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Seasonal crews, field officers and processing staff leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act before next season.
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Agricultural Equipment · Agricultural Implement Makers
HR for Agricultural Implement Makers: Ploughs, Cultivators and Hand Tools
An implement maker forges and welds ploughshares, cultivator tines, harrow discs and hand tools for farmers and dealers. Sowing seasons set demand, and the shop leans on forge hands, welders and whoever knows quenching.
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Share your requirementsAn agricultural implement maker turns out ploughshares, cultivator tines, harrow discs, seed drill parts and hand tools such as spades and sickles, mostly in steel. The shop shears plate and bar, forges or presses shapes, welds frames and heat-treats the working edges so they hold. Painting and assembly follow, then packing for dealers. Demand tracks the farming calendar. The months before sowing bring quick hiring and long hours, then a slack stretch. Forge hands and welders learned by doing, and many come from farming families. Dealers press for quick supply and report breakages from the field, which the whole shop hears about. See also HR for agriculture and agribusiness.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in agricultural implement makers, you may see
- The pre-sowing rush forces hasty hiring
- Quenching is judged by eye and colour
- Casual hands leave when the season ends
- Dealer calls for urgent lots upset the plan
- Forging and grinding are hard on the body
- A broken tine in a farmer's field returns as a complaint
- Hands go home for harvest and festivals
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in agricultural implement makers
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Forge hammer and power press operators
- Welders and frame fitters
- Quenching and tempering hands
- Grinding and edge-sharpening staff
- Painting and powder coat staff
- Assembly crew
- Hardness and dimension checkers
- Stores and dealer dispatch staff
- Shop floor mistris and supervisors
Where HR strains in agricultural implement makers
The pre-sowing rush forces hasty hiring
The weeks before sowing need many extra hands, and newcomers are put at forges and presses with little training.
Quenching is judged by eye and colour
The man who knows when a share is ready may not be able to say how. Soft steel then shows up as bent or blunt tines in the field.
Casual hands leave when the season ends
The shop loses people who learned for a year just as the next season nears.
Dealer calls for urgent lots upset the plan
A dealer phones for a rush order and the plan is reshuffled midweek, leaving crews tired and short-tempered.
Forging and grinding are hard on the body
Heat, noise and flying scale wear people out. Eye and hand injuries follow when goggles and gloves are skipped.
A broken tine in a farmer's field returns as a complaint
The break is traced to a weld or a quench, but nobody can say who made the part.
Hands go home for harvest and festivals
Several take long leave at fixed times of year, and replacements are not ready.
HR topics for agricultural implement makers
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Learning and Development; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for agriculture and agribusiness, not in general.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a agricultural implement makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Keep a register of returning seasonal hands
List their skills and usual return dates, and phone them before the season opens.
What this coversHide
Keep a register of returning seasonal hands
List their skills and usual return dates, and phone them before the season opens.
What this coversHideList their skills and usual return dates, and phone them before the season opens. See recruitment process consulting.
Write down the quench and temper rules
Record temperatures, soak times and a simple file or hardness check, signed by the shift lead.
What this coversHide
Write down the quench and temper rules
Record temperatures, soak times and a simple file or hardness check, signed by the shift lead.
What this coversHideRecord temperatures, soak times and a simple file or hardness check, signed by the shift lead. See learning and development.
Punch each batch with its maker's mark
A chalk or punch mark traces parts to a welder or shift, so complaints teach rather than blame.
What this coversHide
Punch each batch with its maker's mark
A chalk or punch mark traces parts to a welder or shift, so complaints teach rather than blame.
What this coversHideA chalk or punch mark traces parts to a welder or shift, so complaints teach rather than blame. The performance management work covers feedback.
Plan leave around harvest and festival weeks
Agree a leave calendar early and plan cover for each section.
What this coversHide
Plan leave around harvest and festival weeks
Agree a leave calendar early and plan cover for each section.
What this coversHideAgree a leave calendar early and plan cover for each section. See attendance, shift and leave.
Issue protective gear and check it weekly
Goggles, gloves and ear defenders are handed out at joining and checked every week.
What this coversHide
Issue protective gear and check it weekly
Goggles, gloves and ear defenders are handed out at joining and checked every week.
What this coversHideGoggles, gloves and ear defenders are handed out at joining and checked every week. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Write down who in the shop understands quenching well enough to teach it.
- Count how many of last year's seasonal hands came back.
- List the last five field breakage complaints and where each part was made.
- Check which weeks last year saw the most leave and what happened to output.
- Walk the forge and count who is wearing goggles and gloves.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment duties that bind a forge and fabrication shop like yours.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Recruitment process consulting
A returning-hand register and a seasonal hiring plan for the weeks before sowing.
- Learning and development
Written forging and quenching steps, so know-how does not rest with one man.
- Attendance, shift and leave
A leave calendar that copes with harvest and festival absence.
- Health, safety and wellbeing
Gear and habits for forge, grinding and welding work.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in agriculture and agribusiness, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
Why new hires don't turn up on day one, and what to do between offer and joining
Candidates who accept and never arrive are usually lost in the silence between offer and joining. What actually causes it, and a contact plan that closes the gap.
8 min readRead article
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
HR Process
One employee, three versions of the record: fixing employee information management
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Keep a register, ring them before the season and pay fairly and on time. People return to a shop that treated them well and taught them something.
Ask the man who does it to write temperatures, timings and checks with a junior beside him. Add a simple hardness test so quality is shown, not guessed.
Pair each newcomer with a senior for set tasks, start them on lower-risk work and check gear daily. Short repeated sessions beat one long talk.
Yes, by marking batches by shift or welder and reviewing complaints together. Use it to fix the process, not to punish.
Ask people to apply early, publish the calendar and plan cover. A small group of trained temporary hands helps.
We would ask who can teach quenching, how many seasonal hands returned last year and what the recent breakage complaints say. A fair starting task is a seasonal hiring and induction plan. Scope is set down in writing before we begin.
More on HR for agriculture and agribusiness
All 6 business types in agricultural equipment · Find another business type
Tractor Attachment MakersFarm Machinery MakersIrrigation Equipment MakersFood Processing Equipment MakersAgricultural Pump MakersRecruitment and Talent Acquisition in agriculture and agribusinessLearning and Development in agriculture and agribusinessEmployee Administration in agriculture and agribusiness
See all HR topics for agriculture and agribusiness, or another industry.