The decisions the strategy actually makes
| Decision | The question | Default if unmade |
|---|---|---|
| Volume and timing | How many people, in which quarter, for what work | Last year plus a percentage |
| Build or buy | Train existing people or hire the capability | Buy, because it is faster to justify |
| Engagement type | Permanent, fixed term, apprentice, vendor-deployed | Whatever the previous role in that team was |
| Location | Where the work is done and from which market you hire | The city the office is already in |
| Level mix | Experienced hires against entry level developed internally | Experienced, because the role is open now |
| Pay position | Where you sit against the market for each family | Whatever the last successful offer was |
| Channel | Direct, referral, agency, campus, search | Whichever agency called most recently |
The defaults are not absurd. They are what happens when nobody made the decision, and each of them costs money in a specific way: the buy default hollows out internal progression, the location default pays metro rates for work that does not require a metro, and the pay default sets your band by whoever negotiated hardest.
Planning against attrition and notice
Two arithmetic facts shape Indian hiring plans more than any strategic framework.
- Attrition is largely predictable at the level of a function, so backfill volume can be planned. A team of sixty with twenty per cent annual attrition needs twelve hires a year before any growth, and that number belongs in the plan rather than arriving as twelve emergencies.
- Notice periods run to one to three months, and are longer at senior levels. A role approved today is filled, at best, well into the next quarter. A plan built on joining dates rather than offer dates is the only kind that holds.
Together these give the practical rule: open backfill roles against expected attrition rather than against resignations already received, and open growth roles a quarter before the capacity is needed. Where the budget cycle runs April to March, approvals that land in the first quarter produce joiners in the second, and a plan approved late in the year is a plan that will not be delivered in it.
It also pays to separate the two kinds of demand in reporting. Backfill and growth have different urgency, different sourcing routes and different acceptable costs, and a single vacancy list mixes them into one queue managed by whoever is loudest.
Choosing the engagement mix deliberately
The engagement type is often chosen for headcount optics and then defended as strategy. Made deliberately, it is one of the few decisions with a genuinely large effect.
- Permanent employment for core, continuing work. It is the most expensive to exit and the least expensive to run, and it is what the statutory framework assumes.
- Fixed term employment for genuinely time-bound work. The employee is yours on terms not less favourable than comparable permanent employees, and gratuity accrues pro rata, which is the cost that surprises people.
- Apprenticeship for structured entry-level intake, with its own stipend and contract regime, and government schemes that subsidise part of the cost. It builds a pipeline you have already assessed on the job.
- Vendor-deployed contract staffing for peripheral or fluctuating work, accepting principal employer exposure for wages and contributions if the contractor defaults.
- Professional engagement only where the relationship genuinely is not employment, judged on control and integration rather than on the title of the agreement.
Verify the fixed term employment conditions under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the pro rata gratuity position under the Code on Social Security, 2020, the contractor licensing and principal employer provisions in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, and the current apprenticeship scheme terms before committing a plan to a particular mix.
Pay position, location and the offers that follow
- Decide the pay range for each role family before opening roles, and benchmark it against the market you actually hire from rather than the national average. A range set after the first offer is negotiated is not a range.
- Do not anchor offers on the candidate's current salary. It prices the person's history rather than the role, carries historic disparities forward, and produces two people doing the same work on different pay for a reason you cannot defend.
- Treat location as a compensation decision as well as a real estate one. Hiring the same role in a smaller city changes both the cost and the available pool, and a policy that pays metro rates everywhere or local rates for remote work should be a decision rather than an accident.
- Set the offer construction rules in advance: what proportion is fixed, what is variable, what joining bonus is permitted and what is clawed back if the person leaves early.
- Plan for the joining ratio you actually have. If seven in ten offers convert, a plan for ten joiners needs fourteen offers and the budget to match.
- Review the plan quarterly against joiners, not against offers made. Offers are activity; joiners are capacity.
What the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 replaced
3 enactments stand repealed under s. 104, in force 21 November 2025.
- Trade Unions Act, 1926
- Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946
- Industrial Disputes Act, 1947
Across all four labour Codes, 29 enactments stand repealed. A policy or handbook that still cites one of them by name is describing rules that no longer exist.
Statutory reference
- Act
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020
- Section
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020: fixed term employment, including the requirement that a fixed term employee receive conditions of service not less favourable than a permanent employee doing the same or similar work, and eligibility for statutory benefits proportionately. Code on Social Security, 2020: gratuity for fixed term employees, who qualify after one year of service under the contract (section 2(o) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020) rather than the ordinary five, and contribution liability for workers engaged through a contractor. Code on Wages, 2019: equal remuneration for the same work or work of a similar nature, which constrains how offers to new hires sit against existing employees. Apprentices Act, 1961 and the schemes made under it: apprenticeship engagement terms and stipends. Codes in force 21 November 2025
- Key limits
- The engagement mix carries statutory consequences that cannot be chosen away: fixed term employees must be on terms not less favourable than comparable permanent employees and accrue gratuity pro rata, and vendor deployment leaves the principal employer exposed for wages and contributions on default. Offers to new hires create pay comparisons with existing employees doing the same or similar work. Verify the fixed term conditions, gratuity treatment, contractor licensing thresholds and apprenticeship scheme terms before fixing a plan. The reference is historical and already framed as repealed: it records that the contract labour threshold rose from twenty to fifty. The 1970 Act has never been fetched or read, and its blocked record states that its repeal is known from s. 143 of the OSH Code alone, which is not sufficient to restate what it said.
Frequently asked questions
What is a hiring strategy?
The decisions made before individual vacancies open: how many people and when, whether to build capability or buy it, what engagement type each role takes, where the work is located, and what it will cost. Everything after that is execution.
How far ahead should we plan hiring in India?
At least a quarter, because notice periods run to one to three months and longer at senior levels. A plan built on offer dates rather than joining dates will always report capacity that does not exist yet.
How do we plan for backfill?
From attrition rather than from resignations. A function with known annual attrition produces a predictable number of backfill hires, and planning those in advance turns a stream of emergencies into scheduled work with a normal sourcing timeline.
Should we hire permanent or fixed term?
Permanent for continuing core work, fixed term where the need is genuinely time-bound. A fixed term employee is yours on terms not less favourable than a comparable permanent employee and accrues gratuity pro rata, so the cost difference is smaller than most plans assume.
Should offers be based on a candidate's current salary?
No. It prices the person's history rather than the role, carries forward any disparity in their previous pay, and produces two people doing the same work on different pay for a reason you would struggle to defend.
How Engage supports the hiring plan
Engage separates backfill from growth demand and holds the plan against joining dates rather than offer dates, so a quarter of notice periods is visible in the forecast instead of appearing as a shortfall. Attrition by function feeds the backfill number directly, and engagement type is recorded against each approved role rather than decided at the point of offer.
See Engage HR software