Associate Director - Global Talent Operations

Job Description

Associate Director, Global Talent Operations

Location: Pune, India (global role)   |   Reports to: Global Head of People / CHRO   |   Experience: 12 to 20 years   |   Type: Full time

About the Role

Anchanto is a global enterprise grade B2B SaaS company. We provide cloud software for brands, retailers, and logistics providers to manage orders, warehouses, inventory, marketplaces, and omnichannel commerce. We operate across 12 countries, support more than 300 enterprise and mid-market customers, and process over 150 million commerce transactions a year.

As Anchanto scales, the People function has to run with the same reliability, speed, and discipline we expect from our own platforms. This role builds and runs that execution engine. Internally, think of this as the operational backbone of the People function. The CHRO owns people strategy and transformation. HRBPs own business partnership and performance. Talent Acquisition owns hiring. This role owns execution reliability across the Anchanter lifecycle. The expectation is operational excellence, not administrative processing.

This is a build and scale mandate. You start with a small team and are expected to grow the function and its capability as Anchanto grows. It is not a maintenance seat.

One Anchanter experience for all 300 + Anchanters across 19 nationalities, everywhere. From Korea to France and every country in between, the operational experience an Anchanter receives should be consistent, reliable, and enterprise grade. Making that true across all 12 countries is this role's responsibility. This is operational consistency in onboarding, lifecycle, support, systems, and service levels. It is not cultural uniformity, which sits with other parts of the People function.

Why This Role Exists

Today, too much people work runs on manual effort, inconsistencies and spreadsheets, and too much of it lands on HRBPs and leaders. This role exists to fix that. The mission is to build a Talent Operations function that is trusted, scalable, data driven, AI enabled, compliant, and enterprise grade, so that HRBPs and leadership can focus on organisation effectiveness, leadership, and growth.

What You Will Own

The role owns eight areas. The list is deliberately broad because this is the function owner, but the bar is the same throughout: systems and data over manual effort, clear ownership, and reliable execution for every Anchanter.

1. Global Anchanter lifecycle operations

Run enterprise grade lifecycle operations across geographies: onboarding and induction, employment documentation and contract governance, confirmation and probation, internal mobility and transfers, promotion and status changes, records integrity, exit and offboarding, and asset and access recovery. Identify recurring pain points and bottlenecks proactively and fix them at the root. Outcome: smooth transitions, fast and consistent turnaround, no operational ambiguity.

2. Payroll inputs, benefits, and compliance operations

Payroll is run by an external provider. This role owns the inputs to that provider and the operational integrity around them, not the payroll run or filing itself. That means accurate and on time payroll inputs across countries, benefits administration, leave and attendance, insurance and claims, coordination with the payroll provider and country partners, and audit readiness on the input side. Outcome: payroll inputs are clean and on time every cycle, the provider has exactly what it needs, and compliance risk is managed before it surfaces.

3. HR systems and talent technology

Own and modernise the People technology stack: HRMS, ATS and hiring workflows, integrations, access and permissions, workflow automation, data governance, and self-service. People Operations should run through systems, not spreadsheets. You also own the operational vendor relationships that sit underneath this, including HRMS, the payroll provider, insurance, background verification, and engagement platforms, holding them to service levels and value. Outcome: reduced manual dependency, a clean and trusted system of record, and vendors that deliver.

4. People analytics and workforce intelligence

Operate people data as a decision system, not an activity report. Build workforce and headcount dashboards, attrition and retention analysis, hiring and funnel reporting, workforce cost visibility, and early warning indicators. Leadership reporting should answer where workforce risk is emerging, where managers are struggling, where hiring is stuck, which attrition patterns matter, and which cost trends need intervention.

5. Anchanter experience and service delivery

Deliver an enterprise grade operational experience across every touchpoint: onboarding, lifecycle transitions, support interactions, communication workflows, and exits. Run Anchanter query and support management to a high standard of responsiveness, professionalism, ownership, and service orientation, with clear SLAs, defined escalation paths, and accountable resolution. Communicate policy clearly so Anchanters know where they stand, and keep simplifying process so the experience improves over time. Anchanters should experience clarity, responsiveness, professionalism, and reliability.

6. Policy governance and risk management

Create operational trust through governance: policy lifecycle and rollout, acknowledgment tracking, documentation controls, compliance tracking, audit support, and country policy coordination. Outcome: policies are understood, documentation is reliable, governance is consistent and fair.

