10 varsity sports.

The KIPP Columbus learning campus will continue to advance student learning, expand partnerships, enable superior programming, and serve as a teaching and leadership lab for schools nationwide, reimagining education through a deeper lens of antiracism, excellence, and joy.

Interested in learning more about our school?  Please check out our website: https://www.kippcolumbus.org/

The Opportunity

KIPP Columbus is seeking a highly organized, curious, and service-oriented People & Finance Associate to strengthen the operational backbone of two critical teams—and help shape how KIPP Columbus uses trusted data and emerging intelligence tools to make better decisions.

This is a shared-services role designed to flex with the operating rhythms of the People and Finance teams. The Associate will own a defined set of repeatable, process-driven responsibilities in each department, shifting emphasis during predictable peaks such as hiring and onboarding, payroll and benefits cycles, purchasing, month-end close, and audit or grant-reporting periods. Higher-judgment employee relations, labor relations, accounting, financial planning, and approval responsibilities remain with the Director of Human Resources and the Finance leader.

The distinctive third dimension of the role is intelligence operations. As KIPP Columbus develops tools such as its People Analytics Agent/KIPP Intelligence, the Associate will help keep the underlying information accurate, current, relevant, and continuously improving. This is not a software engineering role. It is an opportunity for someone who combines strong operational discipline with data fluency, sound judgment, and genuine interest in how technology can improve the way teams work.

Key Responsibilities

People Operations

• Coordinate defined portions of onboarding and offboarding, including document collection, system setup, required forms, benefits and payroll handoffs, transition communications, and completion tracking.
• Prepare offer and employment documents from approved templates and maintain accurate team-member records in UKG Ready and related systems.
• Process routine employee changes—including job, compensation, status, benefits, and separation updates—after required approvals are documented.
• Support payroll readiness by validating time, attendance, leave, compensation, and change data; identify discrepancies and route exceptions for resolution.
• Maintain licensure, personnel-file, benefits, and compliance records; monitor deadlines and follow up on missing requirements.
• Manage routine team-member inquiries and the shared HR inbox, escalating policy, employee-relations, labor-relations, or other judgment-intensive matters to the Director of Human Resources.
• Provide logistical and recordkeeping support for HR projects, trainings, investigations, and collective bargaining administration without independently advising on or deciding those matters.

Finance Operations

• Support day-to-day purchasing and accounts-payable workflows, including reviewing requests for required documentation, preparing requisitions and purchase orders, and tracking items through completion.
• Review invoices and expense submissions for completeness and alignment with approved purchasing procedures; route exceptions and approval questions to the Finance leader.
• Maintain organized vendor, purchasing, and accounting records and assist with reconciliations between invoices, purchase orders, account balances, and internal reports.
• Respond to routine purchasing and payment-status questions from school and operations teams and provide clear guidance on established processes.
• Gather, organize, and validate supporting documentation for month-end close, audits, grant reporting, and other recurring finance cycles.
• Provide cross-functional coverage during predictable finance peaks while preserving segregation of duties and established approval controls.

Data & Intelligence Operations

• Maintain the approved source files, data dictionaries, reference materials, and organizational context used by KIPP Columbus intelligence tools, following clear ownership and update schedules.
• Perform recurring data-quality checks across People and Finance systems; identify missing, conflicting, stale, or unusual information and coordinate correction with the appropriate data owner.
• Maintain a transparent update log documenting source changes, refresh dates, known limitations, and unresolved questions so users can understand what is current and trustworthy.
• Test agent outputs against approved source data and expected answers using a defined set of recurring questions; document inaccuracies, gaps, and patterns for resolution.
• Collect and organize user feedback, distinguish data issues from tool or interpretation issues, and help prioritize improvements based on organizational value and risk.
• Support the addition of new questions, metrics, definitions, and context as KIPP priorities evolve, ensuring changes are reviewed by the appropriate People, Finance, or organizational leader before release.
• Promote responsible use by protecting confidential information, following role-based access expectations, and escalating sensitive or high-impact outputs for human review.
• Create simple process documentation, job aids, and release notes that help leaders understand what the tools can answer, what changed, and where limitations remain.

Shared-Service Execution

• Maintain a visible work plan and service calendar across People, Finance, and intelligence responsibilities, flagging capacity conflicts early.
• Use checklists, templates, documented workflows, and service standards to produce accurate, timely, and repeatable work.
• Recommend practical process improvements and automation opportunities while preserving internal controls, confidentiality, and a strong team-member experience.
• Provide backup support across the People and Finance teams during absences or peak periods and perform other related duties within the role’s capacity and level of responsibility.

• Bachelor’s degree preferred; equivalent relevant education and experience will be considered.
• Approximately 1–3 years of successful experience in human resources, finance, operations, data administration, or another detail-intensive service function.
• Demonstrated ability to manage recurring workflows accurately, meet deadlines, and follow through across multiple stakeholders.
• Strong spreadsheet and data-management skills, including comfort with filters, lookups, data validation, reconciliation, and identifying inconsistencies; experience with Excel or Google Sheets required.
• Comfort learning and working across business systems; experience with an HRIS, accounting or purchasing platform, reporting tool, or knowledge-management system is strongly preferred.
• Curiosity about AI-enabled tools and the discipline to test outputs against trusted sources. Coding or software-development experience is not required.
• Ability to translate policies, definitions, and business processes into clear documentation, checklists, test questions, and user guidance.
• Excellent judgment and discretion when handling confidential personnel, payroll, and financial information.
• Strong customer-service orientation and clear written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to recognize when a matter is routine and process-based—and when it requires escalation to an HR, Finance, legal, or organizational leader.
• Flexible, collaborative, inquisitive working style with the ability to adapt as priorities shift across seasonal operating cycles.
• Commitment to KIPP Columbus students, families, team members, and values: Imagine, Navigate, Seek, Persevere, Integrity, Responsibility, and Empathy.

Compensation and Benefits

KIPP Columbus offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefit plan including medical and dental insurance, as well as group term life insurance, retirement plan and paid time off.

Statement of Non-Disclosure

KIPP Columbus is committed to a policy of equal treatment for all individuals applying to the school for consideration of any position (admission, employment, etc.). KIPP Columbus does not discriminate on the basis of disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes set forth in Section 4112.02 of the Ohio Revised Code.