The New HR Manager's 30-60-90 Day Plan (Myanmar Edition)

The universal rule: don't rewrite anything in month 1

Every new HR manager is tempted to open the existing handbook, see it's outdated, and start rewriting. Don't. Month 1 is for listening. If you rewrite without context, you will solve the wrong problem and lose credibility with the incumbent HR team.

Days 1–30: Audit mode

The goal of month 1 is to produce a written audit of what you found — good, bad, and broken — that you will present to your CEO at day 30.

Week 1 — orient

• Meet every functional head (finance, ops, sales, each factory/site manager). 30 minutes each. Ask: "What does HR do well? What frustrates you?"
• Read the last 3 months of payroll runs. Understand the process end-to-end.
• Read the existing employee handbook and employment contract template.
• Sit with the person who runs payroll for one full cycle (if mid-month). Don't change anything — just watch.

Week 2 — compliance audit

• Pull the following and confirm they exist and are current:
  • Current Employment Contract Template (bilingual, MLIP-aligned)
  • SSB registration and last 3 months of SSB returns
  • PIT deduction tables in use — check against QHRM Tax Calculator
  • Public holidays 2026 schedule loaded in payroll
  • Overtime calculation rules — verify the multiplier used matches the current interpretation of the law
  • Leave policy and balances for all employees
  • Standing Order (workplace rules) filed with Labour Exchange Office
  • Termination records for the last 12 months — are severance calculations documented?

Week 3 — people and systems

• Map the HR tech stack. What is in Excel? What is in an HR system? What is on paper?
• Map the HR team roles. Who does what. Who is overloaded. Who is the single point of failure.
• Identify the "shadow HR" — the admin in ops who actually runs leave requests because the HR system is broken.

Week 4 — write the audit

Produce a written report with:

1. Top 5 compliance risks (and rough cost of each if ignored)
2. Top 3 employee experience breakdowns (quote actual employees you interviewed)
3. Top 3 HR team capacity bottlenecks
4. One-page asked-of-CEO: what you will fix in days 31–60, with budget and authority needed

Present this at day 30 to the CEO. Do not commit to anything beyond the three fixes. Keep scope tight.

Days 31–60: Fix the three most painful things

Month 2 is execution. Pick the three items from your audit that meet all of:

1. Visibly broken — employees or managers complain about it regularly
2. Fixable in 4 weeks — no multi-month project
3. Low political risk — nothing that requires rewriting someone's role

Typical month-2 fixes for Myanmar HR

What to not touch yet (month 2)

• Performance review system — too political, requires CEO alignment
• Salary benchmarking / comp review — needs data you don't have yet
• Organizational restructure — not your call in your first 90 days
• Employee handbook rewrite — requires cultural understanding

Days 61–90: Ship one visible initiative

Month 3 is the "build trust by delivering" month. Pick one initiative that is:

1. Visible to employees or leadership — so people feel the change
2. Completable by day 90 — no half-done projects
3. Connected to a business outcome — retention, hiring speed, compliance risk

Typical month-3 initiatives for Myanmar HR

• Launch a new employee onboarding program — week-1 checklist, welcome pack, 30/60/90 buddy system
• Roll out bilingual employee handbook v1 — even if only 60% complete, ship it
• Implement an HR system (if you scoped in month 2) — kick off implementation
• Launch quarterly pulse survey — simple 5-question survey for engagement baseline
• Build the first CEO HR dashboard — headcount, attrition, open roles, compliance flags — one page, monthly

At day 90, present progress to the CEO with:

• What was fixed (from month 2)
• What was launched (from month 3)
• What is on the 6-month plan
• What risks remain

The 10 metrics to baseline in your first 90 days

You cannot improve what you do not measure. Baseline these 10 in your first 90 days:

1. Headcount by department (today)
2. 12-month attrition rate (overall + by department)
3. Voluntary vs. involuntary attrition split
4. Time to hire (days from req open to offer accepted)
5. Offer acceptance rate (offered / accepted)
6. Payroll error rate (errors / total payslips, last 12 months)
7. SSB / PIT filings — timeliness (on time % for last 12 months)
8. Overtime as % of base salary — trend over 12 months
9. Leave balance accumulation — are employees taking leave or accumulating it?
10. Management span — avg direct reports per manager

The HR manager's anti-patterns (what not to do)

❌ "I'll rewrite the handbook in month 1"

You don't have the context. The current handbook has clauses that were added because someone got sued. Rewrite in month 4+ after you know the stories.

❌ "I'll fire the underperformers"

In Myanmar, termination without proper process is legally costly. Understand the 3-warning rule (see termination guide) before any action.

❌ "I'll announce a new performance review system"

Performance management requires CEO alignment, manager training, and 6+ months of runway. Not a month-2 fix.

❌ "I'll centralize everything HR does through me"

You will become the bottleneck. Distribute clear authority; keep the HR team accountable.

❌ "I'll bring in my favorite vendor from my last company"

If they are genuinely the best, they still need to pass a real evaluation. Bias is your biggest risk here.

The Myanmar-specific curveballs to watch for

1. Gazette public holidays shift each year. What was Monday off last year may be Tuesday this year. Don't assume.
2. Thingyan week (April) is different from every other week — expect minimal HR decision-making, slow payroll, patience.
3. SSB rule changes happen with short notice. Subscribe to MLIP notifications.
4. Internet outages can affect cloud HR systems. Have an offline fallback for payroll.
5. Burmese-only employees still exist in many factories. English-only handbooks and systems miss them.

Frequently asked questions

Q: I'm the first-ever HR manager at a 100-person company. Does this still apply? Yes — if anything more so. Day 1 will reveal that a lot of HR is happening informally. Your month-1 audit becomes a gold mine because nothing is documented.

Q: My CEO wants results in 30 days, not 90. Push back gently. Offer a 30-day audit + compliance triage as "week-1 deliverables" and use the audit to align on a realistic 60-day fix list.

Q: Should I replace the HR system in my first 90 days? You can scope and select in month 2, and start implementation in month 3, but go-live should not be in your first 90 days. HR system migration is a high-visibility, high-risk project — don't run it in parallel with learning the company.

Q: How do I handle an HR team that's been here for years? Listen first. They know why things are the way they are. Validate their expertise publicly. Change happens faster with them than against them.

Next steps