A plant installation company erects machinery, piping and structures inside other people's factories, often against a shutdown window. Crews move from client to client, so the people on site are only as good as the last briefing they received.
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Share your requirementsAn industrial plant installation company erects and commissions equipment at its customers' works: boilers, process lines, conveyors, tanks, piping, structural steel and sometimes electrical and instrument work. A job begins with drawings and a mobilisation of tools and crews, followed by erection, alignment, welding, testing and handover. Much of it happens inside a running factory or during a planned shutdown with a fixed restart date. Crews are a mix of company fitters, welders and supervisors and gangs brought for the peak, and they follow each client's entry and safety rules. Jobs start and end often, so the team is always forming. The wider construction and real estate hub covers what construction firms share.
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.
A plant restarts on a date the client has promised its own customers, so the crew works long days and the company absorbs any delay.
Each factory sets its own passes, induction, permits and working hours, and a crew moving between clients has to relearn them every time.
A welder skilled in one process may be re-tested by each client, and failing or waiting for tests wastes shutdown days.
A core team travels, and gangs are added around it, so training and trust built on one job do not always carry over to the next.
Crews live in lodges near the client, and travel days, allowances and lodging quality decide who accepts the next posting.
Alignment and weld checks are done by experienced supervisors, so a new or stretched one can let defects through to commissioning.
Weekly measurements must match what the client accepts, and disputes drag if supervisors have not recorded who did what.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Employee Administration; Employee Relations. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
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.
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.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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 industrial plant installation companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A group of fitters, welders and supervisors kept on the roll between jobs, with pay and allowances stated.
What this coversHideA group of fitters, welders and supervisors kept on the roll between jobs, with pay and allowances stated. See pay and rewards.
For every client, one page on passes, induction, permits, hours and contacts, handed to each person before mobilisation.
What this coversHideFor every client, one page on passes, induction, permits, hours and contacts, handed to each person before mobilisation.
A register of who holds which test for which process, with dates, so the right people go to the right job.
What this coversHideA register of who holds which test for which process, with dates, so the right people go to the right job. The employee information management service can hold it.
A shift pattern for the shutdown window with limits on consecutive long days and rest planned before the next job.
What this coversHideA shift pattern for the shutdown window with limits on consecutive long days and rest planned before the next job. Attendance and shift planning uses it.
Rules on lodging, food, travel days and allowances that apply equally across jobs.
What this coversHideRules on lodging, food, travel days and allowances that apply equally across jobs.
A daily sheet that links measured work to the gang that did it, helping billing and fair incentives.
What this coversHideA daily sheet that links measured work to the gang that did it, helping billing and fair incentives.
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.
Practical trials for fitters and welders and a pool of proven gangs for peak jobs.
One record of tests, passes, certificates and postings for every crew member.
A fair, simple way to raise and settle complaints and conduct issues on client premises.
Reviews of supervisors and crews that cover quality, timeliness and safety together.
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
Sources beyond the neighbouring gate for setters, turners, inspectors and leak test hands, plus a one-hour bench trial built from your own rejected parts.
7 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
An employee brings you a complaint about their supervisor. What happens next should not depend on who is in the room. A grievance procedure a small company can actually run.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
For skilled welders, fitters and supervisors, usually yes, because they are hard to rebuild. Decide the size from your pipeline of orders and write the terms clearly so people know where they stand.
Keep a one-page pack for each client and send the details of everyone to the client early. Many shutdown days are lost at the gate, not at the plant.
In one simple register with the person, process, date and expiry, kept up to date by one named person. Ask a qualified professional about the standards that apply.
One with a stated limit on consecutive long days, planned rest and clear terms for the extra hours. Agree it before the shutdown and tell the crew in plain words.
Give crews a simple way to raise issues with a named person, handle conduct matters fairly and promptly and keep records. The client's rules apply too, so know them in advance.
First we would count shutdown days lost to entry, permits and tests, look at how your core crew is kept between jobs and ask a supervisor how mobilisation works today. A client entry pack with a test register is a natural first piece, and scope goes into writing for your approval.
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