Courier and last-mile staffing, hub by hub and shift by shift
Last-mile networks do not fail in one place. They fail in forty pincodes on the same day, because sorters did not report at 4am, riders quit for a competing app, and the hub in-charge is covering three roles. Staffing this network is a distributed daily operation, not a hiring project — sorters, loaders, hub supervisors and verified delivery riders, on our payroll and compliant with the Labour Codes.
Roles, headcount and site location. We aim to send a costed proposal within one working day.
Roles from line haul to doorstep
Every parcel passes through four or five pairs of hands. A shortfall at any of them shows up as a missed delivery promise.
- ✓Sortation: sorters, scanners, baggers, chute and conveyor line staff
- ✓Loading: line haul loaders and unloaders, dock staff, container handling
- ✓Hub operations: hub in-charge, shift supervisors, inventory and audit staff
- ✓Last mile: delivery associates, bike and van riders, EV fleet riders
- ✓Returns: RTO processing, reverse pickup teams, damage assessment, restocking
- ✓Customer interface: doorstep exchange, QC-check pickups, cash on delivery handling
- ✓Support: housekeeping, security, MHE operators, gate and documentation staff
The 4am shift is where the delivery promise is actually made
If sortation runs short before dawn, every downstream commitment for that day is already broken, and no amount of rider effort recovers it.
Nobody knows before 5am whether the shift is full. Riders and sorters leave for a better-paying app or hub with a day's notice, and there is no trained pool to draw from at short notice.
Plus peak-season collapse in October and November, precisely when the network's annual reputation is decided.
Attendance recorded per hub and shift, city-level floating pools for absence, verified riders with licence and vehicle checks, and surge pools built before the festive peak, not during it.
Get a quote →Who works in a courier network: duties, checks and pay basis
Each role below has its own screening. A loader and a COD rider are not the same hire, and one generic process for both is a common cause of day-one drop-outs.
| Role | What they do | Checks before the first shift | Pay basis (indicative) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sorter / scanner | Inbound scan, sort to pin-code bags or chutes, bagging and manifesting | Identity and address verification, handheld-scanner trial, fitness for early or night shifts | State minimum wage for the category (unskilled / semi-skilled) plus any shift allowance you pay |
| Loader / unloader | Line haul loading to plan, seal and count checks, dock discipline | Identity and address checks, safe-lifting and dock-safety briefing | State minimum wage (unskilled); overtime at twice the ordinary rate beyond 8 hours a day |
| Delivery associate (two-wheeler / EV) | First-attempt delivery, proof of delivery, COD collection, reverse pickups | Driving licence class checked against the vehicle, RC and insurance for own vehicles, background check, app and route trial | Fixed wage plus per-shipment incentive; job-portal averages for couriers sit around ₹20,000–₹22,000 a month |
| Van / LCV delivery driver | Bulky, B2B and multi-drop routes | Licence and driving test, background check, vehicle-handover checklist | State minimum wage for drivers (skilled) plus trip or night allowance |
| Returns / RTO processor | Receive returns, QC check, restock, document damage | Identity checks, basic literacy and scanner trial | State minimum wage (semi-skilled) |
| Hub supervisor / shift lead | Roster, productivity, first-level escalation, attendance sign-off | Prior hub experience, spreadsheet and system test, reference check | Market-linked; agreed per city in the rate card |
Indicative only. Minimum wages are notified by each State and revised periodically (usually twice a year through a variable dearness allowance) — check the current rate for your hub's State and zone in our minimum wage calculator. For permanent hub in-charge and city manager roles, use permanent recruitment instead of contract staffing.
Which law applies to your delivery staff depends on the model you choose
Since the Code on Social Security, 2020 came into force on 21 November 2025, India's labour law recognises “gig workers” and “platform workers” — people who earn outside a traditional employer–employee relationship. A rider on a staffing agency's payroll is not one of them: that rider is an employee, with every Labour Code protection that goes with it. Many networks run both models side by side; the table shows who owes what.
