01
Own the whole problem
I don't hand off the hard middle. A leave case, an audit, a vendor RFP: I take it from first question to closed file, and I flag risk before it becomes a finding.
Home / About
About
Fifteen years of People Operations, end to end.
I've run the full employee lifecycle for companies from 50 employees to 16,000, across all U.S. states. This page is the longer version: where I started, the work I take on, and how I do it.
The story
From the payroll desk to AI-enabled People Ops.
The repetitive parts, I automate. The human parts, I keep human.
I started in HR at a Whole Foods Market payroll and benefits desk. From there I worked through hospitality at The Beverly Hills Hotel, staffing at CyberCoders, and benefits at ASICS America before moving into generalist and HRBP roles in building materials distribution, sporting goods, manufacturing, DTC commerce, and consumer tech. Each industry gave me a different failure mode to learn from. Together they taught me what actually holds up.
I take on the work most People teams dread: compliance across all U.S. states, FMLA and ADA leave, Open Enrollment, workers' comp, immigration cases, and audit prep. At Babylist, auditors called the HR processes I supported "grades above" what they typically see.
I also scale it. As a member of an AI Enablement team, I built bots, Zapier automations, and Monday.com workflows on Claude and custom GPTs. They cut hours of manual admin work and kept service steady as headcount grew.
The part that doesn't show up in a systems list: managers bring me their hard conversations, and employees tell me what they would not put in a ticket. That trust is built one conversation at a time, and it's the reason the operational work lands.
Outside of full-time work, I run POP Performance Group, coaching professionals through career moves from the hiring side of the desk, and I take on fractional and project engagements for companies that need People Ops help without a full-time hire.
Carol Vilchez-Smith, PHR
15+
years in People Ops
50
U.S. states compliance
16K
largest org supported
PHR
certified, HRCI
How I work
Four habits, every engagement.
These are the patterns behind the results on the impact page. They hold whether I'm full-time, fractional, or on a project.
02
Automate what repeats
If a task shows up every week, it becomes a bot, a Zapier flow, or a Monday.com board. That frees the team for the work that needs judgment.
03
Say it plainly
Operational detail is only useful if leaders can act on it. I turn compliance findings, leave data, and payroll exceptions into short updates with a clear recommendation.
04
People first, business always
The programs I build put people first and still serve the business: a paid gradual return-to-work for birthing parents, benefits people understand, and separations handled with dignity.
Sound like the person you need?
Full-time, fractional, or project. Thirty minutes to find out.