A fit out contractor works in the last weeks of a building, when many trades share small spaces and the handover date does not move. This is how to run site supervisors, trade gangs and snag teams under that pressure.
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Share your requirementsA finishing and fit out contractor takes a shell or a partly built space and makes it usable: partitions, ceilings, flooring, painting, joinery, electrical points, glass and final cleaning. The core team is small, with project managers, site supervisors, a drawing desk and a purchase coordinator. Most work is done by trade gangs, many of them subcontracted and arriving in sequence. Many trades crowd one floor in the last weeks, and a delay from one gang blocks the next. Night and weekend work is common when the space is occupied by day. A client walkthrough and a snag list close the job, and payment often waits for it. For the wider sector, read HR for the construction industry.
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 finishing and fit out contractors. 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.
Painters wait for ceilings, ceilings wait for electricians, and the supervisor spends the day settling arguments.
One person tracks six gangs, deliveries and the client, so quality checks are rushed.
Gangs leave for the next site while defects remain, and calling them back costs goodwill.
Hours, meals and transport for night shifts are decided on the spot.
Workers follow their own mestri, and you cannot move people if he leaves.
Defects show only at the client walkthrough, after the gang has been paid.
Day counts are kept by gang leaders, and disputes arise when payments are tallied.
Ladders, solvents and cutting tools are used without checks because the deadline is near.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
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 finishing and fit out contractors business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A floor-by-floor schedule that shows who works where each day, reviewed in a short morning meeting.
A floor-by-floor schedule that shows who works where each day, reviewed in a short morning meeting. Link it to HR policy packages.
A supervisor and gang leader walk the area, mark defects and fix them before the gang is released.
A supervisor and gang leader walk the area, mark defects and fix them before the gang is released.
A limit of gangs per supervisor and a deputy for busy weeks.
A limit of gangs per supervisor and a deputy for busy weeks.
Hours, meal, transport and rest rules written once and shared.
Hours, meal, transport and rest rules written once and shared. See attendance and shift rules.
A site clerk records people by name and trade each day, matched to gate entry.
A site clerk records people by name and trade each day, matched to gate entry. Keep it in employee information.
Ladder, solvent and tool checks and a weekly briefing, following site safety routines.
Ladder, solvent and tool checks and a weekly briefing, following site safety routines.
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.
Night work terms and daily attendance records for gangs and staff.
A single list of every person on site with trade and employer.
Daily checks for height, solvent and tool work during the final push.
Quality and snag measures that make supervisors and gangs accountable.
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
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 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
A practical design for an IT services appraisal cycle: when to run it, how to rate fairly across projects, and how to explain hikes so they hold.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Publish a floor-by-floor sequence and hold a short morning meeting. Most clashes come from nobody owning the sequence.
It depends on the site, but if he cannot check quality daily, the span is too wide. Add a deputy before the busiest weeks.
Hold part of the payment until the walkthrough, and agree this in the contract. Confirm terms with a qualified professional.
Written hours, rest, meals, safe transport and lighting. Confirm the legal limits with a qualified professional.
Keep a daily sheet signed by the gang leader and the supervisor, and reconcile weekly.
We would look at the supervisor span, snag closure and the attendance record for gangs. Scope, timing and fees are written down so you know what you are buying.
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See all HR topics for construction and real estate, or another industry.
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