Lighting firms combine design taste with electrical work at height and on site. Here is how to staff designers, installers and project teams.
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Share your requirementsA lighting installation and design company supplies and fits lights for homes, shops, hotels, offices, façades and events: decorative chandeliers, concealed strips, track lights, outdoor and landscape lighting. Projects begin with a designer who plans the effect and choices of fittings, then move to a team that wires, mounts and tests it. Much of the work is done at the end of a building programme, in a hurry, and often at height, on ladders and scaffolds. Staff need both an eye for the effect and the safe handling of electrical work. Timing is tight because lighting is the last layer before opening day. See also HR for construction and real estate. The distinguishing feature is the pairing of a creative, client-facing role with hands-on electrical installation, and the business needs both groups to work to the same drawing.
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.
The designer's intent is lost between the plan and the fitter's hands, and corrections are made on the day with the customer watching.
Ladders, scaffolds and live circuits are used by people who were never formally shown how, and incident records are patchy.
Teams work late nights and double shifts to meet a launch date, then are idle for the next fortnight, and overtime pay is disputed.
A good lighting designer is in demand with architects and interior firms, and often leaves with a portfolio built on the company's projects.
Installers wait on site for stock, and the cost of idle crews is absorbed without anyone tracking it.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Organisation Design; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
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.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a lighting installation and design companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A short walk-through between designer and installer before work starts, with a checklist for the effect to be achieved on site.
What this coversHideA short walk-through between designer and installer before work starts, with a checklist for the effect to be achieved on site. This belongs in the role design for both.
A practical session on ladders, scaffolds and live work, with a record against each person.
What this coversHideA practical session on ladders, scaffolds and live work, with a record against each person. The health and safety routine covers refreshers.
Overtime rules, rest and pay for late-night work written down in advance, with time off or lighter weeks planned after a launch.
What this coversHideOvertime rules, rest and pay for late-night work written down in advance, with time off or lighter weeks planned after a launch. See attendance and shift management.
Named credit on completed projects, a route to senior designer and a share in how projects are chosen, so a good designer sees a future here.
What this coversHideNamed credit on completed projects, a route to senior designer and a share in how projects are chosen, so a good designer sees a future here.
Crew time lost to late stock, design changes and site delays recorded by project, so the cost reaches the people who can fix it.
What this coversHideCrew time lost to late stock, design changes and site delays recorded by project, so the cost reaches the people who can fix it.
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.
Clear roles for designers, installers and coordinators and how each hands work to the next.
A routine for work at height and live electrical work, with training records against each person.
Rules and records for late nights and crunch weeks so overtime is fair and clear.
Skill levels and a growth path for designers and installers, so good people can see where they are heading.
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
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
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 article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Offer visible responsibility, credit on projects, a path to a senior role and steady interesting work. Designers who feel stuck doing routine quotations are the first to go.
Everyone who uses a ladder, scaffold or lift on your jobs, including temporary hands. Keep a short record of what each person was shown and when.
Agree the rate and rest rules before the project, tell the crew, and record hours daily. Surprises on payday create more trouble than the extra work.
A salaried core ensures quality and safety habits, while per-project hands help in peaks. Treat both groups to the same briefing and safety standard.
Walk the designer and crew leader through the drawing before work begins, and have the designer check the effect before the crew leaves. Most re-work starts with a misunderstanding at the start.
We would begin with how a designer's drawing reaches the installation crew, since that gap causes much of the friction. Work at height practice and how crunch-week overtime is paid would come next. A good first piece of work is often a handover routine from design to site, plus a recorded height-safety briefing. Once you have talked it through, we put the scope in writing for you to approve.
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