An innerwear maker knits fabric, cuts and stitches vests, briefs, bras and thermals and packs them for brands. The people problem is a mostly women stitching workforce, high volumes of repeat operations and strict fit and finish checks.
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Share your requirementsAn innerwear manufacturer works in high volume on a narrow range of styles. Cotton or blended yarn is knitted into fabric, dyed, cut and stitched with flatlock, overlock and elastic attachment machines. Bras add moulded cups, hooks and wires. Garments are then checked for stitch, size and measurement, trimmed, pressed, tagged and packed. Brands set strict fit and finish rules, and one slipped elastic or wrong label can reject a lot. Most stitching hands are women, many young and living nearby, and travel, safety and conduct at work affect attendance. Operators build speed on a single operation and shifting them is hard. 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.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in innerwear manufacturers. 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.
Operators do one step all day, and neck, back and eye strain lead to absence.
A stretched elastic or wrong tag can fail a whole batch, and the last checker takes the blame.
Women stitchers face transport and household duties that affect punctuality, and late shifts increase risk.
Raised voices, abuse and unfair distribution of work drive exits, and complaints are not trusted.
A variant garment changes operation times, and the operator and the line chief disagree.
An operator who can do only one step cannot cover absence, so the line stalls.
Visiting buyers check hours, conduct, committees and records, and gaps show up fast.
Fabric defects or shade variation reach the stitching line late and blame travels back.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Relations; Learning and Development; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
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.
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.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
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 innerwear manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A cross-training plan with sign-off, linked to skill pay steps.
A cross-training plan with sign-off, linked to skill pay steps. See learning and development.
A short course on language, fair work allocation and handling complaints, with a trusted route through the grievance process.
A short course on language, fair work allocation and handling complaints, with a trusted route through the grievance process.
Agreed shift end times, safe transport and a way for women to raise concerns, supported by the attendance and shift process.
Agreed shift end times, safe transport and a way for women to raise concerns, supported by the attendance and shift process.
Joint timing of each operation, written on the style sheet, with rates settled before the line starts.
Joint timing of each operation, written on the style sheet, with rates settled before the line starts.
Seat height, short stretches and rotation between tasks, noted in health, safety and wellbeing records.
Seat height, short stretches and rotation between tasks, noted in health, safety and wellbeing records.
One tidy file per worker with joining, wage and training notes, kept under employee information management.
One tidy file per worker with joining, wage and training notes, kept under employee information management.
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.
Cross-training and skill steps for stitchers and checkers.
A trusted route for complaints about conduct and pay.
Complete, tidy worker records ready for any buyer audit.
Ergonomics, fire and floor safety routines.
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.
Why the best operator often struggles as shift supervisor, what it costs the line, and a practical way to choose, prepare and back new supervisors in any kind of plant.
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 article
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead article
How an India head can sort a global parent's HR policies into apply, adapt or replace, write an India addendum with advisers, and keep headquarters on side.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Understand travel and family constraints, set predictable shifts, offer transport help where you can and treat people with respect. Most absence has a cause you can see if you ask.
Provide a route that bypasses the supervisor, act on it visibly and train supervisors. Ask a qualified professional about committees and duties that apply.
Time each operation with the operator and the line chief, write the time and rate on the style sheet and review after the first lot.
Yes, if you do it in small steps, pair people and pay a skill step. Short-term output dips but cover improves.
Typically hours, wages, safety, conduct and records. Ask each brand for its checklist and have a qualified professional confirm your obligations.
We would ask how complaints against supervisors are handled, how many stitchers can do two operations and how new style rates are settled. A good first piece of work is supervisor conduct training and a cross-training plan. Scope is agreed in writing after we talk.
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