A consultancy that sets up global capability or offshore development centres hires, houses and runs teams for foreign clients. Its own staff move between set-up phases, and its hiring waves must meet the client's start dates.
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Share your requirementsThese consultants help overseas companies open a captive centre or a dedicated development team in India: choosing a city, setting up an entity, finding space, hiring the first leaders and engineers, and running operations until the client takes over. The firm's own team includes engagement leads, recruitment and talent partners, facilities and vendor coordinators, finance and compliance coordinators, and project managers. Each engagement runs through phases with changing needs, with a rush of hiring early and handover at the end. Clients abroad work in different time zones and shift their targets. Staff may be placed inside the client's new centre for months. The firm's best people are often hired by the client at handover. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in GCC and ODC consultants. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
The client wants a team of leaders and engineers in weeks, and the talent partners handle a flood of roles with no extra hands.
Early work needs entity and space specialists, later work needs hiring and onboarding, so staff are stretched or idle as phases change.
A headquarters decision shifts the headcount or the city, and the team redoes plans and tells candidates something new.
Leads join calls with the client at night and then face full workdays, and fatigue builds across a long engagement.
Consultants placed in the client's centre follow two sets of norms and are seen by neither side as part of the team.
The best project managers and HR staff are offered jobs by the client, and the firm is left to find replacements for the next set-up.
Space fit-out, equipment and transport vendors miss dates, and coordinators take the blame from both client and landlord.
Each engagement learns about offers, notice periods and candidate concerns, and the learning is not shared.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Onboarding and Probation. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a GCC and ODC consultants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A chart of what skills each phase needs and who will cover them, with temporary support for hiring waves.
A chart of what skills each phase needs and who will cover them, with temporary support for hiring waves. See recruitment process consulting for ways to manage the surge.
A written way of handling changes in headcount, city or timing, with a notice period and the effect on the team.
A written way of handling changes in headcount, city or timing, with a notice period and the effect on the team.
A rule on late calls, time off the next morning and rotating the burden.
A rule on late calls, time off the next morning and rotating the burden. The attendance, shift and leave process can hold it.
A named supervisor, regular contact with the firm and clear terms on whose rules apply.
A named supervisor, regular contact with the firm and clear terms on whose rules apply. Document it through the HR documentation process.
State in the contract how and when the client may hire your staff, with a transition fee if that is agreed.
State in the contract how and when the client may hire your staff, with a transition fee if that is agreed. Take advice from a qualified professional.
Templates, offer norms and lessons gathered after each set-up, owned by a named person.
Templates, offer norms and lessons gathered after each set-up, owned by a named person. The learning and development process helps spread it.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A process that copes with hiring waves for a new centre.
A repeatable first-month plan for staff in a new centre.
Role notes for embedded staff and terms on client hiring.
A playbook and training that carry lessons from one set-up to the next.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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How a D2C founder can decide which digital marketing work to hire for, which to buy from an agency, and which to split, with a worksheet and a five step plan.
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How a D2C founder can test a performance marketing hire on real work, ignore weak signals such as dashboard screenshots, and run a fair process.
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A first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Plan phase-wise, bring in temporary recruiting help early and use a standard process for screening and offers. Do not wait for the wave to hit.
Agree a change protocol in writing at the start, with notice and cost effects. It protects the team and keeps candidates from hearing mixed messages.
Rotate the call burden, give time off the next morning and ask whether every call needs the whole team.
Name a supervisor at your firm, meet weekly and set out clearly whose rules cover leave, conduct and reviews.
Contract terms can set how it is done, perhaps with a fee. Ask a qualified professional to draft them, and expect some of your best people to be attractive.
Staffing by phase, change protocols, embedded staff terms and the playbook are typical starting points. We begin by hearing about your last set-up. Scope, timing and fees are agreed in writing.
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