An industrial contractor builds factories, warehouses, steel structures and plant foundations, and works inside live plants during shutdowns. Welders, riggers, fitters and crane operators must hold the right skills and pass each client's entry rules.
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Share your requirementsAn industrial contractor puts up pre-engineered buildings, steel frames, warehouses, process plant foundations, pipe racks and equipment bases. Much of the work is in or beside a running factory, so the client controls who enters, when and with what permits. Crews of welders, fitters, riggers, fabricators and crane operators arrive in numbers for a shutdown window of a few days, then scatter. Skill is checked by the client at the gate, and a person who fails the entry rules cannot work. The wider construction and real estate hub covers what the sector shares.
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 industrial contractors. 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.
Normal strength is small, but a plant shutdown window requires a large crew of skilled hands at once, and few can be found at short notice.
A missing training record, an expired certificate or a failed medical means a worker is turned away just as the window opens.
A client test can reject someone you have paid for years, so your own grade means little unless it matches the client's.
Permits, hot work approvals and induction differ plant to plant, and supervisors lose time learning each one.
Riggers and crane operators carry high risk, yet their training is a few shifts beside a senior.
Between windows, skilled people go to other contractors, and the next shutdown starts with strangers.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
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 industrial contractors business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Names of welders, riggers and fitters with certificates, tests passed and client gate status, ready to send when a window is announced.
Names of welders, riggers and fitters with certificates, tests passed and client gate status, ready to send when a window is announced.
A grade ladder that matches what clients test for, so a promotion means the person can pass at the gate.
A grade ladder that matches what clients test for, so a promotion means the person can pass at the gate. See competency and talent management.
Permit steps, induction, timings and contacts for each regular client, handed to supervisors before they arrive.
Permit steps, induction, timings and contacts for each regular client, handed to supervisors before they arrive.
A defined path for riggers and crane operators with practical checks at each stage.
A defined path for riggers and crane operators with practical checks at each stage. The learning and development process holds the format.
A small paid core of your best hands, used on workshop fabrication in quiet weeks, so they stay.
A small paid core of your best hands, used on workshop fabrication in quiet weeks, so they stay.
Send the crew list for client clearance well before the window, and fix gaps while there is time.
Send the crew list for client clearance well before the window, and fix gaps while there is time.
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.
Safe working routines for lifting, hot work and shutdown windows, set out for supervisors and crews.
Skill grades for welders, riggers and fitters tied to what clients test.
A step-by-step path for riggers, crane operators and welders in training.
Written rules on permits, conduct and records that work across several client sites.
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 construction and real estate, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Site engineers, supervisors, crews and sales teams leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it between projects.
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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
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
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 articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep a pre-cleared list of people with current certificates, agree availability weeks ahead and hold a small core between jobs. Calling around after the date is announced will rarely deliver enough trained hands.
Missing or lapsed certificates, an unmet medical requirement or a failed test. Check records a week early and match your skill grades to the client's tests, so surprises are caught before the window.
In steps, with a practical check at each one, beside an experienced person and with records kept. Safety on lifting cannot be learned by watching alone, and the rules that apply should be confirmed with a qualified professional.
By giving them workshop fabrication, pre-assembly or maintenance work in quiet weeks, and by keeping their pay and grade steady. A small paid core is cheaper than starting each shutdown with strangers.
Write a one-page rules sheet per client, give it to supervisors before arrival and run a short briefing at the gate. Update the sheet after each job so knowledge stays with the company.
We would look at who was turned away at your last shutdown gate, compare your welder grades with your top clients' tests and ask supervisors how long a new plant takes to learn. A pre-cleared crew list and matched grades are usual first steps, with scope written for your approval.
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