A roofing material maker rolls profiled metal sheets from coils and ships them to sites where fixers work on open roofs. Risk sits in heavy coils, cut-length accuracy and how installers behave at the roof edge.
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Share your requirementsA roofing material maker turns coils of colour-coated or galvanised steel into trapezoidal and corrugated sheets, ridge caps and flashings for sheds, warehouses, factories and homes. Some units also make tiles. A coil goes onto the uncoiler, through the roll forming stands, under the shear to the ordered length, and onto the stacking table for bundling. Dealers and contractors send length lists with colours and gauges, usually against a roof date. Coils are swung by crane and sling, and cut edges are sharp. A wrong length or a scratched coating becomes scrap. Many makers also send fixers who work at height, where a fall or poor fixing is the main risk. See also HR for construction and real estate.
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.
Coil lifts and loose sheet stacks cause cuts and crush injuries. Sling checks and lifting authority differ from shift to shift.
One mistyped length runs through fifty sheets because nobody measures the first piece off the shear.
Switching roll sets for a new gauge or profile needs a skilled hand. The line idles while that fitter is on leave.
Harness use, edge protection and screw spacing depend on habit. One fall can stop an entire project.
Dealer and contractor lists are revised after the order desk has sent a copy. The line and the desk then work from different versions.
Roof jobs cluster ahead of the monsoon. Extra hours land on the same operators and loaders every year.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Onboarding and Probation; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
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.
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 roofing material makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A named person signs the first length and coating before the run proceeds.
What this coversHideA named person signs the first length and coating before the run proceeds. The role design and job descriptions work defines who may stop the line.
Name the trained crane and sling staff, and check gear at the start of each shift.
What this coversHideName the trained crane and sling staff, and check gear at the start of each shift. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Write the changeover steps for each profile and let a second fitter work through them.
What this coversHideWrite the changeover steps for each profile and let a second fitter work through them. The learning and development process supports it.
Cover harness, edge protection, fixing pattern and wind, with a sign-off before the first roof.
What this coversHideCover harness, edge protection, fixing pattern and wind, with a sign-off before the first roof. See employee onboarding process.
Chart dealer demand by month, keep a bench of extra loaders and share a fair overtime rule well before the peak.
What this coversHideChart dealer demand by month, keep a bench of extra loaders and share a fair overtime rule well before the peak.
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.
First-sheet checks and line-stop authority, so one wrong length is not copied across a whole bundle.
Coil handling and work-at-height routines for the factory floor and the roof crews.
A route for second roll-set fitters and operators behind the few who change profiles.
A proper induction for new fixers before they step on a roof.
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.
8 min readRead article
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
A practical joining checklist covering documents, assets, system access and statutory enrolments, with owners and timings, so nobody's first salary is wrong.
8 min readRead article
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Measure and sign the first sheet of each run, keep one current length list at the line and review errors by order desk and operator. Most trace to late changes.
Name the trained crane and sling staff, check gear daily, keep people clear during lifts and note near misses. Short talks work better than long manuals.
Induct them on harness and edge protection, watch their first roofs and sign them off before they go alone. Check the legal duties with a qualified professional.
Give the skill its own grade and pay, a coaching role, and a fair share of breakdown work. Compare their pay with nearby roofing plants.
Plan from the dealer calendar, keep a list of dependable extra loaders and agree overtime rules early, so the same few are not drafted every year.
We would review the latest wrong-length runs and who staffed them, list who may lift coils, and ask who could change a profile without your fitter. A fair first job is a first-sheet check with a coil lifting authority list. We set the scope in writing after a first conversation.
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