Most Indian SMEs in the ₹25 crore to ₹300 crore range do not have an HR problem they can name. They have a retention leak, a promotion mess, and a settlement issue they have learned to live with.
This is who we work with, what is actually broken, what we do about it, and what changes at the end.
Read it as a mirror. If any of these sound like your company needs this, we should talk.
1. Who Are the Companies We Work With?
We work with promoter-run Indian SMEs that have outgrown their HR setup but not admitted it yet.
The pattern is consistent. Revenue between ₹25 crore and ₹300 crore. Twenty to five hundred people. Manufacturing, financial services, chemicals, logistics, textiles, hospitality, pharma, IT services. A founder or a family running the company well. And an HR function that is one overworked person, or a payroll vendor, or nobody at all.
These are not your typical startups. They do not want ping pong tables. They want people to stay, to grow, and to stop leaving for a 15% hike down the road.
Here is the tell. When we look at a company like this from the outside, before we ever speak to them, the employee reviews say the same five things. We have read hundreds of these. The words change. The problem does not.
- →
Good brands to work on, decent colleagues
- →
Pay below market
- →
No clear path to promotion
- →
Favouritism in who gets ahead
- →
Something messy about full and final settlements
If that is your company, keep reading. The rest of this is about you.
2. What HR Problems Do These Companies Actually Have?
The real problem is that people practices grew by accident, and nobody owns them.
Below are the five problems we see again and again. Every example is real. None are named. You will recognise the shape.
Pay Drifts Below Market and Nobody Notices
The direct issue is that salaries fall behind the market quietly, over years, until your best people are the most underpaid.
We looked at one mid-size tools manufacturer where junior quality engineers were sitting roughly 39% below the industry average. Production engineers were about 20% under. Nobody planned this. There was simply never a benchmarking exercise. The people who suffer most are the ones too loyal to leave, which is exactly the group you cannot afford to lose.
Promotions Run on Favouritism, Not a System
The direct issue is that without a written appraisal cycle, promotions get decided by who is closest to the boss.
At a mid-size ad agency we studied, culture scored fine, brands were exciting, and yet the reviews were full of one word. Favouritism. Promotions went to the “chaatu” employees. Good performers watched and left. This is not a culture problem you fix with a values poster. It is a systems gap. No review meetings, no criteria, no calendar.
HR Exists but Behaves Like a Rubber Stamp
The direct issue is that many SMEs have an HR department that processes paperwork but does not protect people.
At one IT publishing firm, employees described HR as an administrative rubber stamp that did nothing when people flagged toxic team dynamics. That is worse than having no HR. It teaches your team that raising a concern is pointless. Attrition follows silence.
Exit Is Where Trust Breaks
The direct issue is that unpaid dues and delayed settlements poison your employer brand long after someone leaves.
We keep seeing it. “They don’t pay all dues after leaving.” Salary slips pending for three to four months. Joining letters never issued. One pharma manufacturer had reviews describing 12 hour days, weekend working, and salary cut for two or three days without explanation. Every one of those ex-employees now talks. To candidates. On review sites. To your next hire.
Long Hours Stand In for Good Management
The direct issue is that “we work hard here” is often a cover for weak planning.
Ten to twelve hour days. Saturdays as default. Client calls that eat the whole day and push real work to night. This is not commitment. It is understaffing and poor process wearing a commitment badge.
One more thing worth saying plainly. A “Great Place to Work” certificate does not settle this. We reviewed a certified company whose own employees flagged favouritism and limited growth in the same breath. The certificate measures the survey. Your people measure the reality.
3. What Is the Scope of Work We Take On?
We build the HR function you never got around to building. Here is how the engagement runs, step by step.
Audit What You Have
We start with a full HR Health Audit. Policies, pay bands, attrition data, exit patterns, review process, compliance gaps. We do not guess. We read your numbers and your reviews the same way we read a prospect’s. You can start this yourself here: audit.kenshohrsolutions.com.
Fix Pay and Levelling
We benchmark every role against the market and build salary bands. No more people sitting 39% under without knowing. This alone stops a chunk of your attrition.
Install a Real Appraisal Cycle
We put in written criteria, a fixed calendar, and review meetings that actually happen. Promotions get a system. Favouritism loses its cover.
Rebuild Hiring and Onboarding
Talent acquisition that matches the role. Onboarding that does not lose people in week one. Structured, documented, repeatable.
Close the Compliance and Settlement Gaps
Payroll, statutory compliance, and a clean full and final process. Dues paid on time. Letters issued. The exit stops being the moment trust breaks.
Turn HR From Paperwork Into a Function
We make HR the department that protects people and the business, not the one that stamps forms. That is the shift that holds everything else together.
For companies not ready for the full build, we start smaller with a fixed HR Roadmap. It is a bridge, not a compromise. Details are on the main site.
4. What Outcome Do We Actually Promise?
The outcome is simple. People stop leaving for reasons you could have controlled.
Here is what changes, concretely.
- →
Attrition among your best people drops, because pay and growth stop being a reason to leave
- →
Promotions become defensible, so good performers stay and favouritism talk dies down
- →
Your exit process stops generating bad reviews, which lifts your employer brand for every future hire
- →
Compliance risk goes down, because payroll and statutory work is finally owned
- →
HR becomes a function leadership trusts, not a cost centre nobody rates
None of this needs a big in-house team. That is the whole point of a fractional model. You get a senior HR partner who builds the system, runs it, and hands you something that keeps working. You pay for the outcome, not for a headcount.
5. How Do You Know if This Is You?
If you read section 2 and recognised your own company three times, you are the client.
You do not need to have a crisis. Most of our clients do not. They have a slow leak. Good people leaving. Reviews they do not want to read. A founder spending time on people problems that should not reach the founder.
Start with the audit. It takes minutes and it tells you the truth. Take the HR Health Audit. If the results sting a little, that is the point. It means there is something worth fixing, and something worth fixing is something we can fix.
Your Next Step
If any of this sounds like your company, don’t wait for the reviews to pile up. The free HR Health Audit takes minutes and shows you exactly where the leak is.
Read it as a mirror. If any of this sounds like your company, we should talk.