An operations consulting firm works on client shop floors, warehouses and supply chains. Consultants spend weeks at plant sites, measuring and changing how work flows, so travel, site safety and field coaching shape their working lives.
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Share your requirementsAn operations consulting firm improves how a client produces, stores and delivers: lean programmes, plant layouts, supply chain reviews, maintenance routines, warehouse flow. Teams are often engineers and MBAs who spend weeks on the client's floor, observing, timing and then helping supervisors change habits. Some projects end with a report. Others run for months of implementation, with consultants coaching line managers. Work is physical, travel is frequent and the client's plant may be in another city. Read with the management and business consulting hub and the professional services sector page.
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.
Weeks at a plant in another town leave little time for home. Claims for stay, local travel and meals are filed late and the rules feel uneven.
Each plant has different entry, protective gear and permit rules. A consultant on a first visit may be unsure what they must wear or avoid.
A consultant must change habits of supervisors who have worked the same way for years. Skills in listening and influence matter, but are rarely taught.
Projects close with recommendations and little follow-up. Consultants see little result, and their motivation slips.
Teams mix shop floor engineers and business graduates. Roles, pay and respect differ, and tension grows.
Plants offer permanent roles to consultants they trust. The firm loses its best people, often after investing in them.
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 professional services, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
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 operations consulting business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Travel class, stay limits, local transport, meal allowance and claim timing, applied equally.
What this coversHideTravel class, stay limits, local transport, meal allowance and claim timing, applied equally. Shift and leave planning can cover time off after long site stays.
A one-page note on the client's entry rules, gear and permits, with a first-visit buddy.
What this coversHideA one-page note on the client's entry rules, gear and permits, with a first-visit buddy. The health and safety work sets the routine.
Practical sessions on listening, small-step change and handling resistance on the floor.
What this coversHidePractical sessions on listening, small-step change and handling resistance on the floor. See learning and development.
A set of visits after the report, so consultants see results and clients keep the change.
What this coversHideA set of visits after the report, so consultants see results and clients keep the change. Plan the staffing for them.
Titles, skill ladders and pay that treat technical and business consultants fairly and show how each can move up.
What this coversHideTitles, skill ladders and pay that treat technical and business consultants fairly and show how each can move up.
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.
Time-off and rest planning around long site stays and travel.
Site safety briefings and wellbeing routines for consultants working on client floors.
Coaching and change-handling skills for consultants who work with supervisors.
Reasons consultants leave for clients, and ways to keep good field people longer.
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 professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
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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.
Write a clear travel and stay policy, plan time off after long stays and recognise the strain in appraisals. Ask consultants what would help most. Small, steady steps matter more than a single benefit.
The entry process, protective gear, permit rules, whom to report to and what to avoid. A one-page note and a call with someone who visited before is enough. Ask the client for their rules in advance.
Largely yes, through practice. Role plays on real situations, observation of a senior consultant and feedback after a floor session work well. Skill grows over several projects, so support it over time.
They have seen them work, trust them and can offer a permanent base. You cannot stop it, but you can offer growth, recognise high performers and keep alumni links so the move becomes a relationship.
Give both clear tracks and fair respect. Mix them on teams, use each for their strength, and avoid pay or titles that signal one is the real consultant. Talk about it openly in team reviews.
We would count nights away per consultant, ask what safety briefing the last site visit involved and see how many follow-up visits were made after reports. A travel policy and a site briefing note are natural first jobs. We write scope for your approval.
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