A solvent plant recovers, distils and blends thinners and process solvents. Its people risks are static and vapour, column operators who read the still by feel, and a tanker gate that never goes quiet.
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Share your requirementsA solvent manufacturer recovers spent solvent from customers, distils it and blends thinners and process solvents for paint, coating, pharma and industrial buyers. The plant centres on a still or blending vessel, bulk tanks, a tank farm of pumps and pipework, and a gantry for drums and tankers. Spent feed varies from lot to lot, so column operators trim heat and reflux by experience. Tankers arrive all day and drums go out to smaller buyers. Ignition control shapes every job: hot work permits, earthing and bonding, flameproof fittings. A small group of operators and supervisors hold the judgement, and one slip by one person can become a plant-wide emergency. See also HR for manufacturing.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
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.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in solvent manufacturers. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Bonding, earthing and permit habits rest on each person every time, not on the rule chart by the gate.
Spent feed changes by the lot, so seniors adjust heat and reflux from experience. Trainees need years to pick it up.
Drivers and cleaners from several transporters enter daily with different habits and almost no induction.
With a tanker waiting, the paper follows the spanner. The next shift never learns which line was opened.
Drills are timed and filed, yet people forget the assembly point. New joiners miss them entirely.
Hands fill and cap drums in a noisy bay. Tiredness shows up as spills and the wrong label on a drum.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Policies, Compliance and Governance; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
How many people, in which roles, by when, and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a solvent manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Each shift hands over every open permit, line opened and tank level in person.
Each shift hands over every open permit, line opened and tank level in person. The attendance, shift and leave process reserves a handover slot in the roster.
A short standard induction, a gear check and a named escort to the bay.
A short standard induction, a gear check and a named escort to the bay. The health, safety and wellbeing work builds the routine.
Tank helper, then transfer pump operator, then column assistant, with a senior's sign-off at each rung.
Tank helper, then transfer pump operator, then column assistant, with a senior's sign-off at each rung. See the learning and development process.
Hold a brief debrief after each drill and keep a list of newcomers who have yet to attend, so nobody stays untrained for long.
Hold a brief debrief after each drill and keep a list of newcomers who have yet to attend, so nobody stays untrained for long.
A roster moves people out of the vapour at set times.
A roster moves people out of the vapour at set times. A second person checks the label before any drum leaves the bay.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
Share your requirementsConfirm 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.
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.
Permit, gate induction and drill routines for a plant where ignition control comes first.
Handover slots and rosters so open permits and tank status pass cleanly between shifts.
A staged path from tank helper to still operator, with sign-off at each step.
Written rules on permits, visitors and discipline for breaches, kept short and clear.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why the best operator can struggle as shift supervisor, what it costs the line, and a practical way to choose, prepare and back new supervisors in any kind of plant.
7 min readRead article
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
How an India head can sort a global parent's HR policies into apply, adapt or replace, write an India addendum with advisers, and keep headquarters on side.
7 min readRead article
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep each rule short, have supervisors check it every shift and log near misses without blame. People follow what they see checked.
Use a staged ladder with a senior as guide and written sign-off at each rung. Give it time, since this skill builds slowly.
Name one person per shift to brief and escort them, and keep a simple gate log of who was briefed.
Treat it as serious, record the facts and follow a written disciplinary process. Check legal steps with a qualified professional.
Rotate people through the bay, give regular breaks and make the label check a separate step.
We would go through your recent tank farm permits with you, count the drivers briefed last week and ask who is learning the still. A sensible start is a visible permit handover and a gate induction for drivers. We agree scope in writing after that talk.
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