| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Human Resources |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Vice President HR |
| Direct reports | Senior HR Business Partner, HR Business Partner, HR Operations Manager |
| Experience | 12 to 16 years in HR, including 4 or more years partnering a business unit head and leading HR managers |
AVP HR job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: AVP HR
Department: Human Resources
Reports to: Vice President HR
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
An AVP HR leads the people agenda for a large business vertical, region or group of HR functions in a bank, NBFC, insurer, IT services firm or similar large Indian company. The role turns the vertical's business plan into a manpower plan, leads the HR business partners who serve it, and answers for its hiring, attrition, people cost and employee relations risk. A good AVP HR is the person the vertical head calls before a restructuring, not after it.
Key responsibilities
- Translate the vertical's annual business plan into a manpower budget covering headcount, grade mix and people cost, and defend it with finance.
- Lead a team of HR business partners and specialists, set their quarterly priorities and review how well each business unit is being served.
- Approve hiring for middle and senior positions, sit on final interviews for critical roles and hold recruiters to agreed time-to-fill targets.
- Run the annual performance and increment cycle for the vertical, including rating calibration meetings with business heads and control of increment spend.
- Review regretted attrition every month, identify the teams and managers behind it and agree retention actions with the business leaders.
- Plan succession for the top roles in the vertical and put development plans in place for each named successor.
- Guide managers through sensitive cases such as misconduct inquiries, performance-related exits and POSH complaints, and check that due process is followed.
- Lead the people side of reorganizations, new branch or unit openings and business transfers, including role mapping and employee communication.
- Review the vertical's HR practices against company policy and the Labour Codes, and escalate gaps to the VP HR with a proposed fix.
- Present a monthly people dashboard to the vertical head covering headcount, cost, hiring, attrition and open employee relations cases.
Requirements
- MBA or PGDM in Human Resources, or a master's in personnel management and industrial relations
- Graduate degree in any discipline
- A certification in HR analytics or reward management is an advantage
- 12 to 16 years in HR, including 4 or more years partnering a business unit head and leading HR managers
KRAs and KPIs for a AVP HR
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Manpower cost and headcount | Vertical headcount and people cost within 2 percent of the approved annual budget |
| Critical hiring | Critical and senior roles filled within 60 days of approval, measured each quarter |
| Regretted attrition | Regretted attrition below the yearly target agreed with the vertical head |
| Succession cover | Ready or ready-in-one-year successors named for at least 80 percent of critical roles |
| Appraisal cycle discipline | Ratings calibrated and increments released on the committed date, with spend inside the increment budget |
| Employee relations risk | Every misconduct and POSH case closed within the policy timeline with no process lapses found on review |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: HRMS, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Power BI or a similar dashboard tool, Applicant tracking system, Employee survey tool.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Vice President HR, HR Director, Chief Human Resources Officer
Interview questions for a AVP HR
- A vertical head wants to cut people cost by 10 percent in six months. How would you build the options for them?
- Tell us about a restructuring you led. What did you tell employees on the first day, and what would you change now?
- Two business heads rate their teams very differently. How do you run a fair calibration meeting?
- Attrition in one sales team has doubled in a quarter. What data do you ask for first?
- How do you judge whether an HR business partner in your team is adding value to their business?
- Which change under the Labour Codes has the largest cost impact for a company like ours, and why?
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What does an AVP HR do?
An AVP HR leads HR for a large vertical, region or group of HR functions. They plan manpower and people cost, manage the HR business partners who serve the business, run the appraisal and increment cycle for their area, handle serious employee relations cases and plan succession for key roles. They answer to the VP HR and to the business head they support.
What is the full form of AVP in HR?
AVP stands for Assistant Vice President. In Indian banks, NBFCs, insurers and IT services companies it is the band above senior manager or DGM and below Vice President. An AVP HR usually leads HR for one vertical or a set of HR functions and reports to the VP HR or the CHRO.
What is the difference between AVP HR and VP HR?
The VP HR owns the people strategy for the whole company or a large business and sits with the leadership team. The AVP HR runs one vertical, region or function inside that strategy and stays closer to daily decisions such as approving hires, handling escalations and managing HR business partners. In many companies the AVP is the natural successor to the VP.
How many years of experience do you need to become AVP HR?
Most companies look for 12 to 16 years in HR, with several years as an HR business partner or HR head for a unit. Hiring managers weigh scale more than years: the size of workforce you supported, the restructurings you handled and whether business heads trusted you with difficult people decisions.