Industries
Why manufacturing employees leave and how to understand why
Operators, technicians and supervisors leave for reasons that sit in shifts, skills and supervision. How to ask, read the pattern by shift and act on it.
6 min readRead article
Electrical Equipment Manufacturing · Cable and Wire Manufacturers
HR for Cable and Wire Manufacturers: Drawing, Stranding, Insulation Extrusion and Drum Handling
A cable and wire maker draws copper or aluminium rod, strands it and sheathes it in insulation on lines that seldom stop. Extruder and drawing operators hold the skill, and heavy drums bring real lifting danger.
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 requirementsRod goes through drawing dies to finer gauge, is annealed, then bunched or stranded into conductors. Extrusion lines apply PVC or XLPE insulation, cores are laid up, sheathed, tested and wound onto wooden or steel drums. A cold start or a long stop wastes conductor and compound, so lines run round the clock. Drums and coils travel by overhead crane, hand trolley and sling. The operator watches diameter, melt temperature and line speed, and a good one catches an eccentric core before it becomes a drum of scrap. Orders are cut to length and specification, and drum handling is a daily hazard. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in cable and wire manufacturers, you may see
- Extruder set-up takes years to learn
- Lines that never stop need clean handovers
- Drums and coils injure people
- The line sets the operator's pace
- Scrap ends and short lengths pile up unseen
- Experienced extruder hands get poached
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in cable and wire manufacturers
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.
- Wire drawing machine operators
- Stranding and bunching operators
- Insulation extruder operators
- Core laying and sheathing operators
- Drum winders and packers
- High-voltage and spark test technicians
- Crane and trolley operators
- Maintenance fitters and electricians
Where HR strains in cable and wire manufacturers
Extruder set-up takes years to learn
Choosing zone temperatures, line speed and cooling trough length for each cable is slow to master, and a poor set-up wastes metal and compound.
Lines that never stop need clean handovers
Die sizes, speeds and faults pass between shifts by word of mouth, and details such as a worn die are dropped on the way.
Drums and coils injure people
Full drums are heavy, and slings, trolleys and overhead cranes call for trained, named hands rather than whoever is free.
The line sets the operator's pace
A line cannot be slowed without good reason, and tired hands slip near the end of a night shift.
Scrap ends and short lengths pile up unseen
Cut ends and rejected lengths gather beside the lines, and nobody ties them to who ran the machine or what was changed.
Experienced extruder hands get poached
A neighbouring plant offers slightly better pay, and the steady operators who know the lines are the ones who go.
HR topics for cable and wire manufacturers
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a cable and wire manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Grade operators line by line
A scale showing who can run drawing, stranding or extrusion alone, and who can set up a new cable size.
What this coversHide
Grade operators line by line
A scale showing who can run drawing, stranding or extrusion alone, and who can set up a new cable size.
What this coversHideA scale showing who can run drawing, stranding or extrusion alone, and who can set up a new cable size. See compensation benchmarking.
Hand over each line in writing
Die sizes, speeds, faults and pending jobs written down and signed by outgoing and incoming operators.
What this coversHide
Hand over each line in writing
Die sizes, speeds, faults and pending jobs written down and signed by outgoing and incoming operators.
What this coversHideDie sizes, speeds, faults and pending jobs written down and signed by outgoing and incoming operators. See attendance, shift and leave process.
Authorise named people for slings and cranes
A short list of trained people for slinging, crane and trolley work, with a check before each shift.
What this coversHide
Authorise named people for slings and cranes
A short list of trained people for slinging, crane and trolley work, with a check before each shift.
What this coversHideA short list of trained people for slinging, crane and trolley work, with a check before each shift. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Post daily scrap by line and shift
A one-line note per line showing metres rejected and the likely cause, shared with operators so patterns are talked over calmly.
What this coversHide
Post daily scrap by line and shift
A one-line note per line showing metres rejected and the likely cause, shared with operators so patterns are talked over calmly.
What this coversHideA one-line note per line showing metres rejected and the likely cause, shared with operators so patterns are talked over calmly.
Open a route from helper to extrusion setter
Steps from helper to operator to setter with a sign-off at each stage and a senior operator as named mentor.
What this coversHide
Open a route from helper to extrusion setter
Steps from helper to operator to setter with a sign-off at each stage and a senior operator as named mentor.
What this coversHideSteps from helper to operator to setter with a sign-off at each stage and a senior operator as named mentor.
Start by checking where you stand
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 requirements- Read last night's handover notes and judge if a newcomer could run that line from them.
- List who is authorised for sling, crane and drum work.
- Count how many people can set up a new cable size on the extruder.
- Set last week's rejected lengths side by side by shift.
- Ask your best extruder operator who is learning from them.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the licences, factory records and employment duties that cover your cable-making business.
Confirm 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.
How GullyHR helps
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.
- Attendance, shift and leave
Rosters and handovers for lines that must run through the night.
- Health, safety and wellbeing
Authorisation and pre-shift checks for heavy drums, slings and cranes.
- Compensation benchmarking
Line grades that value setters and extruder operators against nearby plants.
- Learning and development process
A staged path to grow extrusion setters from your own crew.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
The safety poster nobody reads
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
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
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.
Questions owners ask
Use one written format covering die sizes, speeds and faults, signed by both operators, and keep a few minutes of face-to-face overlap at the line.
Give skill a grade and pay of its own, ask them to train others and offer a setter role. Compare your pay with nearby plants.
Name the authorised people, inspect slings each day and keep walkways clear. Retrain the crew after any near miss.
Count it by line and shift, look for set-up and material causes and talk the results through with the team. Blame hides problems.
Keep rotations predictable, limit runs of consecutive nights and place demanding jobs away from the early-morning dip.
With last night's handover notes, the list of people cleared for crane work and a count of who can set up a new cable size. A written line handover and a line-by-line grade scale would be a sensible opening, with scope put in writing after a first conversation.
More on HR for manufacturing
All 8 business types in electrical equipment manufacturing · Find another business type
Control Panel MakersTransformer ManufacturersElectric Motor ManufacturersSwitchgear ManufacturersIndustrial Lighting ManufacturersPower Distribution Equipment MakersHealth, Safety and Wellbeing in manufacturingCompensation, Payroll and Benefits in manufacturingLearning and Development in manufacturing