Concrete mixers, pavers, hoists, cranes and compactors are welded, machined and assembled in the plant, then kept running on building sites. Both halves rely on a few skilled people and long hours.
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 construction machinery manufacturer builds equipment such as concrete mixers, batching plants, lifts and hoists, compactors, small cranes and road machines. The plant has cutting, welding, machining, painting, hydraulic and electrical assembly and test areas, while a service group commissions and repairs machines at contractor sites. Welding quality matters in every frame and boom, and a poor joint can lead to a failure far from the plant. Orders follow building activity and weather, so the plant runs short of hands in the busy season and holds idle stock in the slow one. Many shop-floor staff are contract or day workers, and the experienced welders and site engineers are the core. 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 construction machinery 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.
Certified, steady welders are scarce, and a rushed order tempts supervisors to use unsupervised newer hands on load-bearing joints.
Pre-monsoon and post-monsoon orders arrive together, so overtime stacks up and the team that built last year's rush is tired when this year's begins.
Commissioning and breakdown calls take people away for weeks, and allowances, rest and family pressure drive them to rival firms.
Welding fumes, grinding dust, noise and paint fumes wear people down, and protective gear is worn unevenly.
Chassis, drums and booms are moved by crane and trolley every shift, and authorisation and training records for operators are patchy.
People on short engagements weld, paint and assemble beside permanent staff with little induction and no training record.
A hoist or mixer fault on a site is traced back to assembly, but nobody can say which team built or tested that unit.
The best welder is made a foreman with no training in handling people, and the line loses both a welder and a good team.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; HR Strategy and Workforce Planning. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
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 construction machinery manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A list of welders with the joint types each is trusted to weld, based on a supervised test, and a rule that load-bearing joints go only to listed people.
A list of welders with the joint types each is trusted to weld, based on a supervised test, and a rule that load-bearing joints go only to listed people. The learning and development process can run the programme.
A headcount and overtime plan tied to the order book, with trained returners for peak months and an induction ready.
A headcount and overtime plan tied to the order book, with trained returners for peak months and an induction ready. See recruitment process consulting.
A record of days away, call-outs and rest for each commissioning engineer, linked to allowances and leave.
A record of days away, call-outs and rest for each commissioning engineer, linked to allowances and leave. See attendance, shift and leave.
Gear issue records, fume extraction checks, noise limits and a named, trained operator for each crane and trolley, in line with a workplace health, safety and wellbeing routine.
Gear issue records, fume extraction checks, noise limits and a named, trained operator for each crane and trolley, in line with a workplace health, safety and wellbeing routine.
A one-day briefing and a simple sign-off sheet for anyone working on welding, painting or assembly, with a lead hand named for supervision.
A one-day briefing and a simple sign-off sheet for anyone working on welding, painting or assembly, with a lead hand named for supervision.
A build card recording who welded, assembled and tested each unit, kept with the machine number, so complaints can be learned from and not argued about.
A build card recording who welded, assembled and tested each unit, kept with the machine number, so complaints can be learned from and not argued about.
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.
Welder testing and foreman training so quality and supervision improve together.
Fair records for overtime in peak months and for site engineers away from base.
Routines for fumes, noise, lifting and gear issue, with records kept.
Clear measures for welders, assemblers and engineers that reward quality, not only speed.
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 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 a D2C founder can decide which digital marketing work to hire for, which to buy from an agency, and which to split, with a worksheet and a five step plan.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep a written list of tested welders by joint type and make it a rule that load-bearing welds go only to people on it. Test new hands before adding them.
Plan from the order book, keep a trained returner list, give a short induction and avoid heavy overtime on the same few people.
Pay allowances on time, record travel fairly, give rest between assignments and show a path to area lead. Constant travel is the usual reason for leaving.
Who was trained, by whom, when, and any authorisation held. Ask a qualified professional which certificates your equipment needs.
Only with training and a trial period in handling people. Many firms keep a senior welder track so skilled welders can grow without managing.
We would ask how welders are tested, how contract hands are inducted and how site engineers' travel is recorded. A good opening job is a welder skill list with a short induction pack. 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.