| Your own payroll | Agency payroll (contract staffing) | Gig / platform partners | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal employer | You | The staffing agency; you are the principal employer | No employer; the platform is an “aggregator” |
| PF and ESI | Yes — PF on wages up to ₹25,000 a month is mandatory (ceiling raised from ₹15,000 on 17 September 2026); ESI where gross is up to ₹21,000 | Yes — deducted and deposited by the agency; you should see the challans every month | No PF/ESI. Aggregators contribute to a social security fund: 1–2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of payouts to gig workers |
| Minimum wage, overtime, weekly rest | Yes | Yes — overtime at twice the ordinary rate beyond 8 hours a day or 48 a week; no more than six working days a week | Not “wages” under the Code on Wages; payout terms set by the platform and any State platform law |
| Registration and reporting | Your establishment registrations | Agency registrations, plus contractor licensing under the OSH Code (formerly CLRA) where the contractor has 50 or more contract workers | Social Security (Central) Rules, 2026 (8 May 2026): aggregators register and upload worker data, then report joins and exits |
| State platform laws | Not applicable | Not applicable | e.g. Karnataka's Platform Based Gig Workers Act, 2025: a welfare fee of 1% of payout, subject to per-transaction caps by category, under a Government Order of 13 February 2026 |
| Control over shifts and routes | Full | Full — the agency rosters to your plan | Limited: the more you fix hours, routes and exclusivity, the harder it is to argue the partner is not an employee |
Summary for orientation, not legal advice. Contribution rates for aggregators under the Code on Social Security await notification by the Central Government; State laws differ.
Payroll riders for committed routes
COD-heavy beats, B2B routes, scheduled 4am sort shifts and anything where you need a named person at a fixed time. The wage floor, PF, ESI and accident cover make retention easier, not harder.
Gig partners for overflow
Evening spikes, sale days and far-flung pin codes where volume is irregular. Keep control light and payouts transparent, and let the platform carry the aggregator compliance.
Mixing the rules
Paying payroll riders per drop only, with no wage floor for the hours worked, or controlling gig partners like employees. Per-shipment incentives are fine on top of a wage that meets the State minimum.
Deployment checklist for every hub and every rider
The principal employer carries real exposure: if a contractor fails to pay wages, the principal employer can be required to pay them and recover the amount later. Ask for these items before the first shift, and every month after.
Before the first shift — per person
- ✓Identity and address verification; police verification where the route or COD value calls for it — see background verification
- ✓Driving licence class matched to the vehicle actually used (geared motorcycle, LMV, transport). Pedal-assist e-cycles of up to 250 W and 25 km/h are not motor vehicles and need no licence or registration
- ✓RC, insurance and pollution certificate for rider-owned vehicles, re-checked on expiry
- ✓UAN and ESI number generated before day one, nominations filed
- ✓Appointment letter stating wage, hours, weekly off and incentive rules
- ✓Safety induction: lifting, conveyor and chute safety, helmet and riding safety
- ✓COD and device SOP signed: cash limits, same-day remittance, shortage process
For each hub — per contract
- ✓Contractor licensing under the OSH Code (formerly CLRA): a single licence, valid five years, where the contractor has had 50 or more contract workers in the preceding 12 months
- ✓Shops & Establishments registration for the hub, as the State requires
- ✓Women rostered before 6 am or after 7 pm only with written consent and the transport, safety and rest-room conditions the State prescribes (OSH Code s.43 and State rules)
- ✓Overtime register kept; overtime beyond 8 hours a day or 48 a week paid at twice the ordinary rate
- ✓Monthly PF and ESI challans, wage register and attendance shared with you — what a clean compliance file looks like
- ✓ESI employment-injury cover for riders on wages up to ₹21,000; a group personal accident or employee compensation policy for anyone above it
- ✓An Internal Committee under the POSH Act covering hub teams
Want an independent view of an existing vendor? A contract labour compliance audit checks licences, registers and challans hub by hub.
Hubs, riders, peaks
Hub staff are billed on the loaded wage (wage plus employer PF, ESI and other statutory costs) plus a service fee; riders are billed per rider per month or on a delivery-linked model. Move the slider for a rough monthly figure.
Assumes an average monthly gross of ₹19,000 across sorters, loaders and riders. Fuel, vehicle costs and incentives are billed at actuals and are not included.
The service is daily fill, reported hub by hub.
A festive surge plan that starts before the sale, not during it
Diwali falls on Sunday, 8 November 2026. The big e-commerce sale events usually open in late September or early October, so hub volumes climb through October, and returns peak for two to three weeks after the festival. Working back from the peak:
Hub-wise volume forecast from you, converted into headcount by hub, shift and role.
Sourcing drives in the catchment around each hub, plus referrals from riders and sorters already working.
Verification, UAN and ESI generation, app onboarding, test rides and scanner trials.
Shadow shifts on live volume; overflow hubs and extra sort lines staffed.
Daily fill report before the first sort, a floating pool per city, extended rosters with overtime paid at twice the rate.
Returns and RTO surge staffed, then a planned release at the end of each fixed term, with full and final settlement handled by us.
