Job Description: Head HR

About Us:

SleepyCat is one of India's leading D2C sleep brands, now combined with Springwel, a legacy mattress and foam manufacturer. Our ~200-person organisation spans corporate teams (marketing, e-commerce, tech, finance), retail stores, factories and warehouses across Mumbai and NCR.

Role Details:

Designation: Head- HR

Location: Mumbai; covers HR for all offices including NCR, plants (Dharuhera) and warehouses.

Reporting: Founder & CEO.

Job Purpose:

We are hiring our first Head of HR with full people ownership across both entities corporate and plant. Today, parts of HR run through a group shared-services setup; your mandate is to build an in-house people function that earns the organisation's trust: honest communication, fair performance management, a hiring engine that raises the talent bar, and people operations that never embarrass the brand. This is a culture-building role first and a process role second.

Job Requirements:

What You Will Own:

1. Culture, Communication & Trust:

- Direct communication rhythms: all-hands, leadership updates and change communication so the team hears news from leadership, not through the grapevine.

- Leadership coaching: work with founders and function heads on feedback culture private correction, public appreciation, and psychological safety.

- Policy reset: review attendance, flexibility and workplace policies so they build trust rather than signal control.

2. Retention & Talent Health:

- Retention risk management: know the top-20 critical people, their risks and their growth plans; act before the resignation letter.

- Exit intelligence: structured exit interviews with honest findings reported to leadership, and offer-drop/renege analysis feeding back into hiring.

- Burnout and workload signals: quarterly 1:1 dipsticks across departments (including ops and factory teams) with visible follow-through.

3. Hiring Engine:

- Own the hiring funnel end-to-end: role scoping and JDs, budget alignment before interviews, structured evaluation, and offer-to-join management.

- Raise the talent bar: replace pressure-driven hiring with planned hiring tied to the AOP; refresh salary benchmarks against current market.

- Leadership hiring: run searches for critical leadership roles hand-in-hand with founders.

4. People Operations (In-Housing):

- Transition HR operations in-house from group shared services: payroll accuracy, PF/statutory hygiene, HRMS ownership, letters and documentation.

- Full-and-final settlements: a defined SLA for exits, honoured every time exiting employees are brand ambassadors.

- Appraisal cycles on calendar: transparent structures, on-time increments and incentives paid when promised.

5. Org Design & Integration:

- SleepyCatSpringwel people integration: one org structure, common grading and KRAs, clean inter-entity movement with due process.

- Org effectiveness: spans of control, role clarity, and restructuring support as the business evolves.

6. Factory & Frontline HR:

- Blue-collar and plant HR: compliance, contractor management, discipline processes and engagement for factory and warehouse teams.

What Success Looks Like (Year 1):

- Regrettable attrition visibly down; critical-role bench identified and engaged.

- Offer-drop rate reduced with an offer-to-join process the business trusts.

- FnF and payroll issues at zero; appraisals delivered on published dates.

- Team survey/pulse shows rising trust in leadership communication and fairness.

- Hiring tied to the AOP with refreshed compensation benchmarks in use.

Must-Haves:

- 4-10 years in HR with at least 3 years leading an HR function (Head of HR / HRBP lead with full-stack ownership) in a 300+ person organisation.

- Consumer + manufacturing exposure: has owned HR for both corporate/digital teams and plant/frontline workforces.

- Has built or in-housed an HR function (from shared services, group HR or scratch) payroll, HRMS, policies and processes.

- Culture and retention track record: can show a measurable turnaround in attrition, engagement or employer trust.

- Personal credibility: high-empathy, direct communicator who is comfortable challenging founders and function heads.

Good to Have:

- D2C/retail/e-commerce industry experience.

- Experience through a merger or multi-entity people integration.

- Exposure to compensation benchmarking studies and incentive design.

What's In It for You?:

Founders here have publicly named HR as the company's biggest gap and want a leader, not an administrator. You will define the people function of a category-leading consumer group from near-scratch with a direct line to the CEO and COO and a mandate that has board-level backing.