Track 02 · HR & People Ops
The employee lifecycle, the compliance registers, the payroll arithmetic — plus every real HR designation and what each one actually does.
The guide
The people side — hiring, onboarding, engaging, and exiting employees without breaking anything.
What the law actually asks of you — decoded from gazettes and G.O.s into the registers you need to keep.
From offer letter to bank credit — the exact arithmetic behind every payslip you'll ever process.
Career paths
HR is broader than most people think — recruiters, payroll, compliance, HRBPs, culture, IR, comp & benefits. Here's the full ladder, what you'd actually do in each seat, and where the money is.
Entry
0 – 3 yrs
5 roles
Intern, Coordinator, Exec, Onboarding
Mid
3 – 7 yrs
7 roles
Recruiter, Payroll, Generalist, ER, L&D
Senior
7 – 15 yrs
5 roles
HRBP, Comp, IR, TA Lead, HR Manager
C-suite
15+ yrs
2 roles
Head HR, CHRO / VP HR
How to read each card
Every card below shows the role name, the experience band, a short job description, the key responsibilities you'd own day-to-day, and the skills you should build for it.
0 – 1 yr · FresherSupports the HR team with sourcing, scheduling interviews, documentation, joining formalities, attendance data and basic MIS.
A day in the life
You spend the morning on Naukri and LinkedIn, sending profiles to the recruiter for shortlisting. Afternoons are interview scheduling calls with candidates and panels, followed by document collection from new joiners. You also help maintain trackers — pipeline, offers, joiners — and sit in on team huddles to learn the vocabulary.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Final-year student or fresh graduate curious about HR, patient on the phone, and comfortable on Excel.
0 – 2 yrsCoordinates day-to-day HR activities — scheduling, employee queries, HRMS data entry, ID cards, and support for onboarding & exit.
A day in the life
You're the first stop for employee HR queries — 'my leave didn't apply', 'need an address-proof letter', 'my ID card is deactivated'. You raise HRMS tickets, coordinate seat / laptop / ID for new joiners, and support exit clearance. It's a role that teaches you every corner of an HR system in the first six months.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Freshers who are approachable, organised and enjoy resolving many small requests every day.
1 – 3 yrsRuns day-to-day HR operations — onboarding, BGV, employee files, attendance, leave, engagement activities and exit formalities.
A day in the life
Mondays are onboarding — you run the induction, walk new joiners through policies, hand over the joining kit. Through the week you chase BGV vendors till reports are green, resolve attendance regularisations, execute the engagement calendar (birthday, festival, quiz), and close exit interviews & clearances. Every touchpoint an employee has with HR usually goes through you.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
1–3 years in HR or MBA-HR fresher; friendly, process-driven and enjoys running employee moments end-to-end.
1 – 4 yrsOwns the joiner experience from offer to Day 30 — documentation, induction, buddy program and early confirmation feedback.
A day in the life
You start engaging candidates the day the offer is signed — welcome emails, doc checklists, joining logistics. On Day 1 you run a warm induction, assign a buddy, and walk new joiners through the first-week plan. Then 30-60-90 day check-ins to catch red flags before they become resignations. You also close the BGV loop till every report is green.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
You care about first impressions, have great written and spoken communication, and love designing warm employee experiences.
1 – 4 yrsOwns the hiring funnel for assigned roles — JD, sourcing, screening, interview coordination, offer roll-out and joining. Tracks TAT, source mix and offer-to-join ratio.
A day in the life
Every open role has a hiring manager, and you're the person who has to fill it. You finalise the JD, source across Naukri, LinkedIn, referrals and agencies, screen 20+ profiles a day, and shortlist 3–5 for interviews. You coordinate panels, capture feedback, roll out offers and negotiate — then track candidates till joining. Your dashboard is TAT, source-mix and offer-to-join.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
You're a strong communicator, comfortable rejecting and persuading in the same conversation, and love the chase of closing a hire.
5 – 10 yrsLeads a team of recruiters for a function or geography. Owns hiring plan, source mix, vendor panel and quality of hire.
A day in the life
You start with the weekly hiring huddle — open roles, aging positions, offer-in-hand, joiners this month. You spend the day coaching recruiters, meeting business leaders on hiring plans, and negotiating with vendor panels on rate cards and SLAs. Once a quarter you review the source mix and quality-of-hire data and decide where to double down.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
5+ years in TA, ready to move from personal closures to team performance and strategic hiring.
1 – 4 yrsProcesses monthly payroll — attendance, LOP, arrears, statutory deductions (PF/ESI/PT), reimbursements and full & final. Reconciles bank files.
A day in the life
Payroll runs on a rhythm. First 5 days of the month you validate inputs — attendance, LOP, new joiners, exits, salary revisions, reimbursements. Then a test run, corrections, sign-off, and the bank file. Around the 7th, PF / ESI / PT / LWF challans are generated and filed. Between cycles you handle F&F for exits and payslip queries.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
You're precise, love Excel formulas, and get a kick out of a payroll that closes cleanly at midnight.
3 – 10 yrsDesigns and benchmarks pay structures, incentives and benefits. Owns annual increment and bonus cycle math.
A day in the life
Your day is spreadsheets and stories — benchmarking pay against market surveys, designing CTC structures that are tax-efficient and defensible, and modelling the annual increment & bonus cycle for the CFO. You also negotiate group insurance renewals and design incentive plans that actually change behaviour.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Analytical, strong on Excel and market data, and comfortable defending numbers to leadership.
2 – 6 yrsOwns HR data — HRMS configuration, master data, employee lifecycle transactions, HR letters and data audits.
