IMPORTANT POINTS: How you can use labour

law skills to go from HR manager to business

leader

HR managers are facing various challenges today, such as:

- slow growth in salary, low incentives compared to people in sales, marketing, tech,
stagnation,

- You do firefighting and handle the most challenging issues at the frontline, such as
attrition, employee dissatisfaction, sexual harassment, whistleblowers, corruption,
etc. do you get the credit due to you?

- There is huge emotional pressure, and uncertainty about the future, even though you
contribute a lot to the business.

How can you make your way to director or CXO level positions? There seems to be no
clear pathway to progress.

An average HR manager in India earns INR 7 lakhs per year.

To earn around 20 lakhs or more, you need to get to VP(HR) /HR director/CHRO (30-45
LPA) level as per Payscale.com

But the average time taken for an HR executive to become a CHRO is easily 20 years, and
every HR manager does not become a CHRO. In fact, most HR managers will not become
CHROs.

What do you have to do to make it happen for you? Do you want to wait for 20 years to get
there, or do you want this to happen in the next 5 years?

What will you have to do differently? How can you become the chief troubleshooter of your
organisation, or get a seat at the table at board level?

We are going to focus a lot on career growth - faster promotions and getting opportunities
in senior leadership, and earning more - how about earning 1-2 lakhs per month extra by
working 3 hours every day? Would you be interested?

Some of you will want more freedom, start your own consultancy, be a digital nomad, or live
with your family, without ever having to move to a big city or go to an office.

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Here are FOUR ways.

1. Find 5 startups that will pay you 30k per month to help them with all their labour and
employment law compliances, draft and implement various employment policies that
they do not have, deploy standard form employment, consultancy and freelancer
contracts, assist with setting up and administer ESOPS and be on their sexual
harassment complaint committee. There are few more things you can do - but the
idea is to provide a bouquet of services that you can deliver in less than 6-8 hours in
a month. Also, if needed, you can hire a paid intern or freelancer and delegate some
of this work if you have a time crunch. More about this later.

2. Sitting fee as an independent director - 50k-1 lakh per meeting! To open up this
possibility, you have to crack a government exam. More about this later.

3. Remote freelance work from platforms like Upwork - charge USD 20 per hour. Earn
$1000 per month by doing just 50 hours of work in a month (less than 2 hrs/day)!

4. Work as an external expert for internal complaint committees of startups and SMEs,
charge 5k retainer per month. You will need 20 clients to earn 1 lakh per month. It
may seem a lot of work to cater to 20 companies but the work is very little, you
basically get paid for lending your name and doing certain annual compliances and
training sessions once in a while.

There are two important trends that we are going to take advantage of:

Trend 1: The Indian economy, which is currently around USD 3.5 trillion, will nearly
triple to USD 10 trillion by 2030 (per capita income will increase from USD 2000 to
USD 6000), and then USD 20 trillion by 2040. It will reach USD 5 trillion in 2025.

- This growth will be driven by formalised businesses, unlike the previous few decades
where most of India’s GDP was produced by only large companies or informal
businesses.

- The fact that growth is led by formalised businesses is already reflecting in

government’s consistently skyrocketing GST and income tax revenues!

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 - Any of them that employ more than 10 people need HR compliances, if nothing else!

- These businesses will need HR managers to hire employees, create policies and
processes, manage performance, and perform labour compliance.

- There are 6.3 cr MSMEs in India, of which 600,000 are registered in the
government’s GeM portal alone.

- New companies are being incorporated at a very rapid rate - the volume has
increased from 50000 per year to over 1.5 lakhs per year in the past few years:

- There are 98,000+ registered startups under the Startup India program already,
2,60,000+ listed on the site:

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 Source: here

- How can businesses scale up? 3 things are needed for growth, and all of which are
available in today’s economy:
- Technology
- Venture capital/private equity
- Human resources to scale an organisation

- The technology is there, India’s startup landscape is booming, venture capital funding
is hitting record highs.

- Government policies are also encouraging foreign investment, and therefore, growth
in India.

