HR Competency Framework — by Role

Five competencies, four bands (HR Coordinator → HR Generalist → HR Manager → Senior HR Business Partner), for a ~50-person company across two countries (40 in India, 10 in US). Band titles are indicative and can be renamed.

How this is used. Primarily for performance review — the person self-rates and their manager rates independently against the four maturity levels, then compares. Within each band, Emerging → Developing → Proficient → Strong reads maturity in that band, so the same word means more at a higher band. The bar rises at every band, and the top of one reads much like the bottom of the next — that overlap is deliberate and is what promotion readiness looks like. Weights are shares of the review and sum to 100; they rotate across bands to match how the job changes.

A realistic caveat. At 50 people, HR is genuinely a one-to-two-person function, so most of these bands will sit unstaffed. This exists as a ready reference — so that whenever someone joins or is promoted at any level, the bar is already defined and nobody has to build it in the moment. Because the work is similar across bands at this company size, the levels differ mostly in autonomy, scope, and weight rather than in kind; that's inherent to a small function, not a gap.

A note on legal specifics. The statutory obligations named below (India: PF, gratuity, ESI, TDS, POSH, notice periods; US: at-will, I-9, state-by-state payroll and benefits) are examples of what these roles must stay on top of, not legal advice. Exact thresholds and current requirements should be confirmed with local counsel — for instance, India's POSH Act requires a formal Internal Committee at workplaces of 10+ employees, which applies at your India headcount.

What each competency measures

Multi-Country HR Operations & Compliance — India + US — Runs accurate, compliant HR operations across both countries: payroll, benefits, records, and the employee lifecycle. Keeps the company compliant with each country's statutory obligations, handles worker classification across borders, and manages any PEO/EOR or vendors. The core of the function at this size, because the compliance is the cross-border work.

Employee Experience & Employee Relations — Builds engagement, wellbeing, and one shared culture across a 40-person India org and a 10-person US org separated by time zones, and handles employee relations — including sensitive matters and POSH complaints — fairly and consistently across two legal contexts.

Talent Acquisition & Onboarding — Owns hiring and onboarding across both locations: sourcing, candidate experience, market-appropriate offers, and onboarding that gets people productive quickly in either country.

Administration & Workplace Operations — Owns the office and workplace experience (primarily the India office, plus remote/US setup): facilities, vendors, budgets, and the day-to-day that keeps people supported.

Business Partnership & Leadership — Acts as a people advisor to managers and leadership on hiring, org design, change, and hard calls — growing from execution support at junior bands to trusted strategic partner at senior bands.

Weights by band

Competency	Coordinator	Generalist	Manager	Sr HRBP
Multi-Country HR Ops & Compliance	25	28	30	30
Employee Experience & ER	13	16	18	18
Talent Acquisition & Onboarding	22	20	16	15
Administration & Workplace Ops	27	20	14	12
Business Partnership & Leadership	13	16	22	25

The shape: Admin dominates at Coordinator (27) and drops sharply (→12) as it gets delegated; Business Partnership starts lowest (13) and nearly doubles (→25) as the seniority differentiator — the two essentially swap. Operations climbs then plateaus as the core, ER climbs with case complexity, and hiring tapers from logistics-heavy junior work toward lower-weighted senior planning.

