Vendor Relationship Manager (Health & Safety and Compliance)

✨ ONE PLATFORM, A WHOLE WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

The best jobs are often restricted to a few wealthy cities, but talent exists everywhere. Oyster set out to change this by launching a global employment platform that enables companies to hire, pay, and support talent anywhere.

We’re proof that a strong, engaged culture doesn't require an office. Since January 2020, Oyster has:

🌏 Built a distributed team of 500+ across 60+ countries

👩‍💻 Featured in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2024/01/25/work-from-home-or-anywhere-top-30-companies-for-remote-jobs-in-2024/ as #9 in FlexJobs Top 30 Companies for remote jobs

🌈 Formed a diverse leadership team and a workforce that’s 60% female

🏆 Earned top employee engagement scores

🦄 Raised $286 million; valued at $1.2 billion

💚 Achieved B Corp status in 2023

Our momentum shows the power of global employment, and we’re just getting started! If you want to help us drive change and work remotely, we’d love for you to apply!

Location: While this position is posted in a specific region, all of Oyster’s positions are fully remote, and you can work from home. Forever. To create the best experience for our new hire, this role requires that you be based within UTC -1 to UTC +4

In this role, you’ll help manage and strengthen Oyster’s global vendor ecosystem, acting as a key partner between our internal teams, customers, team members, and external providers. You’ll build strong relationships with vendors, ensuring they deliver reliable, high-quality services that support our mission to make global employment simple, seamless, and human.

You’ll primarily manage relationships with Health & Safety and Compliance vendors, helping ensure our customers and team members receive consistent, compliant, and scalable support across the globe. You’ll monitor vendor performance, resolve operational challenges, identify opportunities for improvement, and help strengthen the way we partner with external providers.

As a collaborative team, flexibility is important. While your primary focus will be Health & Safety and Compliance vendors, we expect everyone to support where the business needs it most. During peak periods, this may include assisting with pre-sales queries, building and maintaining knowledge resources, supporting other vendor portfolios, or contributing to cross-functional initiatives that help the team deliver an exceptional customer experience.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building relationships, solving complex operational problems, working cross-functionally, and bringing structure to a fast-moving environment.

You are detail-oriented, commercially aware, solutions-focused, and comfortable balancing day-to-day operational ownership with opportunities to improve how we work.

Key Responsibilities

VENDOR RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

• Manage day-to-day relationships with key operational vendors, primarily across Health & Safety and Compliance services.

• Build a strong understanding of vendor capabilities, service models, geographic coverage, and operational processes.

• Act as a trusted point of contact between Oyster and external partners.

• Ensure vendors are equipped to support high-quality customer and team member experiences.

• Support the full vendor lifecycle, including onboarding, ongoing relationship management, performance tracking, and offboarding where required.

• Build strong working relationships with vendor stakeholders and identify opportunities to strengthen partnerships.

VENDOR PERFORMANCE & GOVERNANCE

• Monitor vendor performance against agreed KPIs, SLAs, and service expectations.

• Track trends, risks, and recurring issues, proactively raising opportunities for improvement.

• Support regular vendor reviews and performance conversations.

• Prepare reporting and insights on vendor performance for internal stakeholders.

• Help maintain accurate vendor documentation, processes, and governance frameworks.

• Support operational reviews and audits to ensure vendors continue to meet Oyster’s quality and compliance expectations.

HEALTH & SAFETY & COMPLIANCE VENDOR MANAGEMENT

• Develop expertise in Oyster’s Health & Safety and Compliance vendor landscape, including how these partners support global employment solutions.

• Partner with vendors to ensure services meet regulatory, compliance, and customer requirements across different countries and regions.

• Monitor vendor adherence to agreed standards, processes, and service commitments.

• Support the resolution of compliance-related queries, risks, and escalations.

• Partner with internal teams including Legal, Operations, Customer Teams, and Product to improve vendor-supported processes.

• Identify opportunities to improve consistency, scalability, and customer experience across Health & Safety and Compliance services.

ESCALATIONS & PROBLEM SOLVING

• Act as a point of contact for vendor-related operational issues and escalations.

• Coordinate with internal teams and vendors to investigate root causes and drive timely resolutions.

• Ensure stakeholders are kept informed throughout complex issues.

• Identify recurring problems and recommend preventative improvements.

• Support difficult conversations with vendors to improve service delivery and accountability.

• Join internal and external calls (with vendors, prospects, customers) to discuss Health & Safety and Compliance vendor matters.

VENDOR IMPROVEMENT & OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

• Identify opportunities to improve vendor processes, documentation, and ways of working.

• Partner with internal stakeholders to improve workflows and reduce operational friction.

• Analyse vendor performance data and feedback to identify trends and improvement opportunities.

