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Meesho seeks a Head of Industrial Relations to build and lead a comprehensive IR function across its national operations. This is a strategic and operational role combining policy development, dispute prevention, compliance governance and on-ground crisis management.
Key Responsibilities:
You will own the end-to-end IR strategy and governance framework, covering workforce relations, grievance management, dispute prevention, statutory compliance, worker and union engagement, and escalation protocols across the operating network.
You will establish workforce intelligence systems to track sentiment, grievances, absenteeism, wage concerns, working conditions, and emerging union activity—enabling early intervention before disputes escalate.
You will lead prevention and management of industrial disputes, including strikes, work stoppages, protests and gheraos. This includes structured engagement with worker representatives, union leaders, Operations, HR, Legal, local administration and labour authorities.
You will partner with Security, Investigations, HR and Legal on employee and partner-worker cases involving theft, fraud, misconduct and policy violations, ensuring due process, proper documentation and legally sound outcomes.
You will govern disciplinary processes—overseeing show-cause notices, domestic enquiries and disciplinary actions to ensure fairness, consistency, timeliness and legal defensibility.
You will drive partner workforce compliance, establishing governance over logistics partners on contract labour requirements, wage and benefits compliance, statutory registrations, working hours, documentation and grievance mechanisms.
You will own government and authority engagement, building relationships with labour departments, commissioners, conciliation officers and other authorities, representing the organisation in inspections and formal proceedings.
You will design and strengthen grievance and escalation channels—worker helplines, site committees, forums and escalation paths—to surface and resolve concerns before they become formal disputes.
You will create scalable IR playbooks, SOPs, policies, escalation matrices and response protocols for dispute management, investigation-linked discipline, partner workforce issues and authority engagement. You will train site leaders, partner supervisors, HR teams and security personnel on IR practices and labour-law basics.
You will establish IR analytics and dashboards covering incidents, disputes, grievances, compliance health, partner risks, resolution timelines and emerging trends, translating these into clear insights and actions for senior leadership.
You will strengthen cross-functional governance, establishing clear interfaces and decision rights between IR, HR, Legal, Operations, Security and partner leadership.
Role Characteristics: National scope with significant field engagement across the operating network. High level of cross-functional and external stakeholder interaction. Combination of strategic programme ownership, operational problem-solving and on-ground dispute management. Requires sound judgement, neutrality, confidentiality and the ability to balance business continuity with fair and compliant workforce practices.
Requirements:
- 8–15 years of experience in industrial relations, employee relations, labour relations or labour-law compliance, preferably in large, distributed workforce environments.
- Experience in logistics, e-commerce, manufacturing, warehousing, retail, infrastructure or other large blue-collar and/or contract-workforce environments is strongly preferred.
- Deep working knowledge of applicable Indian labour and employment laws, including the Labour Codes and associated rules/notifications, contract labour requirements, industrial disputes, standing orders and relevant state-specific requirements.
- Practical experience applying labour law and IR principles on the ground across multiple sites and, ideally, multiple states.
- Proven experience handling industrial disputes, worker grievances, union/worker representative engagement, negotiations, strikes or work stoppages.
- Experience conducting or overseeing domestic enquiries and disciplinary proceedings, with a strong understanding of how employee investigations intersect with employment law and due process.
- Experience managing contract labour or partner workforce compliance, including audits, statutory requirements, wage-related compliance and remediation.
- Strong ability to engage with labour authorities, conciliation officers and other government stakeholders, preferably with experience representing an organisation in formal proceedings.
- Strong negotiation, conflict-resolution and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to remain calm, credible and objective in high-pressure situations.
- Ability to work effectively across HR, Legal, Operations, Security & Investigations and external partners, with sound judgement on ownership, escalation and confidentiality.
- Strong communication skills in English and Hindi. Proficiency in one or more regional languages is an advantage, particularly for workforce-heavy operating regions.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving ability, including the ability to use workforce and incident data to identify patterns, risks and preventive actions.
- Willingness to travel extensively across operating locations and respond to sensitive on-ground situations at short notice.
- High integrity, discretion and maturity, with the ability to handle confidential matters and decisions that can materially affect employees and workers.
- A degree in law, HR, labour welfare, social work or a related discipline (LLB, MSW, MBA-HR or equivalent) is preferred.