HR Coordinator

Competency	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Strong
Multi-Country HR Ops & Compliance	Helps with payroll inputs, records, and document collection for both countries under close guidance; learning the main statutory items.	Accurately handles payroll data entry, records, and routine compliance tasks for India and US with review.	Reliably runs recurring operational tasks for both countries with minimal review and flags anything unusual.	The dependable backbone for routine two-country processing; catches errors before they go out and needs little oversight on standard tasks.
Employee Experience & ER	Helps run engagement events and onboarding touchpoints and answers routine employee questions with guidance.	Coordinates engagement activities across both locations and handles common employee queries independently.	Runs recurring touchpoints reliably for both orgs and escalates ER matters with good judgment about what needs a senior person.	A trusted first point of contact for employees in both locations, keeping engagement touchpoints consistent and well-run.
Talent Acquisition & Onboarding	Schedules interviews, coordinates candidate logistics, and helps with onboarding paperwork under guidance.	Independently runs interview scheduling, candidate communication, and onboarding logistics for both locations.	Keeps candidate experience smooth end-to-end for the roles they support and makes onboarding land well in both locations.	Runs hiring logistics and onboarding so reliably that hiring managers rarely have to chase anything, across both countries.
Administration & Workplace Ops	Handles supplies, basic facilities requests, and routine admin for the India office with guidance.	Independently keeps the office running day-to-day and supports the remote/US setup.	Manages office operations and vendors reliably and improves small things that make the workplace run better.	Runs the office so smoothly that people rarely think about it, and handles vendor and facilities issues without escalation.
Business Partnership & Leadership	Supports HR processes that serve managers and builds understanding of how the business works; not yet advising.	Responds helpfully to manager and employee requests and is starting to be a reliable go-to for HR questions.	A dependable resource for managers on process and policy questions, bringing relevant information when asked.	Managers trust them to get things done and route issues to the right person; beginning to add judgment, not just execution.

HR Generalist

Competency	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Strong
Multi-Country HR Ops & Compliance	Runs monthly payroll and routine statutory filings for both countries with occasional guidance on edge cases.	Independently runs payroll, benefits, and on-time filings for India and US, and keeps records audit-ready.	Owns routine operations and compliance for both countries end-to-end and handles most exceptions without escalation.	Runs both countries' operations cleanly and proactively — nothing late, records always audit-ready, edge cases right the first time.
Employee Experience & ER	Runs engagement initiatives that reach both locations and handles routine ER matters with guidance.	Handles most ER matters independently and fairly, and applies people practices consistently across the two orgs.	Manages sensitive employee situations with sound process and gets ahead of common morale or retention issues in either location.	Builds real engagement across both orgs and handles ER matters fairly and defensibly with limited oversight.
Talent Acquisition & Onboarding	Manages the hiring process for straightforward roles with guidance and coordinates offers across both locations.	Independently manages hiring end-to-end for most roles and writes market-appropriate offers for India and US.	Runs onboarding that gets people productive quickly in both locations and keeps candidate quality and experience high.	Owns hiring for most of the org, builds referral flow, and consistently brings in strong people across both markets.
Administration & Workplace Ops	Manages office operations and vendors for the India office with occasional guidance, and supports remote/US needs.	Independently manages facilities, vendors, and admin budgets across the India office and remote/US setup.	Improves the workplace experience deliberately — better vendor terms, smoother processes, a setup that supports collaboration.	Keeps workplace operations efficient and reliable across a two-country, partly-remote team with little oversight.
Business Partnership & Leadership	Supports managers on routine people questions (hiring, onboarding, policy) with guidance.	A reliable sounding board for managers on day-to-day people issues, bringing basic people data to conversations.	Advises managers soundly on common people matters and is trusted to handle them without escalation.	A credible partner to managers across both locations who starts influencing how they handle their teams.

HR Manager

Competency	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Strong
Multi-Country HR Ops & Compliance	Owns day-to-day operations and compliance across both countries, occasionally seeking input on complex compliance or classification questions.	Runs both countries end-to-end, keeps policies current as law changes, and manages PEO/EOR and vendors.	Catches operational and compliance risks before they surface — misclassification, missed filings, expiring registrations — keeping the company audit-ready in both countries.	Builds processes that scale with headcount, stands up and runs the POSH Internal Committee properly, and treats compliance as proactive rather than reactive.
Employee Experience & ER	Owns engagement and ER for both orgs day-to-day, seeking input on the most sensitive or complex matters.	Builds cohesion across India and US despite time zones and manages complex ER matters (including POSH complaints) with proper process.	Gets ahead of morale, retention, and culture issues across both locations and keeps ER outcomes fair and consistent across two legal contexts.	Shapes a culture that feels like one company across locations and is the person managers rely on for hard people situations.
Talent Acquisition & Onboarding	Owns hiring and onboarding across both locations and partners with managers on most open roles.	Partners with hiring managers to plan ahead and keeps quality and speed high across both markets.	Builds employer reputation and repeatable hiring and onboarding appropriate to a company this size.	Anticipates workforce needs, builds hiring that scales with growth in either country, and consistently raises the talent bar.
Administration & Workplace Ops	Owns workplace operations and admin budgets across both locations, seeking input on larger investments.	Optimizes vendor partnerships and workplace spend while keeping the experience good across locations.	Runs a workplace setup that supports collaboration across India and remote/US and scales reasonably with growth.	Builds workplace operations that scale cleanly as the company grows, balancing cost, experience, and a distributed team.
Business Partnership & Leadership	Advises managers and contributes to people decisions, building credibility with the leadership team.	A reliable partner to leadership on hiring, performance, and team issues, using people data to inform decisions.	Advises on org design, workforce planning, and change with sound judgment across both locations.	A trusted advisor to leadership on difficult people calls who shapes how managers lead across the company.

