A milling shop machines housings, plates and brackets from solid blocks, in small, varied lots. Every new job needs its own fixture, program and a careful first cut, so knowledge sits in a few heads.
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Share your requirementsA CNC milling shop cuts blocks, plates, castings and forgings into housings, covers and brackets from customer drawings and models. Lots are small, so one machine may see several part numbers in a week. A job runs from CAM programming to vice or fixture set-up, tool loading, edge finding or probing, a first-off check on a surface plate or CMM, and then the batch. The programmer and the senior setter carry most of the know-how, and quality staff sign off the first piece before the run. Lead times are tight, and a revised drawing can undo a week of preparation. Related reading: 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 CNC milling shops. 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.
Programs, fixture notes and cutting tricks sit with one or two people, and a resignation can stall repeat orders for weeks.
Each changeover risks an error, yet setters are praised for speed even though a bad first-off is the costly mistake.
The setter remembers how a casting was clamped and what went wrong last time, but nobody records it for the next shift.
Without learning offsets or tool wear, they call the setter for every small adjustment, and setters never get free time.
The programmer gets the new revision but the floor does not, and a batch is cut to the old version.
A small pay gap is enough for an experienced setter to move to a shop down the road.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
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.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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 CNC milling shops business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A folder with program name, fixture sketch, tool list, offsets and first-off notes, so repeat work does not depend on one person.
A folder with program name, fixture sketch, tool list, offsets and first-off notes, so repeat work does not depend on one person. The HR documentation process shows how to keep these current.
Define what each grade may handle, from simple plate work to multi-sided fixtures, and tie pay to it.
Define what each grade may handle, from simple plate work to multi-sided fixtures, and tie pay to it. Compensation benchmarking gives a fair market view.
Teach offset checks, tool wear changes and probe cycles in stages, with limits on how far they may adjust.
Teach offset checks, tool wear changes and probe cycles in stages, with limits on how far they may adjust. A learning and development plan structures the steps.
One named person issues the latest revision, pulls the old copy, and each shift initials that it has seen the change.
One named person issues the latest revision, pulls the old copy, and each shift initials that it has seen the change.
Give them one live repeat job a month under the senior's eye, and count the handover in both reviews and pay.
Give them one live repeat job a month under the senior's eye, and count the handover in both reviews and pay.
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.
Written job packs and role notes that keep knowledge in the shop when someone resigns.
Programmer and setter pay checked against nearby machine shops, so a poaching offer is no surprise.
A staged route from operator into setting that frees your scarce setters.
A named second person for programming and setting, with a plan to build them up.
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 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 article
What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Document the repeat jobs first, then pair a second programmer on new ones. Reward the handover so the senior does not see it as a threat.
Link both to skill grades and make the gap visible. The setter sees why, and the operator sees what to learn to move up.
Use a short written first-off checklist, a second pair of eyes on new jobs and a rule that no batch runs before sign-off. Do not reward speed alone.
Yes, if it is done in stages with firm limits on what they may change. It frees setters and gives operators a reason to stay.
Make one person responsible for issuing revisions and withdrawing old prints, and have each shift confirm before the next batch starts.
We would count the jobs only one programmer can run, check which repeat parts lack job packs and see how operators are graded against setters. A good opening piece is a grade ladder with written job packs. Once we have talked, the scope is put in writing for you.
All 9 business types in CNC machining and precision engineering · Find another business type
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