Starting late? The six-week plan can be compressed by running drives and onboarding in parallel, but some hubs will fill later than others. We aim to tell you, hub by hub, which ones are at risk rather than promise a blanket fill. Monsoon months (June to September) are the other planning window: absenteeism among riders rises when roads flood.
How many people a hub actually needs on payroll
A route or a sort-line position that runs seven days a week cannot be covered by one person, because no worker may be made to work more than six days a week under the OSH Code. Add an allowance for absence and the gap between “positions” and “heads on payroll” is larger than most budgets assume.
The formula
Heads on payroll = daily positions × (days operated per week ÷ 6) × (1 + absence allowance)
Use your own absence data for the allowance. If you do not track it by hub yet, that is the first report we set up.
Worked example — normal weeks
40 delivery routes, 7-day operation, 10% absence allowance: 40 × 7/6 × 1.10 = 51.3, so 52 riders on payroll to put 40 on the road every day.
Worked example — festive peak
If routes rise to 70 for the peak: 70 × 7/6 × 1.10 = 89.8, so 90 riders — 38 more than normal. Those 38 are the surge pool, hired on fixed terms that end after the returns peak.
Illustrative arithmetic, not a productivity benchmark. Shipments per rider per day vary widely by density, parcel mix and COD share.
KPIs you can hold us to
Targets are agreed per hub in the SLA schedule, because a metro hub and a rural spoke do not behave the same way. What we report on, from week one:
- ✓Fill rate by hub and shift, before the shift cut-off
- ✓Time to backfill an absent or exited rider or sorter
- ✓Verification complete before the first shift — no exceptions
- ✓30-day and 90-day retention of new joiners, by hub
- ✓COD shortage incidents and recovery status
- ✓Salary paid on the agreed date; PF and ESI challans shared each month
When agency staffing is the wrong answer
- —Your fleet is fully gig on your own app. You need aggregator compliance, not payroll staffing — though we can still staff the hubs behind it.
- —Hub in-charges and city managers you want for years. Hire them permanently; contract terms make leaders feel temporary.
- —Small, flat volumes and an HR team already in place. Keep people on your own rolls and use us only for third-party payroll if processing is the pain.
Questions project and HR heads ask us
Answers we give in the first call, written down so you can compare vendors on the same terms.
Get a quote →Can you staff hubs across several cities at the same time?+
Yes. Each hub gets its own roster and attendance record, a coordinator owns each city cluster, and you get a daily fill report per hub before the first shift so your operations team can act before volumes land.
Are agency delivery riders gig workers under the Code on Social Security?+
No. A rider on a staffing agency's payroll is an employee: minimum wage, PF, ESI, overtime and weekly rest all apply. The gig and platform worker provisions cover people who work outside an employer–employee relationship, and the contribution duty there sits with the aggregator.
Are riders verified before deployment?+
Yes — licence class, RC and insurance checks for the vehicle actually used, identity and address checks and a background check, which matters most on cash-on-delivery and high-value routes. Nobody starts a shift with verification pending.
How do you handle festive peak volumes?+
By building the surge pool about six weeks ahead of the peak from your hub-wise forecast, staffing overflow hubs, running extended rosters with overtime paid at twice the ordinary rate, and releasing surge staff at the end of their fixed term with settlements handled by us.
Can women work a 4am sortation shift?+
Yes, with their written consent and the conditions the State prescribes for work before 6 am or after 7 pm — typically safe transport, security and rest facilities. We roster women on early or late shifts only where those conditions are in place at the hub.
Who pays for the rider's fuel and vehicle?+
That is your commercial choice: company EVs, rider-owned bikes with a fuel or per-kilometre reimbursement, or a vehicle allowance. We pay it through payroll against documented kilometres and bill it at actuals, separately from wages and the service fee.
What happens if a rider is injured on the road?+
Riders on wages up to ₹21,000 a month are covered by ESI, which pays medical care and employment-injury benefits. For riders above that limit, we arrange group personal accident or employee compensation insurance, so nobody is on the road uncovered.
Do you need a contractor licence to supply hub and delivery staff?+
Under the OSH Code, which replaced the Contract Labour Act from 21 November 2025, a contractor who has had 50 or more contract workers in the preceding 12 months needs a licence — a single licence valid for five years. Ask any vendor for it, and for its PF and ESI registrations.
How are riders billed?+
Per rider per month on our payroll, with ESI or accident cover, or on a model where part of the pay is linked to deliveries — always on top of a wage that meets the State minimum. Both include verification and app onboarding; fuel and vehicle costs are billed at actuals.
Related roles and services
Send the hub list and the shift timings
We come back with hub-wise fill targets, rider verification standards and a festive surge plan.