People & Culture Manager

Location - Fort, South Mumbai Type - Full-Time, WFO Reports To - Co-Founders CTC Range - 1218 LPA About Caresmith Caresmith is a profitable, fast-growing D2C personal care and wellness brand. We build category-leading products across massage & recovery, oral care, grooming, wellness, and personal health devices sold through our own website and leading marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms. We are based out of Fort, South Mumbai. The Role We are hiring our first dedicated HR Manager to own the full people function at Caresmith. We need someone who can independently lead HR without the founders being pulled into day-to-day people operations. You will report directly to the Co-Founders and manage a small team: a Junior Recruiter (sourcing and pipeline administration) and an Admin Executive (office operations and vendor coordination). This is a builders role inside a live D2C startup. The core problems you are being hired to solve: our performance management system exists but needs sharpening with role-specific, measurable KRAs and real accountability; recruitment cycles are too slow; employee issues land on the founders desks because no one is positioned to resolve them at the HR level; and culture and engagement are waiting to be owned deliberately. We need someone who can improve what exists, build whats missing, and run it all without hand-holding the way you would at any fast-scaling consumer startup. Key Responsibilities Critical Priorities Performance Management: We have a system in place, but it needs significant improvement. Make it role-specific with measurable KRAs and outcomes, tighten the review cadence, and equip managers to give honest, data-backed feedback. The system exists you make it actually work. Recruitment Velocity: Own the hiring pipeline end-to-end. We source in-house using recruitment platforms and prefer to keep it that way. Drive sourcing strategy, direct the Junior Recruiter on candidate identification and outreach, manage screening and interviews, and close open roles within defined timelines. Own stakeholder alignment on role requirements, candidate quality, and offers. The goal: founders and reporting managers approve final candidates, not chase recruiters for updates. Ongoing Ownership People Operations: Own the full employee lifecycle onboarding, documentation, confirmations, exits. Keep HRMS data accurate. Coordinate payroll inputs with the outsourced partner on time every month. Compliance & Policy: Keep Caresmith compliant with all labour laws and statutory requirements (PF, ESI, PT, Shops & Establishments) and POSH. Own the HR policy manual, keep it current, and ensure policies are followed not just documented. Culture & Engagement: Take deliberate ownership of engagement not just events, but the quality of everyday interactions, feedback channels, and team connectedness. At our scale, culture is shaped by a handful of people. You are one of them. Administration Oversight: Supervise the Admin Executive on office operations, vendor management, and IT asset tracking, so nothing falls through the cracks. HR Systems & Process: Ensure the HRMS is properly configured and actually used. Build dashboards giving leadership real visibility into people metrics (attrition, hiring funnel, attendance, engagement). Treat every manual HR process as something to automate or eliminate. Who Were Looking For (Must-Have) 58 years as an HR generalist, with at least 2 years independently owning the full HR function not just one vertical like recruitment or compliance. A D2C / direct-to-consumer background is essential. You have run HR inside a consumer brand ideally one selling across its own website, marketplaces, and quick-commerce and you understand the pace, priorities, and margins of that world. Proven startup-culture experience in a 50300 employee organization. You have operated inside a high-growth startup fast-paced, ambiguous, high-ownership and built HR processes from scratch rather than inheriting them. You know first-hand how HR has to evolve as a company scales through this headcount range. Hands-on experience designing and running performance review cycles coaching managers, calibrating ratings, and addressing underperformance, not just administering a form. Working knowledge of Indian labour-law compliance, statutory requirements, and POSH. Comfortable managing a small team and coordinating with external partners (outsourced payroll/compliance). Strong working knowledge of LinkedIn Recruiter or similar sourcing platforms. Based in Mumbai, willing to work from our Fort office full-time. Strong Preference Experience managing HR for a mixed workforce both warehouse/operations staff and office-based employees (Caresmith ha .