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 articleAn EV charger manufacturer builds chargers that combine power electronics, firmware, enclosures and network software. A young industry, scarce skills and field failures at public sites make hiring and support the main people work.

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Share your requirementsAn EV charger manufacturer designs and builds AC and DC chargers for homes, workplaces and public sites. The product mixes power electronics, firmware, communication, a metal or plastic enclosure and often a cloud platform. Units are assembled, burn-in tested and shipped for installation, and field technicians commission and repair them across many places. Designs and customer needs change quickly, so engineers learn on the job. Experienced power electronics and firmware engineers are scarce, and a failed charger at a public site is quickly noticed by customers. 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.
Few engineers know high power design well, and those who do are courted by larger firms and established makers.
New standards and customer demands cause frequent changes, and assembly staff relearn products often.
A charger down at a busy site draws quick complaints, and field staff are blamed for design and installation issues alike.
They solve faults in all weather and traffic with few colleagues, and handover to the factory is patchy.
Burn-in and electrical tests deal with high energy, and routines vary across people and shifts.
Third-party installers handle part of the work, and the maker is judged on results it cannot fully control.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Career and Succession Management; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
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.
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.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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 EV charger manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Roles and grades showing growth without having to move into management.
What this coversHideRoles and grades showing growth without having to move into management. See role design and job descriptions.
A short briefing and a trial unit with each product revision, with a sign-off.
What this coversHideA short briefing and a trial unit with each product revision, with a sign-off. See learning and development process.
A fault report format, a weekly check-in and shared learning from repeat issues.
What this coversHideA fault report format, a weekly check-in and shared learning from repeat issues. See hr reporting and analytics.
A step list for burn-in and high energy checks, signed by named people, and reviewed after any incident.
What this coversHideA step list for burn-in and high energy checks, signed by named people, and reviewed after any incident.
A short briefing on standards and a feedback loop on faults traced to installation.
What this coversHideA short briefing on standards and a feedback loop on faults traced to installation.
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.
Clear roles and paths for power, firmware and field staff.
Hiring routines for rare power electronics and firmware skills.
Training for assembly staff and technicians on each new design.
Reasons to stay for the few engineers who hold your designs.
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.

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
Candidates who accept and never arrive are usually lost in the silence between offer and joining. What actually causes it, and a contact plan that closes the gap.
8 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Start early, describe the real work and offer wide ownership. Use practical tasks in interviews and keep the process quick.
Offer growth paths, ownership of real products and clear pay. Explain what you offer that a larger firm cannot.
Give a brief, a trial unit and a sign-off before full production. Keep a short note at the station.
Give them a clear fault report, a person to call and a regular review of repeat issues. Share their lessons with designers.
Brief them on standards, check the first installations and collect feedback on faults. Share results openly.
We would list which engineers hold unique knowledge, count design changes in the last six months with the training that followed and review recent field faults. A good first piece of work is a role and grade structure for power, firmware and field staff. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
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