CHRO – Workforce Integration — Transit-Technology Business

The mandate

A transit software business acquired a route-optimisation company expecting product and sales synergies. Six months later, the people consequences obstruct the economics. One workforce is organised around long-cycle public-transport deployments; the other uses product squads and quarterly incentives. Titles overlap, pay positioning is inconsistent and scarce engineers receive contradictory priorities from legacy leaders. Integration cannot wait for the next annual planning round.

The CHRO – Workforce Integration will lead a defined 18-month intervention across roughly 750 employees and key partners. The remit covers organisation design, leadership selection, reward harmonisation, employee relations, capability and integration governance. It is not an unchecked licence to centralise. Some differences reflect genuinely different customer work and should remain; others preserve status without serving the combined product.

The commercial target is a unified offering connecting scheduling, passenger information and network optimisation. Achieving it requires joint teams, scarce systems talent and a delivery structure able to satisfy government procurement commitments and software release disciplines. The executive must translate unit-economics choices into credible roles, not announce a culture programme detached from work.

Why this seat is open

The acquisition plan assumed existing HR leaders could integrate the workforces alongside operating responsibilities. The customer delay and an unplanned cluster of resignations disproved that assumption. The executive committee created this urgent, unbudgeted seat with immediate authority to arrest talent loss and settle leadership ambiguity. A shortlist is required quickly, though references and employee-relations judgement will not be compromised.

What you will own

• Diagnose which product, deployment and support work creates value by customer segment, then design teams and decision rights around that work.
• Run a fair selection process for overlapping leadership positions, using published criteria and independent moderation where incumbents are assessors.
• Harmonise reward where equal work and labour markets justify it, while documenting defensible differences and avoiding promises the economics cannot sustain.
• Stabilise critical architects, transport-domain specialists and programme leaders through individual plans addressing work, manager and career issues before defaulting to retention payments.
• Negotiate consultation and transition requirements across affected employee populations, with accurate documentation and humane implementation.
• Create combined product-and-delivery workforce plans linked to contract backlog, release road maps and realistic productivity assumptions.
• Replace dual reporting and legacy vetoes with a concise operating model; test it against an actual bid, implementation and incident.
• Equip managers to explain decisions directly and listen for unintended consequences rather than outsourcing difficult conversations to HR.

The first 12 months

Within 30 days, map critical work, flight risk and unresolved leadership overlaps. Meet teams responsible for the delayed customer programme and establish temporary decision rights that protect its next milestones. By day 75, submit the target organisation, selection method, reward principles and employee-relations sequence. Decisions affecting individuals should not be announced until consultation and implementation support are ready.

By month six, first-wave appointments and team moves should be complete, duplicate committees retired and the combined workforce plan integrated with the product portfolio. The company should have one internal talent market for priority roles, with assessment criteria that do not privilege either legacy organisation. Monitor workload and regretted departures weekly through the volatile period.

By month twelve, 90% of target positions should have substantive occupants, regretted attrition among designated critical talent should be below 8%, and decision-cycle time across product and implementation should improve by 25%. Reward anomalies should have funded resolution paths; the delayed programme should no longer cite organisational ambiguity as a critical risk; employee understanding of the combined strategy should improve 15 points from baseline.

What the board will measure

• Delivery continuity through the organisation change, especially contractual milestones and live-system incidents.
• Quality and perceived fairness of leadership selection, including appeals, diversity of appointments and retention after decisions.
• Removal of genuine duplication with a finance-signed run-rate benefit and no transfer of hidden work to contractors.
• Critical-skill stability and internal movement into roles most important to the combined product.
• Employee-relations compliance and absence of avoidable disputes caused by rushed or inconsistent process.
• Evidence that the operating model works in bids, delivery and product governance rather than only on organisation charts.

The person

You bring 18–22 years of progressive people leadership and have integrated workforces after an acquisition, carve-in or major operating-model change. Technology experience is important; exposure to engineering and project delivery within the same enterprise is especially valuable. You have personally designed selection, consultation and reward-transition processes, and can discuss what you deliberately left different after integration.

Relevant scale is at least 525 employees within a wider perimeter comparable to 750. You must hold the confidence of founders, corporate executives, engineers and employee representatives without telling each group a different story. Evidence of difficult execution matters more than polished integration language: whom you selected, what attrition followed, which synergy was realised and what you corrected when the plan met reality.

The position is onsite in Pune because rapid integration requires daily access to both teams. Travel to customer delivery sites will be regular. The remit reports to the Group Chief Executive or nominated executive sponsor and is expected to evolve once integration becomes normal line management.

Compensation and terms

The role offers ₹2.2–3.0 crore fixed plus performance variable, calibrated to verified integration scale. Measures include delivery continuity, critical-talent retention, organisation effectiveness and realised economics. This is a permanent onsite Pune appointment, although the integration remit is time-bounded and its later scope will be agreed openly. Notice up to six months may be accommodated where transition availability is credible.

Confidentiality

The acquirer, acquired business and affected customer programme are deliberately unnamed. Further organisation data and employee-relations context will be disclosed only after mutual fit, conflicts and confidentiality are established. Candidates must avoid triangulating identities through recruiters, customers or employees; doing so would compromise the process.