HR Operations Specialist

About ULAC

United Legwear & Apparel Co. (ULAC) was founded in the United States in 1998. Since then, the company has grown into a globally recognized apparel business built on speed, instinct, and strong commercial drive. Through smart partnerships and decisive execution, ULAC has scaled into a multi-brand powerhouse across legwear, bodywear, and apparel.

We design, manufacture, and distribute for global brands including Scotch & Soda, Ted Baker, PUMA, Champion, Hurley, and Skechers — combining brand building, product development, and operational excellence.

Following more than two decades of success in the US, ULAC launched its European entity in 2023 to open the door to the European market and build a fully integrated wholesale brand and distribution platform across the EU and UK.

Today, our European headquarters is based in Hoofddorp — home to our showrooms and creative workspace, where design, merchandising, sales, operations, finance, and leadership teams work side by side under one roof. It’s fast-moving, collaborative, and hands-on.

Our European wholesale and e-commerce business now employs 150+ people (650+ globally) across the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, and France — actively scaling across international markets and proudly partnering with franchise partners to bring our brands to consumers throughout Europe and beyond.

As we continue to grow, our focus is on strengthening structure, increasing consistency, and building the operational foundation that supports long-term performance.

This HR Generalist role sits within our European entity in Hoofddorp and plays a key role in building that foundation. We’re looking for someone who wants to own and run a smooth HR Ops engine — and help shape how people operations scale across Europe.

A Typical Week

As HR Generalist, you operate at the heart of people operations — bringing together HR Ops, payroll, recruitment, benefits, people events, and day-to-day support for the HR Director and HRBP.

Your week usually starts by reviewing the HR inbox and current priorities. Where are we behind? What needs attention? You create clarity and structure for the days ahead.

You might be running 2–3 hiring processes at the same time — reviewing applications, coordinating interviews, aligning feedback, preparing offers.

Payroll is coming up. You track salary changes, new hires, sick leave adjustments, parental leave updates — making sure every change is correctly reflected before submission. When payroll outputs return, you review them carefully, resolve discrepancies, approve, and close the cycle.

Alongside this, you own our employee benefits offering. You manage and optimize benefits such as ClassPass accounts, OV business cards, pension and insurance updates — ensuring employees understand what’s available and vendors stay aligned.

You also take ownership of people events and engagement moments. This could mean organizing a company townhall, coordinating monthly drinks, setting up a sports tournament, or supporting leadership training sessions. You don’t just handle logistics — you think about participation, experience, and impact.

In between, operations continue:

• Contract amendments and renewals
• Policy updates for new countries
• Tracker improvements
• Reporting upgrades
• Automating repetitive workflows

You’re continuously tightening the HR engine — making sure it runs smoothly, accurately, and efficiently.

Your Responsibilities

🔧 HR Operations, Payroll & Employee Lifecycle

• Own the full employee lifecycle (offers, contracts, amendments, renewals, exits) and ensure accurate, audit-ready personnel files and documentation
• Maintain HR systems, policies, and compliance standards across four countries
• Manage sickness, vacation, and absence administration in line with Dutch labour law
• Coordinate monthly payroll across NL, DE, UK, and FR with external providers — submitting all changes (onboarding, offboarding, salary updates, leave mutations), reviewing payroll outputs, resolving discrepancies, and aligning reporting with Finance
• Own end-to-end employee benefits administration (ClassPass, OpenUp,OV business cards, pensions, insurances), serving as primary contact for employees and external vendors
• Own the HR inbox and act as first-line support for employee queries
• Coordinate onboarding logistics (contracts, system access, first-day readiness, stakeholder alignment)

🎯 Recruitment, People Events & Employee Experience

• Run structured hiring processes (typically 2–3 roles at a time)
• Coordinate interviews, prepare offers, and support onboarding
• Organize people events such as monthly drinks, sports tournaments, townhalls, and end-of-year moments
• Support leadership training sessions from planning through execution
• Continuously improve employee experience touchpoints across the lifecycle

📊 HR Leadership Support & Process Improvement

• Support the HR Director and HRBP with dashboards, reporting, and PowerPoint presentations (headcount, turnover, hiring, payroll insights)
• Support the HRBP with performance and development cycles (goal setting, review tracking, calibration prep)
• Improve workflows, trackers, and reporting visibility
• Use Excel, automation, and AI tools to increase speed and reduce errors
• Help build structure and clarity around people data to enable stronger decision-making

What We’re Looking For

• 3–5 years of experience in HR Operations or other highly detail-oriented operational roles
• Minimum 6 months hands-on payroll coordination ownership
• Solid understanding of Dutch labour law across the employee lifecycle (parental leave, sickness, renewals, notice periods, holiday allowance, etc.)
• Comfortable working with Excel (VLOOKUP level) or motivated to quickly improve
• Highly organised, structured, and detail-driven
• Strong customer-service mindset toward managers and employees
• Curious about people and able to apply sound judgement when assessing situations
• Natural appetite for process improvement, automation, and using AI to work smarter
• Experience in multi-country environments (Germany, UK, France) is a plus
• You can work in the Netherlands without a work permit sponsor
• You’re able to commute to our Hoofddorp office, at least 3 times a week.
• This role is available full-time and part time (32-36 hours) per week

You’ll Likely Succeed in This Role If You …

• Love extreme ownership and feeling responsible for outcomes
• Have an entrepreneurial mindset — you don’t wait for perfect instructions
• Get energy from making processes cleaner and more efficient
• Show strong tenacity — you close loops and finish what you start
• Demonstrate discernment — you quickly spot inconsistencies and risks
• Use AI and automation proactively to improve your work
• Thrive in fast-moving environments where structure is strengthening
• Enjoy balancing operational precision with people-facing initiatives

👥 Meet the Team

– HR Director

Sets the direction of our People agenda with a strong commercial lens and long-term perspective.

– Senior HR Business Partner

Systemic thinker with a calm approach. Builds the people systems and structures that make HR scalable and performance focused.

Together, we’re building an HR function that enables the business first — practical, structured, and grounded in real impact.

🎬 Behind the Scenes

We’re a founder-led, commercially driven business where decisions move fast. HR exists to enable that — not slow it down.

Europe is still scaling. Not everything is perfectly documented yet. This is not a plug-and-play corporate environment.

What we offer instead is ownership.

If you want a real playground to build HR operations across multiple countries — and see your impact immediately — this role delivers.

We support each other. We expect initiative and follow-through.

If you genuinely care about HR operations and love making things work better, this will be a rewarding role.