Senior HR Business Partner (HRBP)

Competency	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Strong
Multi-Country HR Ops & Compliance	Keeps payroll and core compliance running for both countries with support, and knows the main statutory obligations in each. Needs help when a situation is ambiguous or a deadline is tight.	Independently runs monthly payroll and benefits for India and US, keeps statutory filings on time, and maintains audit-ready records.	Owns HR operations and compliance end-to-end across both countries and catches risks before they surface, keeping policies current as law changes. Manages PEO/EOR and vendors well.	Treats compliance as proactive: the company is always audit-ready in both countries, the POSH Internal Committee is properly run, and operations scale smoothly as headcount grows.
Employee Experience & ER	Runs core engagement and onboarding touchpoints and handles routine employee questions and relations matters with support. Aware that India and US practices differ.	Runs engagement initiatives that reach both locations, handles most ER matters independently and fairly, and applies people practices consistently across the two orgs.	Builds genuine cohesion across India and US despite time zones, manages complex or sensitive ER matters (including POSH complaints) with sound judgment and proper process, and gets ahead of morale or retention issues in either location.	Shapes a culture that feels like one company across two continents, is the person leaders and employees trust on hard people matters, and keeps ER outcomes fair, defensible, and consistent across both legal contexts.
Talent Acquisition & Onboarding	Runs hiring logistics and onboarding for open roles with support, and coordinates interviews and offers across both locations.	Independently manages the hiring process end-to-end for most roles, writes market-appropriate offers for India and US, and runs onboarding that lands well in both locations.	Partners with hiring managers to plan ahead, keeps quality and speed high across both markets, and builds referral flow and employer reputation appropriate to a company this size.	Anticipates the company's workforce needs, builds repeatable hiring and onboarding that scales with growth in either country, and consistently brings in people who raise the bar.
Administration & Workplace Ops	Keeps the office and core admin running with support — supplies, vendors, basic facilities, and employee requests.	Independently manages facilities, vendors, and admin budgets, keeping the workplace running smoothly across the India office and the remote/US setup.	Improves the workplace experience deliberately — better vendor terms, smoother processes, a setup that supports collaboration across locations.	Runs workplace operations that scale cleanly as the company grows, balancing cost, experience, and the realities of a two-country, partly-remote team.
Business Partnership & Leadership	Supports leaders on people decisions with guidance, and is building credibility as a partner rather than only an operator.	A reliable sounding board for managers on hiring, performance, and team issues, bringing basic people data to those conversations.	Advises the leadership team on org design, workforce planning, and change with sound judgment, and uses people analytics to inform real decisions.	The leadership team's trusted advisor on the hardest people calls, who shapes people strategy proactively and measurably strengthens how managers lead across both locations.

Note. This extends the right-sized senior HRBP framework down to all four bands. The substantive redesign was done earlier — enterprise language pulled down to a 50-person reality, HR Operations and Cross-Regional merged into one India + US core, payroll/POSH/classification named explicitly, the two-continent culture challenge made concrete, the "advise leadership" thread consolidated into Business Partnership, and anchors written to be self/manager-assessable. The Senior HRBP column here matches the standalone senior framework exactly.