| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Human Resources |
| Level | Manager |
| Reports to | Head of People Operations |
| Direct reports | HR Operations Executive, HRIS Executive, Onboarding Executive |
| Experience | 8 to 12 years in HR, with 4 or more in HR operations or shared services |
HR Operations Manager 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: HR Operations Manager
Department: Human Resources
Reports to: Head of People Operations
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
An HR Operations Manager runs the transactional side of HR: employee data, joining and exit processing, HR letters, system transactions, payroll inputs and HR service delivery against agreed timelines. The role often leads a shared-services team that serves several locations. It reports to the Head of People Operations or the HR Head. A good HR operations manager runs HR like a service desk, with published turnaround times, clean data and no surprises at payroll or audit time.
Key responsibilities
- Define turnaround times for HR transactions such as joining, confirmation, letters, data changes and exits, and publish them to employees.
- Lead the HR operations executives, allocate work queues by location or process and review backlogs every day.
- Process joiners in the HR system, verify their documents and create complete employee records before their first payroll.
- Approve and process changes to bank details, address, designation or department only against supporting documents.
- Issue HR letters from approved templates, including confirmation, increment, address proof and experience letters.
- Consolidate monthly attendance, leave, joiner and exit inputs for payroll, and resolve mismatches before the cut-off.
- Run exit processing: departmental clearance, asset recovery, final attendance, relieving letter and handover to payroll for settlement.
- Audit employee data monthly for missing fields, wrong reporting managers and duplicate records, and correct them at source.
- Handle HR helpdesk escalations and study repeat query types to fix the process behind them.
- Write standard operating procedures for every HR transaction and train new team members on them.
Requirements
- MBA or PGDM in HR, or a graduate with solid HR operations experience
- Knowledge of Indian payroll inputs, PF and ESI
- A Lean or Six Sigma yellow belt is an advantage
- 8 to 12 years in HR, with 4 or more in HR operations or shared services
KRAs and KPIs for a HR Operations Manager
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 |
|---|---|
| Transaction turnaround | At least 95 percent of HR transactions completed within the published turnaround time |
| Payroll input quality | Payroll input errors below 0.5 percent of employee records each month |
| Data accuracy | Fewer than 1 percent of records with missing or wrong mandatory fields at the monthly audit |
| Exit processing | Relieving letter and settlement handover completed within 3 working days of the last working day |
| Escalations | Escalated queries resolved within 2 working days |
| Documented processes | A current SOP for every HR transaction, reviewed twice a year |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: HRMS, Ticketing tool, Advanced Excel, Document management system, MS Word mail merge.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Head of People Operations, HR Manager, HRIS Manager
Interview questions for a HR Operations Manager
- How would you set turnaround times for the 15 most common HR transactions?
- Payroll found 40 wrong bank account numbers this month. How do you stop it happening again?
- A manager approved a data change with no supporting document. How do you handle it?
- What does your daily review of the team's work queue look like?
- An employee's relieving letter has been pending for three weeks. Where do you look first?
- How do you train a new operations executive in their first two weeks?
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What does an HR operations manager do?
An HR operations manager runs HR transactions and data: joining and exit processing, employee record changes, HR letters, payroll inputs, HR system updates and the HR helpdesk. They set turnaround times, lead the operations team and keep employee data accurate for payroll and audits.
What is the difference between HR operations and an HR business partner?
HR operations delivers transactions and services for all employees, such as records, letters, payroll inputs and exits, measured by speed and accuracy. An HR business partner advises a business unit's leaders on people decisions such as structure, performance, retention and hiring priorities. Operations keeps the machine running; the business partner steers people decisions.
What skills are needed for HR operations?
HR operations needs accuracy with data, working knowledge of payroll inputs and statutory rules, comfort with an HRMS and Excel, and the discipline to follow and write standard procedures. Managers in the function also need queue management, team supervision and the patience to fix root causes instead of repeating manual corrections.