The lease is signed, the first twelve laptops are in a cupboard, and the head of the new centre has a call with the parent company every morning at an awkward hour. A requisition for forty engineers has been approved abroad. Nobody yet knows who issues offer letters, which holiday list applies, or who answers when a new joiner asks about her notice terms.
This guide is for the person running that centre. It lays out what to settle in the first ninety days, in what order, and what can safely wait.
Who is accountable for what
Start with a simple question. Which decisions does the parent company take, which does the centre head take, and which need a local adviser? Write it on one page. Hiring approvals, pay bands, offer sign-off, disciplinary action and policy changes are the usual items that cause confusion.
Many new centres lose weeks because every decision travels to a different time zone. A decision grid with a named person for each row removes most of that delay. Share it with the parent's HR team in the first week, and ask them to correct it.
The first ninety days, in order
- 1
Days one to ten: the decision grid and a contact list
Settle who approves headcount, offers and exceptions. Name a local HR owner, even if that person also has other duties. List the outside advisers you will need: legal, tax, payroll, insurance.
- 2
Days ten to thirty: employment basics
Draft the offer letter and employment contract template with your own legal adviser. Fix the holiday list, working hours, leave types and the probation approach. Choose how salary will be run each month through a payroll provider or an in-house team.
- 3
Days thirty to sixty: hiring machinery
Build role descriptions and pay bands for the first twenty roles. Set up a tracker, scorecards and an interview panel. Agree how quickly a candidate hears back.
- 4
Days sixty to ninety: the joiner experience
Create the first-week plan, laptop and access checklist, a buddy for each joiner and a thirty day check-in. Run one trial onboarding with an internal volunteer before real hires arrive.
- 5
Day ninety: review with the parent
Show what is in place, what is not, and what you need from them. Agree the next ninety days.
Employment terms and local fit
The parent company's contract template is rarely right for India without changes. Terms on notice, leave, working hours, confidentiality, intellectual property and benefits are written for a different setting. Have them adapted by your own qualified legal adviser, and keep a note of every difference from the parent version, with the reason.
Pay structure for a centre with no history
A new centre has no internal pay data, and early offers set the pattern for everyone who follows. Without a band sheet, the third hire discovers she earns less than the second. Build a short sheet by role family and level, with a range for each, and decide who may approve an offer above the range. The ranges are your decision, based on the parent's budget and what the local market asks for the skills you need.
Keep the structure plain at the start: fixed pay, any variable component, and benefits. Add complexity once you have a year of data. The HR strategy and workforce planning service from GullyHR helps with headcount plans, level frameworks and pay structure for centres at this stage.
Hiring while you build
You will hire before the process is perfect. That is fine if a few rules hold. One person owns each requisition. Every interview uses a written scorecard. Every candidate hears an outcome by a date you state. The detail of building a first team is covered in hiring the first fifty people for a captive technology centre.
Decision grid agreed with the parent and shared.
Local HR owner named, with advisers listed.
Offer letter and contract adapted and approved by your adviser.
Holiday list, hours and leave types published.
Salary process chosen and tested with a dummy run.
Role descriptions and pay bands for the first roles.
Hiring tracker, scorecards and interview panel set.
Joiner checklist for laptop, access, workspace and first week.
Buddy named for each joiner.
Thirty day check-in booked at offer stage.
Grievance route and code of conduct issued.
Review with the parent on the final week.Policies: write the few that matter
Resist a forty page manual. Start with leave and holidays, working hours and attendance, conduct and anti-harassment arrangements, information security and acceptable use, expenses and travel, and a grievance route. Where the parent has a global policy, decide whether it applies, applies with local changes, or is replaced. The companion article on aligning a global parent's HR rules with an India team explains how to do that sorting.
The first joiners set the tone
The first ten people will tell everyone else what the centre is like. Give them a real first day: a working laptop, access to the code repository, a named person to ask, and a clear first task. Check in at the end of week one and again at the end of month one. Write down what went wrong, and fix the checklist before the next batch.
Reporting the parent will ask for
Parent teams usually want headcount against plan, open roles by age, offer acceptance, early attrition and a short note on risks. Agree the format early. A one page monthly report from the centre head, drawn from the tracker, is enough and stops last-minute spreadsheet requests.
What can wait
- A full performance management system: start with a simple goal and review conversation twice a year.
- A large learning catalogue: begin with onboarding and one skills track.
- Elaborate grade structures: three or four levels per family are enough at first.
- Employee surveys: use short check-ins until the headcount supports a survey.
- A bespoke HR system: a tracker and a shared drive are adequate for the early months.
For a wider view of how HR is organised in firms of this type, see software development companies. The ninety days end with a working base, not a finished system, and that is the right goal.
