A switchgear maker folds enclosures, cuts and bends copper busbars, mounts breakers and relays, then tests the finished panel. Customers energise it, so fitters and testers have to be careful and trusted.
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Share your requirementsA switchgear manufacturer builds low and medium voltage panels that switch, protect and distribute power. Sheet is cut and bent into enclosures, copper busbars are cut, bent and drilled, breakers and relays are mounted, control wiring is run and the panel is tested before dispatch. Customers include utilities, builders, factories and project contractors, with tight dates and witness inspections. Fitters must follow the drawing exactly and hold clearances. Testers sign for equipment that will carry heavy energy. Orders arrive in lumps with project schedules, so the shop swings between fabrication pressure and assembly pressure. See also 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 switchgear 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.
A loose busbar joint or a tight air gap is hard to see and costly later, and rests on each fitter's care.
A visitor checks the panel and the records, and a gap in either is blamed on the whole shop.
When fabrication slips, assembly is rushed and fitters stay late to catch up.
Whoever signs the test report takes on the product's risk, yet pay and authority may not match.
Energised testing needs strict routines, and what people do varies by individual and by day.
Experienced fitters are offered higher site pay, and the shop loses its steady hands.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Organisation Design; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when, and what they will cost.
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.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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 switchgear manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A scale from helper to senior fitter based on busbar work and assembly quality, with sample checks.
A scale from helper to senior fitter based on busbar work and assembly quality, with sample checks. See compensation benchmarking.
A role that states what the tester signs, when dispatch may be held and who backs the decision.
A role that states what the tester signs, when dispatch may be held and who backs the decision. See role design and job descriptions.
A checklist of records and people for every visit, and a short briefing for the fitters on the day.
A checklist of records and people for every visit, and a short briefing for the fitters on the day.
Named people, steps and sign-offs for testing live equipment, reviewed with the team.
Named people, steps and sign-offs for testing live equipment, reviewed with the team. See health, safety and wellbeing.
A plan showing what leaves fabrication and when assembly needs it, so late hand-offs become rare.
A plan showing what leaves fabrication and when assembly needs it, so late hand-offs become rare.
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.
A tester role with written authority to hold a dispatch.
Routines for energised testing and heavy panel handling.
Fitter grades set against what site contractors offer.
Reasons for skilled fitters to stay in the shop.
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 can struggle 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 building job grades, titles and billing levels for a growing IT services firm, with a step-by-step method and a grade description outline.
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
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.
Offer a clear grade and pay path, steady planning and recognition for neat work, and compare your offer fairly with site pay.
Write down what they sign and when they may hold dispatch, and back them in front of sales. Authority without support does not hold.
Prepare the records, brief the team and name one host. Review each visit afterwards for gaps.
Use named people, written steps and sign-offs, retrain after any near miss and keep the bay clear of onlookers.
Plan with fabrication, give assembly a firm arrival schedule and agree a realistic dispatch date with sales.
What your senior fitter re-checks on a rushed panel, who signs your test reports and what the last customer visit found missing. A good opening job is a tester role with written authority plus a fitter grade scale. Scope is agreed in writing once we have talked.
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