Green coffee is roasted and graded, tea is tasted, blended and packed. Tasters, roast masters and blenders give each brand its cup, and a small team usually holds that knowledge.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA coffee roaster buys green beans, cures, sorts, roasts, grinds and packs. A tea trader buys at auctions or from estates, blends lots to a consistent cup and sells loose or packed tea. Both businesses depend on a few senses and a few memories: the taster who knows what a lot should cost and how it will blend, and the roaster who watches the colour and the crack. Around them are godown labour moving heavy gunny bags, sorting and packing women and men, sales staff on routes and clerks managing stocks and lots. Seasons, crop quality and price swings alter workloads, and the business is often family-run with long-serving staff and few written roles. 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 coffee roasters and tea traders. 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.
One or two tasters hold the memory of every blend and buying price, and the owner fears the day they retire or leave for a rival.
Roasters judge colour, smell and sound, and a distracted or untrained operator on a night run can spoil a full batch.
Staff lift and stack bags all day, injuries are treated as part of the job, and nobody records who is fit for which task.
Buying seasons bring bursts of lot arrival, sampling and blending, then quiet weeks, and overtime and idle time are both unplanned.
Hand sorting beans and checking leaf grade strains eyes and posture, and quality drops late in a shift without rotation.
Long-serving staff do whatever is asked, titles and pay are by habit, and newer hires cannot see how to grow.
A salesperson who holds the shop and café accounts can take them to a competitor, and handover notes seldom exist.
Chaff, tea dust and roasting smoke irritate lungs and eyes, and few units note who works in which area.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Career and Succession Management; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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 coffee roasters and tea traders business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A tasting log with sample, grade, price view and blend reasoning, kept by the taster and an apprentice, so judgement is partly written.
A tasting log with sample, grade, price view and blend reasoning, kept by the taster and an apprentice, so judgement is partly written. See employee information management.
A short sign-off on roast profile, cooling and sample checks for each operator, with a named senior for night shifts.
A short sign-off on roast profile, cooling and sample checks for each operator, with a named senior for night shifts. Use the learning and development process.
Weight limits per person, team lifts for heavy bags, rest between lots and a note of who is unfit for lifting after an injury.
Weight limits per person, team lifts for heavy bags, rest between lots and a note of who is unfit for lifting after an injury.
A rota that sets extra hands for arrival weeks and lighter cover after, with overtime recorded.
A rota that sets extra hands for arrival weeks and lighter cover after, with overtime recorded. See attendance, shift and leave.
Short blocks at the sorting table followed by lighter tasks, so quality holds and eyes rest.
Short blocks at the sorting table followed by lighter tasks, so quality holds and eyes rest.
A customer list with visit notes held by the firm, a second salesperson introduced to each large account and a simple handover note when a route changes.
A customer list with visit notes held by the firm, a second salesperson introduced to each large account and a simple handover note when a route changes.
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 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.
A structured apprenticeship for tasters and roasters so know-how is passed on.
Clear records of roles, skills and service for long-serving staff in a family-run firm.
Lifting, dust and posture routines for godown and sorting staff.
A clearer view of pay for scarce tasting and roasting skills against nearby firms.
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 often struggles 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
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 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 articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Start a written tasting log, pair an apprentice with the taster and give the taster a role in teaching. Pay, title and respect also decide whether such a person stays.
Use last year's arrival dates to set extra hands and overtime, and keep a few trained temporary workers on call. Record hours so pay is correct.
Set lifting limits, use team lifts, give rest and record every injury, however small. Ask a qualified professional which rules apply to your premises.
Keep the customer list with the company, introduce a second contact to major accounts and reward retention, not only new sales.
Write what each person does in a few lines, agree grades with them and show how someone can move up. Do it with the senior staff first so it is not seen as a threat.
We would ask who holds the tasting knowledge, how roasters are trained and how lifting is managed in the godown. A good opening job is a tasting and roasting sign-off plan with simple role notes. Scope and fee are agreed in writing.
All 255 business types in manufacturing · Find another business type
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.
