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Role Mandate

We are looking for a high-ownership, self-driven HR Business Partner to own the people agenda for the Pune IDC end to end. This is a single-threaded ownership role: workforce planning, employee relations, performance and talent management, HR compliance, policy governance, HR operations oversight and people analytics all sit with you.

This is not a coordination or query-handling role. You will sit in business reviews with the COO and functional leads, hold a point of view backed by data, design policy that changes behaviour rather than documents it, and carry the consequences of both. You will work as a genuine team player across TA, HR Operations, Finance and IT and act as the mirrored backup for HR Operations, so that no process, policy or stakeholder relationship in the people function is single-person dependent.

Who You Are

- High ownership You take a problem to closure without being chased, and you own the outcome rather than the activity.
- Self-driven — You set your own agenda against business priorities, work without supervision, and raise your own bar each quarter.
- Data-oriented — You reach for evidence before opinion. Every recommendation you make carries a number, a source and a consequence.
- AI-forward — You actively use Copilot, Power Automate and similar tools to remove manual effort from HR — you automate the repeatable and spend your time on judgement.
- Team player — You build trust across TA, HR Ops, Finance, IT and the US teams, and step in for colleagues without being asked.
- Exceptional communicator — You write policy, investigation notes and executive updates that need no rework, and you hold difficult conversations with clarity and calm.

What Success Looks Like

- Leaders come to you before making a people decision, not after it has gone wrong.
- Workforce plans are forecast, funded and staffed ahead of demand, not reconstructed after a delivery miss.
- Policy is written so that it is enforceable, evidence-based and earned — not a flat entitlement that erodes under pressure.
- Grievances, performance concerns and exits are handled with speed, documentation discipline and legal defensibility.
- Statutory and client-contractual obligations are audit-ready at any point, without a scramble.
- Attrition, hiring, utilisation, billability and productivity are explained with causes and recommendations, not just reported as numbers.
- Recurring HR effort reduces quarter on quarter through automation and better process design.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Workforce Planning & Business Partnership

- Partner with the COO, TA leadership and functional heads to forecast hiring demand, model capacity and align talent strategy to client and revenue commitments.
- Own headcount planning, org design inputs, role-level banding, span-of-control reviews and ramp-up readiness for new capability build-outs.
- Translate business problems into people interventions with a defined cost, timeline and measurable outcome.
- Represent the people agenda in ELT reviews and US leadership forums with credible, data-backed narratives.

Employee Relations, Performance & Talent Management

- Own grievance handling end to end — intake, investigation, documentation, resolution and closure — across work, workplace, manager, compensation, policy and interpersonal matters.
- Guide managers through goal setting, performance reviews, career pathing, succession planning, PIP design and performance exits.
- Build manager capability through structured coaching, calibration sessions and evidence-based scoring discipline; hold managers accountable for timely, defensible assessments.
- Drive engagement, recognition and retention initiatives tied to measurable attrition and experience outcomes, not activity counts.

Policy, Governance & Compliance

- Draft, review, publish and version-control all HR policies — leave, probation, WFH and hybrid attendance, Code of Conduct,



POSH, data privacy, exit and full & final settlement.
- Maintain SOP documentation for all HR processes mapped to the L1–L5 service catalogue, with 100% handbook sign-off tracking.
- Ensure compliance with applicable Indian labour laws, the DPDP Act and client contractual requirements; maintain audit-ready documentation at all times.
- Own POSH governance — IC constitution, annual training and annual return filing — and quarterly PII access review and consent management.
- Support HR, payroll, client and external audits, including SOC 2 and client-driven control reviews, as the accountable people-side owner.

HR Operations, Payroll Interface & Lifecycle Oversight

- Oversee onboarding, pre-joining engagement, probation and confirmation, offboarding and exit — holding the mirrored charter with HR Operations for full business continuity.
- Govern Zoho data integrity as the single source of truth on employee records, change requests and the document repository.
- Partner with Finance on payroll inputs, payrun governance, salary benchmarking, compensation reviews and benefits administration.
- Hold the function to published service levels — Day-1 readiness, offer release, BGV closure, probation alerts and statutory settlement timelines.

People Analytics, Automation & Reporting

- Own the monthly HR analytics pack covering attrition, hiring, utilisation, billability, productivity and cost-per-head, published on a fixed cadence.
- Build and maintain dashboards in Power BI and Zoho Analytics; automate recurring reporting rather than rebuilding it manually.
- Apply AI and workflow automation — Copilot, Power Automate, Zoho Flow — to lifecycle documentation, reporting, reminders and policy drafting, with measured effort savings.
- Convert metrics into recommendations with a named owner and a date — every report must end in a decision.

