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
Paper and Printing · Industrial Printing Units
HR for Industrial Printing Units: Flexo, Gravure, Screen and Packaging Print Crews
Industrial printing units print on packaging films, cartons, textiles, glass and plastic for factories that need them in volume. The people problem is long shifts on heavy machines where drying, solvents and registration all need steady, skilled hands.
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Share your requirementsAn industrial printing unit prints on packaging films, laminates, cartons, textiles, plastic containers, glass or metal for manufacturers. Processes include flexographic, gravure, screen and pad printing, followed by drying, curing, rewinding, cutting and packing. Presses run in two or three shifts on long orders from factories that need steady supply. Ink mixing and viscosity, solvent handling, registration and drying all affect the outcome. A skilled operator reads these signs by sight and smell, and trainees learn mostly by watching. Unit owners deal with loyal workers on long contracts, and with a small set of senior operators who can switch from job to job. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in industrial printing units, you may see
- Ink and viscosity judgement sits with a few people
- Solvent fumes and heat affect long-term health
- Long shifts reduce registration discipline
- Cylinder and screen handling is heavy work
- Operators move between jobs poorly
- Loyal long-service workers resist change
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 printing units
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.
- Press operators
- Press assistants and helpers
- Ink room and colour matching staff
- Anilox, screen and cylinder handlers
- Curing, drying and rewinding staff
- Slitting and cutting operators
- Quality inspectors
- Mechanics and maintenance staff
- Shift supervisors
Where HR strains in industrial printing units
Ink and viscosity judgement sits with a few people
Colour matching and viscosity control are learned by years of seeing, and a unit with two such people is exposed.
Solvent fumes and heat affect long-term health
Presses and curing lines expose crews to fumes and heat over many shifts, and the effects are slow to be noticed.
Long shifts reduce registration discipline
As a shift passes, small drifts go unchecked and waste rises, especially at night.
Cylinder and screen handling is heavy work
Moving and cleaning cylinders and screens injures backs and hands, with no special training.
Operators move between jobs poorly
A long run of one job lulls the crew, and a sudden switch to a new job produces startup errors.
Loyal long-service workers resist change
Veterans may resist new checks or tools, and younger recruits learn their habits, good and bad.
HR topics for industrial printing units
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. 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.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
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 printing units business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Document ink and viscosity routines
Ask the colour matcher to write down his steps and check them with a second person.
What this coversHide
Document ink and viscosity routines
Ask the colour matcher to write down his steps and check them with a second person.
What this coversHideAsk the colour matcher to write down his steps and check them with a second person. Keep them within the HR documentation process.
Set a fume and heat monitoring routine
A shift check of extraction, ventilation and breaks, with a rotation for the hottest posts.
What this coversHide
Set a fume and heat monitoring routine
A shift check of extraction, ventilation and breaks, with a rotation for the hottest posts.
What this coversHideA shift check of extraction, ventilation and breaks, with a rotation for the hottest posts. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Build a mid-shift registration check
The supervisor signs a check at fixed hours so drift is caught early, including the night shift.
What this coversHide
Build a mid-shift registration check
The supervisor signs a check at fixed hours so drift is caught early, including the night shift.
What this coversHideThe supervisor signs a check at fixed hours so drift is caught early, including the night shift.
Teach safe cylinder and screen handling
A short training and the right trolleys, with a rule that heavy items are lifted by two.
What this coversHide
Teach safe cylinder and screen handling
A short training and the right trolleys, with a rule that heavy items are lifted by two.
What this coversHideA short training and the right trolleys, with a rule that heavy items are lifted by two. See the learning and development process.
Introduce changes with veterans first
Brief long-serving staff before new checks start and ask them to help shape them, so they become the champions.
What this coversHide
Introduce changes with veterans first
Brief long-serving staff before new checks start and ask them to help shape them, so they become the champions.
What this coversHideBrief long-serving staff before new checks start and ask them to help shape them, so they become the champions.
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- Ask who can match colour and set viscosity unaided, and how many others are learning.
- Walk the curing and drying area and note heat, extraction and staff breaks.
- Check last month's waste and mark where in the shift it peaked.
- Look at how cylinders and screens are moved and stored.
- Ask veterans which new checks they would accept and why.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment obligations that apply to your industrial printing units 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.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Habits for solvent, heat and heavy-handling risks on printing lines.
- HR documentation process
Written ink, viscosity and set-up routines that outlast any one operator.
- Learning and development process
A staged route for assistants to learn colour, viscosity and registration.
- Employee retention and attrition management
Keeping skilled operators in a trade where several nearby units will make them offers.
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 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 article
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 articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Ask him to document steps, train a named junior alongside, and recognise the role in grade and pay. Knowledge stays when people see a reason to share it.
Check extraction each shift, rotate staff through the hottest or most fume-heavy posts, and provide appropriate protective gear. Take advice from a qualified professional on legal requirements.
Add fixed-time registration checks, place a senior in charge and plan breaks. Quality slips mostly through tiredness, not carelessness.
Involve them early, explain the reason and start with a trial. Veterans become allies when they help shape a change and are not told after the fact.
Often yes. Flexo, gravure and screen work have different skills, so a scale per process or a skill matrix gives fairer pay and clearer training.
We would ask who can match colour and set viscosity unaided, walk the curing area for heat and extraction, and check waste by hour of shift. A good first piece of work is a documented ink routine with a trainee pairing. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
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