A day in the life
You configure HRMS workflows so managers approve leave in one click, tune reports so leaders see the right cuts of attrition and headcount, and run periodic data audits to keep the master clean. You also generate every HR letter — offer, appointment, promotion, relieving — and are the go-to person when something in the system is 'behaving strangely'.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
System-thinking mindset, strong Excel, hands on with Darwinbox / SuccessFactors / Workday / greytHR.
2 – 5 yrsThe all-rounder — a mix of recruitment, onboarding, engagement, grievance handling, policy roll-out, PMS coordination and light compliance.
A day in the life
No two days look the same. You might spend the morning hiring for a critical role, the afternoon closing an employee grievance, and evening drafting a policy update. During PMS cycles you coordinate goal-setting, mid-year reviews and calibration meetings. You're the HR partner people actually walk up to.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
You like variety, are comfortable switching contexts fast, and want a well-rounded HR foundation.
3 – 8 yrsHandles employee grievances, disciplinary cases, POSH complaints and workplace investigations with sensitivity and documentation rigour.
A day in the life
Your day is confidential 1:1s and careful documentation. You take grievance intake calls, investigate — talk to the complainant, the accused, witnesses — and produce a written report with findings. You coordinate POSH IC hearings, draft show-cause notices, and coach managers on how to have hard conversations without creating new problems.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Emotionally steady, discreet, strong in labour law basics, and unshaken by difficult conversations.
5 – 10 yrsPartners with a business unit's leaders on manpower planning, org design, performance, retention, employee relations and change management.
A day in the life
You spend most of your day with business leaders — reviewing manpower plans, discussing retention risks, planning skip-levels, and shaping the org for the next quarter. During PMS cycles you drive calibration and moderation. When a critical person resigns, you own the counter-offer and the retention conversation.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
5+ years in HR generalist / specialist roles, high EQ, and comfortable pushing back on business leaders.
2 – 6 yrsOwns statutory compliance — PF, ESI, PT, LWF, Bonus, Gratuity, Shops & Establishments, contract labour returns and audit responses.
A day in the life
Your calendar is driven by due dates — monthly PF/ESI/PT challans and returns, half-yearly S&E returns, annual bonus, gratuity, LWF, CLRA. You also handle contractor compliance — collecting wage registers, PF/ESI proof, and ensuring the principal employer is safe. When a labour inspector visits, you're the person the office calls first.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Detail-obsessed, strong on Indian labour law, and calm reading a 40-page gazette notification.
4 – 10 yrsManages relations with unions, contract labour and local authorities at plants / large sites. Handles negotiations, settlements and disciplinary matters.
A day in the life
You spend time on the shop floor and in works-committee meetings, understanding what workers are thinking before it becomes a strike or a slowdown. You lead long-term settlement discussions, draft standing orders, run domestic enquiries, and maintain liaison with the labour department, police and local authorities.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Ideally MSW / MBA-HR with plant / factory exposure, patient, tactful and firm in negotiations.
2 – 6 yrsPlans and delivers the training calendar — induction, functional and soft-skills sessions. Tracks training hours, LMS content and feedback.
A day in the life
You build the annual training calendar from a Training Needs Identification (TNI) exercise, curate content on the LMS, and facilitate induction and soft-skills batches yourself. Between sessions you track training hours per employee, feedback scores, and post-training application on the job.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
Strong presenter, curious about adult learning, and comfortable designing content — not just delivering it.
4 – 10 yrsDrives organisation development, culture and diversity & inclusion programs. Runs engagement surveys and action planning.
A day in the life
Your day is a mix of design and facilitation — designing engagement surveys, analysing results, running action-planning workshops with leaders, and shaping culture programs like values, recognition and ERGs. You also run OD interventions — team effectiveness, change enablement, restructuring support.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
You care about systems and culture, love facilitation and are comfortable with ambiguity.
7 – 12 yrsLeads the HR function for a site, unit or mid-sized company. Owns hiring, HR ops, compliance, engagement, PMS and budget.
A day in the life
You run the HR team for a unit — reviews with recruiters, HRBPs, payroll, compliance and L&D. You own the HR budget, headcount governance, and the people-metrics dashboard leadership sees every month. You also coach specialists and step into critical escalations personally.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
7+ years with breadth across HR functions, strong on numbers and comfortable in leadership rooms.
12+ yrsSets HR strategy — talent, culture, org design, total rewards, D&I and leadership development. Sits on the leadership table.
A day in the life
Your week is business reviews, org-design conversations, workforce planning and leadership development. You own how the company hires, rewards, develops and retains people at scale. Board and ExCo meetings expect you to present people metrics as sharply as any P&L.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
12+ years across HR functions, with a strong point of view on culture and rewards.
18+ yrs · C-suiteChief People Officer for the enterprise. Owns talent, culture, org design, rewards, IR and leadership succession at the highest level.
A day in the life
You partner with the CEO on people strategy, sit on the board's people committee, and own top-team effectiveness and CEO succession. During M&A you lead people integration; during downturns you lead restructuring; through both you're the guardian of culture.
Key responsibilities
Who this role fits
18+ years, prior Head HR / HR Director stints, deep credibility with CEOs and boards.
Ranges vary by city, employer and industry — use the CTC calculator for exact numbers.
Entry (0–3 yrs)
₹2.5 – 4.5 LPA
HR Exec / Recruiter / Payroll
Mid (3–7 yrs)
₹5.0 – 12 LPA
Generalist / HRBP / Payroll Lead
Senior (8+ yrs)
₹14 – 40+ LPA
HR Manager / Head HR
C-suite (18+ yrs)
₹50 – 150+ LPA
CHRO / VP HR