• Contribute to initiatives that improve scalability, efficiency, and customer experience.

• Continuously look for ways to simplify processes and make vendor interactions more effective.

• Actively leverage AI tools and automation where appropriate to improve efficiency and share learnings with the wider People Services team.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL PARTNERSHIP

• Partner with teams across Operations, Legal, Customer Success, Sales, Support, and Product to understand business needs and vendor requirements.

• Provide insights on vendor capabilities, limitations, and opportunities.

• Support internal teams with vendor-related questions and operational challenges.

• Contribute to projects that improve how Oyster manages and partners with external providers.

PROJECTS

• Support People Services and cross-functional projects that help us achieve our mission to enable companies to hire anyone, anywhere.

• Take ownership of project workstreams, driving progress, communication, and delivery.

CORE REQUIREMENTS

• 4+ years of experience in Vendor Management, Partner Management, Operations, Customer Success, Compliance, or a related function.

• Experience managing external partners or service providers in a fast-paced environment.

• Strong relationship management skills with the ability to build trust with internal and external stakeholders.

• Experience monitoring vendor performance, SLAs, KPIs, or service delivery metrics.

• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholders.

• Excellent problem-solving skills with a proactive and solutions-oriented mindset.

• Ability to analyse data, identify trends, and translate insights into improvements.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Comfortable managing ambiguity and working in a scaling environment.

• Ability to influence stakeholders and drive outcomes without direct authority.

• Experience managing operational issues, escalations, and complex stakeholder conversations.

• Collaborative approach with experience partnering across multiple teams.

BONUS EXPERIENCE

• Experience managing Health & Safety, Compliance, HR, employment, legal, or risk-related vendors.

• Experience working within an Employer of Record (EOR), global employment, HR tech, or international operations environment.

• Experience working with vendors across multiple regions (APAC, EMEA, LATAM, AMER).

• Experience building vendor governance processes, frameworks, or reporting.

• Experience using AI tools or automation to improve operational workflows.

• Experience working in a fast-paced startup or global technology environment.

• Additional languages.

You'll also need

• A reliable home internet connection (or be able to get one)

• Fluent English language

HOW WE WORK TOGETHER AT OYSTER

Our values guide the work we do, the decisions we make, and the culture that makes us special. We make it happen. We drive change. We build and give trust, and we are a united team.

Our mission is to create a more equal world, one global hire at a time. Everything we do ladders up to our mission, and that doesn’t just mean building software. We develop programs, participate in workshops, and create dedicated teams to ensure we successfully support companies and knowledge workers in this new world of work. 

We embrace asynchronous communication and collaborative work and share our practices in the Oyster Public HQ https://oysterhr.notion.site/Welcome-to-The-Reef-Oyster-s-Open-Source-Employee-Guide-fc482e3f107c4afd8c85ed217f1d0c1d to help other global teams learn from our experiences.

HOW YOU WORK

With diverse locations, cultures, and needs, we created How YOU Work; https://oysterhr.notion.site/How-YOU-work-ac16c1932e314ffd8cb693e332458395 a program supporting your whole human experience at Oyster:

• Work from anywhere: Oyster has no borders or HQ. As long as work is timely, your team is supported, and you're authorized to work where you live, you can work from anywhere.

• Paid time off: Enjoy 40 days off per year (including holidays and vacation), or more if required by your country.

• Mental health support: Access Plumm https://oysterhr.notion.site/Plumm-3b5e7e70dec6428e975f68f25972cfb7, our mental well-being service.

• Wellbeing allowance: Each month, receive a wellbeing allowance in your ThanksBen wallet. Spend it on a wide range of options; see the benefits catalogue https://www.thanksben.com/employee-benefits-catalogue for ideas.

• Flexible parental leave: All new parents are eligible for at least three months’ paid leave, with job protection for up to 12 months or as required locally.

• WFH stipend: Receive a stipend for your laptop and home office equipment to get you set up quickly.

✨ THE BEST JOBS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE 

We embrace diverse perspectives and intentionally build our product and company with an inclusive, global mindset. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet every criterion, and are committed to a trust-based, thriving environment.

Oyster is committed to ensuring equal opportunity of employment for qualified persons with disabilities and actively fosters an inclusive work environment. If you require reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process, please email jobs@oysterhr.com with the subject line: Interview Accommodations.

Our available positions are on our careers page. Our team will only contact you from an @oysterhr.com email, and we will never ask for money as part of an interview process or job offer. If you receive a suspicious email about Oyster jobs or are directed to a site other than www.oysterhr.com/careers http://www.oysterhr.com/careers, please report it via our Compliance and Ethics Helpline https://faceup.com/c/8tpzyyye.