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Industrial Automation and Robotics · Industrial Automation Companies
HR for Industrial Automation Companies: Projects, Engineers, Site Teams and Support
Industrial automation companies design, supply and install control systems for factories, mixing products, projects and service. Their people are engineers, and project pressure and site travel are what wear them down.
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Share your requirementsAn industrial automation company designs and delivers control systems for plants: PLC and drive systems, instrumentation, panels, software and sometimes machines or robots. Revenue comes from projects, product resale and service contracts. A project moves from enquiry and quotation through design, panel building, programming, factory testing and installation, then site commissioning and handover. Sales engineers, design engineers, programmers, project managers and service engineers each carry part of it. Skills are specialised and tied to brands and industries, so a good engineer is hard to replace. Site work means travel and long days, and service teams take calls at awkward hours. Utilisation is uneven, with projects bunching and a bench between them. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in industrial automation companies, you may see
- Engineers know brands and industries that cannot be copied
- Project pressure falls on a few people
- Site travel wears engineers down
- Service calls arrive at awkward times
- Sales promises run ahead of delivery
- The bench between projects is hard to carry
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 industrial automation companies
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.
- Sales and application engineers
- Design and drafting engineers
- PLC and software programmers
- Project managers
- Commissioning and site engineers
- Service and support engineers
- Panel shop technicians
- Purchase and stores staff
Where HR strains in industrial automation companies
Engineers know brands and industries that cannot be copied
A programmer who knows one brand deeply and one industry well cannot be replaced from the market quickly.
Project pressure falls on a few people
When several projects hit deadlines together, the same project managers and site engineers carry all of them.
Site travel wears engineers down
Weeks away from home and long hours at a customer site lead to fatigue and people looking for a desk job.
Service calls arrive at awkward times
A line stopping at night means a call, and service engineers are on call without a clear rule on rest or pay.
Sales promises run ahead of delivery
Quotations made in a hurry set scope and timelines that engineers then struggle to meet.
The bench between projects is hard to carry
Between projects, engineers are under-used, and when new work arrives there is a scramble to cover it.
HR topics for industrial automation companies
Start with the topics that matter most here: Retention and Attrition Management; HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Organisation Design. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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 industrial automation companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Map skills by brand, industry and role
A simple matrix of who can program, commission and support each major brand and plant type.
What this coversHide
Map skills by brand, industry and role
A simple matrix of who can program, commission and support each major brand and plant type.
What this coversHideA simple matrix of who can program, commission and support each major brand and plant type. See competency and talent management.
Plan project loading each month
A shared view of all projects, who is on each and how many are at deadline together, reviewed by the owner and project managers.
What this coversHide
Plan project loading each month
A shared view of all projects, who is on each and how many are at deadline together, reviewed by the owner and project managers.
What this coversHideA shared view of all projects, who is on each and how many are at deadline together, reviewed by the owner and project managers.
Set rules for travel and site time
Maximum stretches away, rest after long trips and fair allowance rules, written and applied equally.
What this coversHide
Set rules for travel and site time
Maximum stretches away, rest after long trips and fair allowance rules, written and applied equally.
What this coversHideMaximum stretches away, rest after long trips and fair allowance rules, written and applied equally. The attendance and shift process can hold them.
Agree an on-call rota for service
A named rota, a clear call-out and rest rule and pay for on-call time, so the burden is shared.
What this coversHide
Agree an on-call rota for service
A named rota, a clear call-out and rest rule and pay for on-call time, so the burden is shared.
What this coversHideA named rota, a clear call-out and rest rule and pay for on-call time, so the burden is shared.
Bring engineers into the quotation review
A short review with sales and engineering before a quote goes out, so scope and time are realistic.
What this coversHide
Bring engineers into the quotation review
A short review with sales and engineering before a quote goes out, so scope and time are realistic.
What this coversHideA short review with sales and engineering before a quote goes out, so scope and time are realistic. See role design for who signs off what.
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- List your engineers and mark which brands and industries each can handle alone.
- Count how many projects are due at the same time this month and who is on each.
- Check how many days each site engineer was away last quarter.
- Ask your service engineers how many night calls they took last month.
- Look at the last three quotations and see whether engineers reviewed the scope.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment obligations that apply to your industrial automation 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.
- Competency and talent management
A skills matrix for engineers by brand, industry and role so gaps and single points of failure are visible.
- Employee retention and attrition management
Finds why engineers move and what would keep the ones the business cannot replace.
- Attendance, shift and leave process
Travel, on-call and rest rules for site and service engineers.
- HR strategy and workforce planning
Planning headcount against the project pipeline and the bench between jobs.
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
How to recognise and address employee workload problems
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 article
HR Management
"We need two more people": the headcount plan nobody wrote
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
Everyone reports to the founder: when and how to redesign the structure
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Recognise the skill with pay and role, give them ownership of important projects and help them teach a second person. Write down key knowledge so it does not leave with them.
Look at all projects together each month, set limits on how many one person carries and add help before deadlines collide.
A written limit on stretches away, rest days after long trips and clear allowance rules. Apply them equally.
Make a rota, set rest after night calls and pay for on-call time. Check the arrangement with a qualified professional.
Include engineers in the quote review and check scope and time before it goes out. It saves pressure later.
We would ask which engineers hold skills nobody else has, count projects due together and see how travel and on-call are handled. A good first piece of work is a skills matrix and a monthly project loading view. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
More on HR for manufacturing
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