People Operations Compliance Partner

Location

Barcelona, London

Employment Type

Contract

Location Type

Hybrid

Department

People

About Us

Perk (formerly TravelPerk) is the intelligent platform for travel and spend management. Built to tackle the time-consuming, manual work that gets in the way of real work, our tools automate everything from travel bookings to expenses, invoice processing, and more. By eliminating this shadow work that wastes hours, erodes morale, and saps innovation, we’re on a mission to power real work, with real impact.

We’re trusted by more than 10,000 companies worldwide, including Wise, On Running, Breitling, and Fabletics, and we’re tackling the 7 hours of lost productivity per employee each week, a $1.7 trillion problem.

Founded in 2015, Perk has grown into a global company of more than 1,800 people across 12 offices globally, with headquarters in London and Boston. We combine innovation, control, and simplicity to transform how businesses work and how people feel at work.

At Perk, we’re driven by our values, like being an owner, delivering a 7-star experience, and working as one team. We value curiosity, purpose, and mindset, not just knowledge, to unlock the power in your potential. Our talent team brings together leading minds from the travel and SaaS industries, representing over 70 countries. If you’re excited about having a real impact and shaping how millions of people experience work, we’d love you on the team.

Visit the website to learn more.

About the role

As Perk continues to scale globally and strengthen its presence across Europe and the US, ensuring labour law, security compliance and consistent people-related governance across entities has become a strategic priority.

People Operations Compliance Partner

plays a critical role in translating employment law, regulatory requirements, and internal policies into practical, scalable ways of working that protect the business while enabling a strong employee experience. This role supports compliance across all countries where Perk operates, adopting a pragmatic, risk-based, and business-aligned approach that reflects how the company actually operates.

Acting as a

key bridge between People Operations, Legal, and Security , this role coordinates cross-functional compliance, policy, and audit initiatives, ensuring clarity of ownership, visibility of risk, and follow-through on actions. Rather than enforcing compliance in isolation, the role provides transparency and informed recommendations to leadership by mapping compliance requirements, assessing associated risks, and enabling risk-aware decision-making.

Importantly, this role is execution-focused. Beyond identifying and planning compliance initiatives, the People Operations Compliance Partner is responsible for driving them to completion : coordinating internal stakeholders, external counsels, and providers to ensure outcomes are delivered, embedded into day-to-day operations, and sustained over time.

The role represents the People team in labour law, compliance, audit, and policy-related matters, ensuring legislative changes and regulatory obligations are proactively implemented across entities. While this is not an employee relations case-handling role, it ensures the frameworks, processes, and governance mechanisms are in place so that the wider People team can operate consistently, compliantly, and with confidence.

This position requires a high degree of autonomy, prioritisation, and ownership. The successful candidate will be comfortable

balancing strategic assessment with hands-on execution , progressing work independently, and operating effectively in a complex, fast-growing environment.

Key Responsibilities

1. Labour Law & Compliance Coordination

Act as the main liaison between Legal and People Operations on all employment law and compliance matters.

Translate legal and regulatory updates across Europe and the US into practical, business-oriented solutions that align with our company’s ways of working, keeping operational guidance simple and easily actionable by non-legal audiences.

Maintain a global compliance dashboard that visually tracks compliance status across all active countries, highlighting actions and potential risks.

Conduct independent risk assessments when new requests, regulations, or internal projects require compliance evaluation.

2. Compliance Programs, Audits & Governance

Lead and execute compliance audits and compliance-driven initiatives globally, including audits, remediation actions, and implementation of new compliance requirements, ensuring comprehensive reviews and actionable follow-ups that reflect both legal compliance and company values.

Support audits led by the Security team such as ISO and SOC2, providing all necessary data and evidence from the People team side for the success of these audits and certifications.

Support People Operations-owned statutory and regulatory audits, including but not limited to R&D certification audits and non-financial reporting requirements (e.g. EINF in Spain). This includes preparing documentation, coordinating responses with external auditors, and enabling managers and employees selected for audit interviews.

Support M&A-related employment due diligence and harmonisation work, including entity merges, and post-transaction integration activities coordinating across Legal, Payroll, and People Partners.

Take a hands-on role in audit preparation and delivery, including evidence gathering, documentation review, stakeholder coordination, and follow-up actions.

