Surveying firms send field parties with instruments to measure land, then turn readings into maps others build from. This is how to run surveyors, chainmen and draughtsmen when accuracy and weather rule the week.
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Share your requirementsA land surveying company measures boundaries, levels and features of land and produces plans for developers, government bodies, farmers and builders. A field party usually has a lead surveyor, an instrument operator, chainmen or assistants, and sometimes a driver. They carry total stations, GPS receivers, levels and increasingly drones to sites that may be forested, hilly or crowded. Back in the office, draughtsmen and data processors clean the readings and produce maps and area statements. An error of a few centimetres can be a boundary dispute, so checking matters. Parties stay out for days, work in heat and monsoon, and may meet landowners who resist entry. Skilled lead surveyors are scarce and often have their own client contacts. For the wider sector, read HR for construction and real estate.
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 land surveying companies. 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.
Teams travel for several days with advances, bills and daily allowances that are slow to settle.
Rain, heat and fog stop work for days, yet the client's deadline and the assistants' wages continue.
A dropped total station or a lost receiver costs a month's profit, and nobody agrees who is responsible.
A party reaches a plot and meets an angry owner or caretaker, with no briefing on how to handle it.
A wrong benchmark or a typing error flows into a plan that someone builds from, and the blame travels back along the chain.
Assistants learn by carrying prisms for years, with no one explaining the logic of the survey.
A senior surveyor who knows the developer's site manager can leave and take the next job with them.
The office is idle until the party returns, then buried in rush plots.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; HR Operations and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
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.
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.
The pieces a land surveying companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Instruments, batteries, permits, contacts, first aid and a call-in time each evening.
Instruments, batteries, permits, contacts, first aid and a call-in time each evening. Hold sign-off in your safety routines.
Each instrument is issued to a named lead on a sheet, with calibration dates and condition on return.
Each instrument is issued to a named lead on a sheet, with calibration dates and condition on return.
Fixed daily allowances, an advance policy and a weekly settlement so parties are not out of pocket.
Fixed daily allowances, an advance policy and a weekly settlement so parties are not out of pocket. See payroll steps.
A short script on introducing the party, showing authority letters and leaving if the owner objects, taught in onboarding.
A short script on introducing the party, showing authority letters and leaving if the owner objects, taught in onboarding.
Every plan is checked by someone who was not in the field, with initials recorded on the drawing file.
Every plan is checked by someone who was not in the field, with initials recorded on the drawing file.
From carrying to levelling to instrument handling to party lead, with short assessments.
From carrying to levelling to instrument handling to party lead, with short assessments. Link to learning steps.
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.
Heat, snake and traffic hazards for field parties, with check-in routines.
Allowances, advances and travel claims settled on a fixed rhythm.
A clear ladder for assistants from carrying to leading a party.
Instrument custody sheets, authority letters and plan sign-offs kept in order.
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.
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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.
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Decide in advance, in writing, what is accidental damage, what is negligence and how it is handled. Ask a qualified professional before making deductions from wages.
Use a standard daily allowance, cover travel and stay costs, and settle advances weekly. Slow claims push staff to take loans.
Offer ownership of jobs, fair pay, and a share in client relationships through the firm. They leave when they feel invisible.
Use a second-person check, a standard checklist for benchmarks and closing errors, and a record of who did what.
Agree a rule on idle days, such as paid standby for a limited period, and tell staff before the season starts.
We can set up party checklists, instrument custody sheets, advance rules and a ladder for assistants. Licensing and legal matters go to a qualified professional.
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See all HR topics for construction and real estate, or another industry.
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