7. Modernisation and AI enablement

Anchanto expects AI to reshape internal operating models. This role identifies repetitive manual work and removes it through automation, digital first workflows, and AI assisted support where it adds real value. Examples: AI assisted Anchanter support, automated onboarding, workflow reminders and bots, intelligent reporting, and digital documentation. We want a builder, not a maintainer.

8. Team leadership and capability building

Build and lead the Talent Operations team. Set clear ownership and accountability, raise operational discipline, and grow the capability of the function as Anchanto scales. Foster a culture of continuous improvement where the team solves problems rather than escalates them, and develop people so the function gets stronger over time, not just busier. Outcome: a capable, accountable, self-improving team that leadership can rely on.

Cross Functional Operating Model

Success depends on clean handoffs and clear ownership boundaries with:

Partner

On what

CHRO / Head of People

People strategy, organisation design, transformation

HRBP teams

Hiring to onboarding handover, performance and talent cycles

Talent Acquisition

Offer to onboarding transition, candidate to Anchanter handoff

Finance

Cost control, payroll funding and reconciliation, audit. Payroll is run by an external provider; this role owns and submits the inputs

IT and Security

HR systems, integrations, access and permissions

Business leaders

Operational experience, workforce reporting, decision support

What Good Looks Like After 12 to 18 Months

Leadership should be able to say:

1. People Operations feels enterprise grade.
2. Payroll inputs and lifecycle operations are highly reliable.
3. People data is trusted, accurate, and easy to access.
4. Anchanters get faster and clearer support.
5. Manual work and operational friction have dropped significantly.
6. HRBPs and leaders spend far less time on administrative coordination.
7. Talent Operations runs proactively, not reactively.
8. The operational experience is consistent across all countries, not just the largest ones.
9. The Talent Operations team is capable, accountable, and improving on its own.

Skills and Experience

1. 12 to 20 years across Talent Operations, HR Operations, People Operations, or HR shared services, with time spent leading the function, not only running it.
2. Experience in technology, SaaS, internet, or fast scaling companies.
3. Multi country People Operations experience.
4. Strong payroll and compliance governance exposure, with a clear view of where the Finance boundary sits.
5. Hands on experience implementing and running HRMS and ATS platforms.
6. Strong data and reporting orientation, comfortable building dashboards and reading them for risk.
7. Experience managing operational teams and vendors.
8. Exposure to automation and AI enabled workflows preferred.
9. Able to operate in ambiguity and build structure in a scaling environment.

Leadership Behaviours We Expect

Managers at Anchanto are expected to operate with high ownership, solve problems rather than escalate confusion, use systems and data over opinions, communicate clearly and directly, build trust through reliability, improve processes continuously, collaborate without bureaucracy, and act with urgency and accountability.

What This Role Is Not

To be clear about scope, this role is not:

1. Payroll only administration.
2. An HRBP substitute.
3. A policy policing function.
4. A culture only role.
5. A maintenance only operations seat.

This is a leadership role responsible for building scalable operational capability.

Where Operations Supports Culture and Engagement

Operations does not own townhalls, office events, the Anchanto Cricket League, employer brand, or culture building. Those sit with HRBPs, People Experience, and leadership, because they need judgement about what Anchanto believes and how it should feel.

Where asked, Operations provides the rails underneath: systems, attendance and participation data, vendor and budget coordination, and reliable logistics. It enables these by exception, not by default, and never owns the message or the culture.

Success Measures

Indicative KPIs:

Indicative KPI

What it measures

Payroll input accuracy

Percentage of payroll input cycles submitted to the provider with zero errors

Payroll input timeliness

Percentage of cycles where inputs reach the provider on schedule, all geographies

Lifecycle SLA adherence

Onboarding, confirmation, transfer, exit turnaround against SLA

HRIS data accuracy

Percentage of clean, validated records in the system of record

Service responsiveness

Employee query resolution time and SLA adherence

Onboarding experience and NPS

New joiner experience score in first 30 days

Audit and compliance

Number of audit and compliance findings, trending down

Automation coverage

Percentage of high volume workflows automated or self service

Reporting reliability

Accuracy and timeliness of workforce and attrition reporting

Closing

At Anchanto, enterprise grade customer experience starts with enterprise grade internal execution. This role builds that foundation. If you like building systems, simplifying complexity, modernising operations, and creating reliable execution at global scale, this is a chance to shape the next chapter of Anchanto's growth.