Partner with Legal, Total Rewards and Payroll to ensure compliance with upcoming frameworks such as the EU Pay Transparency Directive, AI Act, and time-tracking regulations, and driving actions arising from legal updates.

3. Policy Partnership & Governance

Partner with Legal and Security to review, draft, and roll out new or revised policies.

Maintain a policy and process roadmap by assessing compliance risk and impact, and make recommendations to internal People Operations processes to ensure our standard operating procedures are risk informed, and in line with local legislation, internal policies and company practices.

Contribute to ensuring all employee-facing policies are clear, accessible, and aligned with company culture and tone.

Coordinate the maintenance of compliant contract templates, offer letters, and employee handbooks in partnership with Legal and external counsels.

Drive the implementation of compliance and security-related initiatives that require cross-functional coordination, operational execution, and ongoing monitoring.

4. Cross-Functional Partnership & Governance Enablement

Serve as an escalation point for the People Operations team and other People team functions when there is uncertainty around policies, compliance, or employment law.

Problem-solve complex cases by consulting with Legal and external counsels, ensuring both compliance and employee fairness.

Act as the primary point of contact for people-related compliance and employment questions raised by Revenue teams coming from customer RFPs, due diligence questionnaires, or client audits. Coordinate with Legal and other subject matter experts to provide accurate, compliant, and timely responses, and proactively identify patterns in incoming requests to improve enablement including documentation, FAQs, or automation (e.g. chatbot content) that reduces repeat queries and accelerates response times.

Develop and deliver enablement initiatives, such as training and internal guides, for People team functions on labour law and compliance essentials and relevant insights from recent case studies.

Foster strong partnerships with stakeholders across Legal, Security, Procurement, Payroll, Total Rewards, and People Partners among others.

What we’re looking for

5+ years of experience in People Operations, Employment Law, HR Compliance, or a closely related function, ideally in a multi-country or international environment.

Strong working knowledge of European employment law frameworks, with Spain as a priority jurisdiction. Experience in additional countries (e.g. UK, Germany, Netherlands) and / or exposure to US employment compliance is a strong plus, but not mandatory.

Hands-on experience supporting or coordinating compliance initiatives such as audits, entity changes, policy rollouts, or regulatory implementations, from planning to following through and closing actions.

Proven track record of turning legal or regulatory requirements into concrete actions, processes, or implementations : not just analysis or advice.

Able to balance strategic thinking with operational execution, including periods of detailed, administrative, or audit-related work when required.

Strong collaboration and influencing skills, with experience working closely with Legal, Security, Payroll, and People teams, and able to engage with people across all levels, and from diverse backgrounds.

Confident in communicating complex compliance topics in a clear, pragmatic way to non-legal audiences, with sound judgment when navigating ambiguity or competing priorities.

Highly autonomous, well-organized, and able to prioritize effectively across multiple workstreams in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Great interpersonal and collaboration skills. You are truly resilient and positive, optimistic and enthusiastic. Someone who has a sense of humour, we deal with a very fast pace so we like to have fun along the way!

Fluent in English. Spanish is a strong advantage. Other European languages (e.g. German) are a plus.

We’re open to candidates being based in either Barcelona or London. Benefits and perks differ by location and will be provided later in the process.

How We Work

At Perk, we take an IRL-first approach to work, where our team works together in-person 3 days a week. As such, this role requires you to be based within commuting distance of our hubs. We fundamentally believe in the value of meeting in real life to improve connectivity, productivity, creativity and ultimately making us a great place to work.

For certain roles, we can help with relocation from anywhere in the world, English is the official language at the office. Please submit your resume in English if you choose to apply. Do not forget to submit an updated portfolio and / or resume.

Perk is a global company with a diverse customer base, and we want to make sure the people behind our product reflect that. We’re an equal opportunity employer, which means you’re welcome at Perk regardless of how you look, where you’re from, or anything else that makes you, well, you.

Protect Yourself from Recruitment Scams

All official communication from Perk will always come from email addresses ending in @perk.com or @externalperk.com, our verified social media channels, or recruiters listed on our official LinkedIn page. We will never ask you to pay for equipment, training, or fees, request sensitive personal information such as bank details early in the process, or communicate through unofficial apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. If you receive a message claiming to be from Perk that seems suspicious, please do not respond. Forward it to security [at] perk .com, and we will confirm whether it is legitimate.

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