CHRO – Workforce Integration — Aftermarket Franchise

The mandate

Electric vehicle launches require an integrated workforce plan for battery diagnostics, high-voltage safety, software updates, parts recovery and customer education across an aftermarket franchise centred on Sanand. Company workshops, dealers, roadside partners and remanufacturing teams currently use different training and certification. Early demand is uneven, and the executive committee created a workforce-integration role outside the annual plan.

The CHRO – Workforce Integration will shape capability affecting approximately 1,650 employees and material partners across the franchise. The operating perimeter includes service centres, parts, field support, dealer partners, training and battery-related workflows worth roughly ₹4,100 crore. Dealer principals employ many technicians directly; this role cannot manage them as company employees. It must create standards, incentives, evidence and partner agreements that make capability real across employment boundaries.

The transition is not a mass reskilling campaign. Some traditional mechanical skills remain essential, electric work requires controlled access and certification, and software diagnosis changes how technicians solve faults. The CHRO must define roles, learning prerequisites, supervised practice and recertification, while ensuring that ambitious rollout dates do not place unqualified people near high-voltage systems.

Work availability and careers matter. If electric volumes remain low, certified specialists need enough productive work to retain competence and viable earnings. Workforce planning should pool capability appropriately, design escalation and remote support and avoid forcing every outlet to carry identical fixed capacity.

Customer-facing conduct is part of capability. Technicians and roadside teams will sometimes explain battery quarantine, delayed repair or a restricted workshop route to anxious owners. Training must include decision boundaries, plain-language communication and escalation, while preventing unqualified reassurance. The CHRO will use complaint, repeat-repair and safety observations to test behavioural competence. Trainers and assessors need enough independence to fail a candidate even when a launch team is under pressure to declare geographic readiness.

Certification will expire unless practical work or supervised refresh confirms retained competence.

Why this seat is open

This urgent, unplanned new position has no predecessor. Product launch evidence showed that separate service, dealer and training owners could not resolve workforce accountability quickly enough. The board wants the new workforce leader identified inside an eight-week window. Current operational leaders retain delivery authority; the CHRO coordinates the workforce system without disguising partner employment relationships.

What you will own

• Define roles, access, certification and recertification for electric diagnosis, repair, recovery and parts handling.
• Build a franchise capability map by geography, workshop, partner, proficiency and expected demand.
• Design supervised practice and evidence of competence beyond classroom completion.
• Establish workforce and training obligations in dealer and roadside partner agreements.
• Create regional specialist, escalation and remote-support models where local volume cannot sustain full capability.
• Protect mechanical and hybrid careers while building credible routes into electric work.
• Govern trainer, assessment and certification quality independently of rollout volume.
• Build successors across company learning, field people and partner capability leadership.

The first 12 months

In the first 45 days, the CHRO will identify every live electric service point, qualified person, unsafe gap and imminent vehicle population. By day 90, interim access rules, escalation coverage and a risk-based capability rollout will be operating. Outlets without readiness will have a safe referral route rather than nominal certification.

By month eight, the first regional capability clusters should combine certified workshop, remote and recovery support. Competence assessments will use observed work and quality evidence. Dealer agreements and workforce economics will reflect training, protected time and retention responsibilities.

At year-end, 95% of electric service demand should be reachable within the approved response standard, certification lapses should be below 2% and repeat repairs attributable to capability should fall by 30%. Pivotal technician retention should exceed 90%, with no high-voltage safety event caused by knowingly unqualified assignment.

What the board will measure

• Safe, geographically practical electric-service capability.
• Competence demonstrated in work, not certificates issued.
• Dealer and partner adherence to workforce obligations.
• Viable technician careers and retention across technology cycles.
• Clear escalation and customer continuity where local capability is limited.

The person

You are a CHRO, automotive service-workforce leader or partner capability executive who has integrated skills across a franchise or distributed technical network. You understand the boundary between standards and employment control and have governed safety-critical certification. Experience in automotive, energy equipment, field services or industrial maintenance is relevant.

You bring 18–22 years of experience and have covered at least 1,150 employees and partners within an operating perimeter above ₹2,350 crore. The board will examine a certification you paused, a low-volume skill network you made viable and a partner workforce obligation you enforced.

The role is onsite in Sanand with extensive travel to workshops, dealers and training locations.

Compensation and terms

For the workforce-integration remit, fixed compensation is ₹2.2–3.0 crore alongside a performance variable. Measures include safe coverage, demonstrated competence, partner adherence, retention and leadership depth. Certificates issued are not a standalone success measure. Final terms depend on current mix and the agreed franchise perimeter.

Confidentiality

The manufacturer, dealer network, vehicle programmes and capability gaps remain confidential. Further information follows qualification and a signed undertaking. Sanand and the rounded franchise figures must not be treated as identifiers.