UniSeoul - HR Business Partner

About Uni Seoul: Uni Seoul is India's first design-led impulse lifestyle retail brand rooted in Korean aesthetics. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Pune, we are building a new-age retail experience around design, cuteness and everyday lifestyle. With 17+ stores across 8 Indian cities, 1,000+ SKUs and a growing retail footprint, Uni Seoul is on an ambitious journey to build 500 retail touchpoints over the next five years, followed by expansion into international markets. About the Role: We are looking for an HR Business Partner who can take complete ownership of the core HR function across our Retail and Corporate HQ teams. This is a high-ownership, business-facing HR role where you will work closely with the Co-Founder & CEO to build scalable people practices, strengthen the employee experience, drive performance and capability, and ensure HR operations and compliance are robust as the business scales. You will work across three distinct employee populations - Corporate HQ, Retail teams across multiple cities, and Warehouse operations and will need to be equally comfortable working at the corporate level and spending time on the shop floor. Talent Acquisition is not part of this role and is managed by a dedicated recruitment function. Key Responsibilities: People Strategy & Workforce Planning: - Sit with the founders on organisation design, workforce planning and people strategy across Retail and HQ. - Develop and execute the HR roadmap aligned with the company's growth plans. - Support evolving organisational structures and role/band architecture as the business scales. HR Policies & Frameworks: - Own the development, implementation and continuous improvement of HR policies and frameworks. - Manage policies covering areas such as leave, travel, disciplinary processes, POSH and work arrangements. - Ensure policies are effectively communicated, acknowledged, version-controlled and consistently implemented across locations. Performance Management: - Own the complete KRA/KPI framework across Retail and HQ. - Drive goal-setting, mid-year reviews and annual performance appraisal cycles. - Manage performance improvement plans (PIPs) and ensure performance conversations are meaningful and timely. - Develop and manage store-level incentive frameworks in alignment with business objectives. Compensation & Benchmarking: - Conduct market benchmarking across roles and functions. - Review and maintain compensation bands and CTC structures. - Support compensation decisions through data-driven benchmarking and cost impact analysis. - Ensure roles are appropriately mapped to internal and external market benchmarks. Learning & Development: - Own employee induction and onboarding frameworks. - Build and manage training calendars for Retail and Corporate teams. - Drive SOP certification and capability development for Store and Cluster Managers. - Identify capability gaps and implement relevant development interventions. Employee Engagement: - Build and execute the employee engagement and connect calendar across HQ, Retail and Warehouse. - Own recognition and reward initiatives. - Establish and track employee sentiment through eNPS and other engagement mechanisms. - Translate employee feedback into actionable retention and engagement initiatives. Employee Relations & Compliance: - Act as a trusted HR partner for employee grievances, disciplinary matters and workplace concerns. - Manage POSH processes and coordinate with the Internal Committee. - Ensure compliance with applicable labour and statutory requirements across multiple states. - Maintain an audit-ready HR compliance framework across all locations. HR Operations & People Data: - Oversee payroll inputs, attendance management, HRMS hygiene and employee documentation. - Ensure accuracy and timely maintenance of personnel records. - Build HR MIS and dashboards covering key metrics such as attrition and people cost by store. - Provide meaningful people insights to the founders to support business decisions. Essential Experience & Skills: - 5+ years of overall HR experience, with at least 3 years in an HR Business Partner / business-facing HR role. - Strong experience handling core HR across multi-location and multi-state workforces. - Experience in Retail, QSR, Hospitality or Consumer/Lifestyle brands is preferred. - Hands-on experience in developing and rolling out HR policies and frameworks. - Strong understanding of performance management, KRA/KPI frameworks and appraisal cycles. - Experience with salary benchmarking, compensation structures and band design. - Working knowledge of multi-state labour compliance and payroll processes. - Strong employee relations and grievance-handling skills. - Working knowledge of POSH processes. - Willingness to travel and spend meaningful time with frontline/store teams. Good to Have: - Experience with a brand that has scaled to 50+ stores. - HRMS implementation or migration experience. - Experience designing retail incentive schemes linked to store/business performance. - Experience building training and capability programmes for frontline teams. - Experience independently managing a broad HR function in a high-growth organisation. Who will Thrive Here: We are looking for someone who enjoys building, not just maintaining. You should be comfortable working in a fast-paced, scaling environment where priorities can change quickly and unexpected business requirements come up. You should be someone who: - Takes ownership and drives things to closure. - Can balance strategic HR priorities with hands-on execution. - Is comfortable challenging existing ways of working and building better ones. - Can work confidently with founders and business leaders. - Understands both the people agenda and the business agenda. - Is comfortable moving between a boardroom discussion and a retail store floor. - Uses data and business context to make people decisions. What Success Looks Like: - Your success will be measured through: - HR and performance cycles being completed on time. - HR policies being implemented, acknowledged and maintained across locations. - Improvement in retail attrition, tracked by store and cluster. - Completion of compensation benchmarking and role-band mapping. - Strong statutory compliance across all operating states. - Improvement in employee sentiment and eNPS. - Stronger capability and performance across Retail and HQ teams. Why Join Uni Seoul?: - High ownership: Own the core HR agenda for a rapidly scaling retail brand. - Direct leadership exposure: Work closely with the Co-Founder & CEO. - Growth opportunity: A role designed to evolve into a Senior Manager - HR remit as the organisation scales. - Build at scale: Help shape people practices as Uni Seoul grows from its current retail network toward 500 touchpoints. - Category-defining journey: Be part of a brand creating a new design-led lifestyle retail category in India.