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 - The time is ripe for HR managers to take the mantle and lead India’s growth
story.

However, remember that SMEs, startups and new businesses cannot afford to hire
untrained people.

How can you assist them?

Here are the top 10 assignments that you can perform for them:

Here are the top 10 things any startup needs to make sure that these concerns are met:

#1 - Standard employment agreements for employees

#2 - Consultancy agreements for external consultants

#3 - Draft specialised CXO agreements

#4 - ESOP plans to incentivise and retain high performers to stay in the company

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#5 - Implementation of employment policies such as Code of Conduct and Whistleblower
Policies

#6 - POSH compliance - create anti-sexual harassment policy and IC

#7 - Compliance with key statutes - here is a list of 17+ statutes and Labour Codes that you
need to know how to comply with.

#8 - Implementation of appropriate exit processes

#9 - Performance management, issuing notices for breach of Code of Conduct, handling

terminations

#10 - Maintain document trails and handle communication with lawyers when there is a
dispute/ social media outcry caused by unscrupulous employees

A lot of this work is recurring.

Here are 10 things you can do under POSH Act as well:

1. Frame, improve and disseminate the contents of the anti-sexual harassment policy of
the company based on the changes in the company’s business model and learnings
over the time

2. Conduct training and refresher programs for employees, consultants, interns and
contract workmen - at least once in 6-12 months.

3. Train the ICC members of the company on how to deal with complaints - once a year,
unless a new ICC member is appointed.

4. Ensure that the ICC is created as per the requirements of the law for all the
“workplaces” of the organisation and operating in compliance with the POSH Act

5. Create a safe environment for the workforce to report sexual harassment and notify
about the ICC - you will do this through a number of communications and posters
that are disseminated in the workplace

6. Assist the company in conducting investigations and inquiry where a complaint is

filed

7. Take evidence, maintain records of proceedings and ensure that the details are
confidential

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 8. Prepare inquiry reports with recommendations to the MD/CEO for implementation

9. Refer complainants to the police in appropriate cases

10. Assist the company in filing annual compliances report under POSH Act - once a
year

Why will they hire you?

Finding a full-time senior HR person is hard - it will easily cost startups 75K to 2 lakhs. And
most senior people will want to work with a team, pushing the budget even higher.

A fresher may cost less but will not be able to do this work effectively. Most mature
businessmen and entrepreneurs who are growing fast already know this.

But they need to solve their problems. Not addressing these issues can hurt a high-growth
startup very badly:

1. It would lead to problems in a due diligence that could throw derail their next
investment round
2. Employees could regularly violate their notice period, or do incomplete handovers, or
share confidential data with competitors
3. Work culture will be destroyed and genuinely talented and hardworking people would
see no incentive to stay with the organisation and perform
4. The startup could also be embroiled in legal disputes and face negative press
coverage as media is always hungry for stories regarding startups
5. It could cause them reputational losses and lead to hiring challenges if Glassdoor
ratings are low. They could also lose clients if employees wrongfully malign them on
the internet

This is a big pain point.

Can you solve these problems for them?

Your job is to find 5 startups that will pay you 20k-30K per month to help them with
everything - create a bouquet of services that you can deliver in less than about 8 hours in a
month.

If needed, you can hire a paid intern or freelancer and delegate some of this work if you
have a time crunch.

Take advantage of the opportunities arising in the international market - which is

many times bigger, and you have a massive cost advantage, with almost no
competition.

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Focus on startups in countries like the US, UK, Canada, Europe, Singapore, UAE and
Australia.
Minimum wages in US, UK, Canada, Europe countries for unskilled workers is more than
USD 10/hr.
HR managers there charge USD 60/hr - 100/hr. Imagine what you can earn if you just
charge USD 20/hr and work for 100 hours.
How much is it?
USD 20/hr x 100 hours = USD 2000!
Those of you who are already earning this amount can hire a junior/freelancer to send cold
emails to clients based on your instructions to set up meetings.
You can also delegate the work to your freelancers.
Your responsibility will be to convert the client and the final review of the work.

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