Required Qualifications and Experience

- 7–10 years of progressive HR experience, including demonstrable HRBP ownership for a business unit or site of meaningful scale.
- MBA / PGDM in Human Resources from a Tier-1 institute — IIM, XLRI, TISS, SIBM/SCMHRD, MDI, FMS, XIMB, NMIMS or equivalent — is mandatory.
- Demonstrable ownership of employee relations casework, including investigations, performance conversations and exits, with documentation that has withstood scrutiny.
- Working command of Indian labour law — Code on Wages, Shops & Establishments, POSH, maternity benefit, EPF/ESIC and statutory settlement timelines — with the ability to apply it to live cases rather than quote it.
- Practical DPDP Act understanding as it applies to employee and candidate personal data, consent and access control.
- Hands-on HRMS ownership including configuration, data hygiene and reporting; Zoho People experience is strongly preferred.
- Strong data orientation: advanced Excel, dashboard construction, and the ability to defend a number in front of a CFO.
- Excellent written and verbal communication in English; able to draft policy, investigation notes and executive-grade communication independently and to present confidently to senior US stakeholders.
- A collaborative, low-ego working style with a track record of partnering effectively across functions.
- Experience in IT services, staffing, GCC or captive delivery environments, with exposure to US or global stakeholders.

What Sets You Apart

- You have built HR process from scratch — policies, SOPs, service catalogue and governance authored in a scaling environment rather than inherited.
- Hands-on Zoho People configuration, workflow and analytics experience.




- Demonstrated use of AI tooling to cut HR turnaround times, with before-and-after numbers you can quote.
- Experience preparing for or operating under SOC 2 or comparable client-driven control frameworks.
- Experience designing performance-linked advantages and incentive structures rather than flat entitlements.
- Prior exposure to an entity build-out, office migration or rapid headcount scale-up.

Hiring Bar: Evidence Expected in Interview

Assess on specific, recent examples and reasoning depth — not familiarity with terminology. Strong answers explain the situation, the evidence gathered, the options considered, the decision taken, the resistance encountered and the measured outcome.

Dimension

Acceptable

Bar-raiser

Ownership

Completes assigned work reliably

Has taken an unowned problem, claimed it, and closed it without being asked

Self-direction

Works well against a defined plan

Has set the agenda and delivered with no supervision or precedent

Business partnership

Advises managers on process and policy

Changes business decisions with an independent, data-backed position

Employee relations

Has closed grievances and disciplinary cases

Has run contested investigations that held up under legal or audit review

Data orientation

Publishes accurate HR dashboards

Has used data to predict and pre-empt an attrition or capacity problem

AI and automation

Uses HR tooling as configured

Has automated a live HR process and can quantify the effort saved

Collaboration

Works cordially across functions

Has resolved a cross-functional conflict and strengthened the relationship

Communication

Writes clearly and presents adequately

Has told leadership something unwelcome, with evidence, and made it stick

Working Model

This role is based in Pune and is in-office five days a week. The people function at the IDC depends on presence — floor visibility, walk-in access for employees, live manager coaching, investigation conversations and on-site audit and inspection readiness cannot be delivered remotely. Standard hours are IST, with a planned 2–3 hour overlap with US stakeholders and flexibility during critical cycles such as appraisals, audits and payroll close.

Role Boundaries and Decision Rights

- The HRBP is the accountable owner for policy, employee relations outcomes, compliance posture and people analytics at the IDC.
- The role holds a mirrored charter with HR Operations on a primary/backup model, ensuring continuity across both positions.
- Compensation philosophy, entity-level legal positions and US-aligned frameworks are decided jointly with the COO, Finance and US HR; this role provides the India position, evidence and execution.
- The role is expected to challenge weak process constructively and propose alternatives supported by evidence, impact and an implementation plan.

Cultural Fit — The Kway

- Integrity — You act with intention, keep promises, and take responsibility — especially when the decision is unpopular.
- Excellence — You set an impossibly high bar for documentation, fairness and follow-through.
- Compassion — You lead with empathy and remember that every case file is a person.
- Unity — You break silos between HR, TA, Finance, IT and the US teams.
- Adaptability — You adjust in real time as the business evolves — and rewrite the policy when it stops working.
- Courage — You say the difficult thing early, to the person who needs to hear it.
- Fun — You bring energy and humour to a function that badly needs both.

Why This Role Stands Out

- Single-threaded ownership of the people agenda for a quick-scaling NYSE-listed company's India center.
- Genuine greenfield scope — policy, governance, analytics and compliance frameworks you will author, not administer.
- A mandate to build an AI-enabled HR function rather than run a manual one.
- Global exposure to US leadership, client control requirements and cross-border people practices.
- Competitive compensation, performance bonuses and benefits benchmarked to Pune's top-tier employers.

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