A marble processor cuts blocks into slabs and tiles, polishes them and sends them to builders and dealers. It runs on heavy cranes, wet cutting and long slab yards, with many hands paid by the day. This page covers how to keep it safe and steady.
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Share your requirementsA marble processing unit buys quarried blocks and turns them into slabs, tiles and cut-to-size pieces for builders, dealers and interior contractors. A typical unit has a block yard with cranes, gang saws or wire saws that slice blocks into slabs, a resin and mesh section for strengthening, a polishing line with heads that give the shine, a cutting and edging section, a slab yard with A-frames, and a loading bay. Work is wet, loud, heavy and dusty, and much of the yard labour is paid by the day or the load. Quarry supply and builder demand rise and fall without warning. The HR job is to keep people safe around blocks and slabs, run honest daily records, protect lungs from stone dust and hold on to the few who can read a block. For the wider sector, see 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 marble processors. 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.
A toppled slab or a swinging block can kill. Slings, A-frame stacking and signals depend on habit more than on written rule.
Dry cutting and edging release fine dust. People breathe it for years without masks, and illness shows late, long after they have left.
Loaders and handlers turn up as trucks arrive and are paid in cash for a count. Nobody records who worked, how long or what was agreed.
Water, slurry and electrical supply share the same floor. Slips and shocks are common and treated as ordinary.
The grader who sees veining, cracks and where to cut for best yield holds a quiet skill. The unit loses money when he is absent.
Operators lose fingers or suffer cuts when heads are adjusted by hand. Training is picked up from the next man.
A big project order fills the plant. A quiet month leaves people idle. Overtime and layoffs are decided on the spot.
Many workers come from distant districts and stay in site sheds. Housing, food and sickness reach HR only when someone leaves or falls ill.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
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.
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 marble processors business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Sling checks, crane signal rules, A-frame limits and a name for who may direct a lift.
Sling checks, crane signal rules, A-frame limits and a name for who may direct a lift. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
Wet cutting where possible, suitable masks where not, and a record of who got what and when it was refreshed.
Wet cutting where possible, suitable masks where not, and a record of who got what and when it was refreshed.
Who worked, on what and for how long or how many loads, signed by the yard supervisor and linked to payment.
Who worked, on what and for how long or how many loads, signed by the yard supervisor and linked to payment. The attendance and leave process shows how.
Authorised operators for gang saw, polishing and edging machines, with a short check on safe use.
Authorised operators for gang saw, polishing and edging machines, with a short check on safe use.
A senior block reader teaches two juniors, with notes on what each has learnt, so judgement is not lost.
A senior block reader teaches two juniors, with notes on what each has learnt, so judgement is not lost.
How idle days, advances and overtime are handled when orders dip.
How idle days, advances and overtime are handled when orders dip. Written once under HR policy packages.
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.
Lifting, stacking, dust and wet-floor routines with training records.
A daily record for yard and casual labour so pay matches work done.
A steady pay cycle for daily, piece-rate and monthly staff.
Pairing seniors with juniors so block-reading skill is passed on.
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
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
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
Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Agree sling checks, stack limits and a named person to direct lifts. Keep walkways clear and make sure people are never under a hanging load.
Use wet cutting where possible, give suitable masks and keep them replaced. Ask a qualified professional about health checks and legal exposure duties.
Choose a clear basis such as a daily wage or a rate per load, write it down, record work and pay on a fixed day. Confirm wage and contract labour duties with a qualified professional.
Pay for judgement, give a step up to supervisor and let seniors teach juniors. Recognition for yield and low breakage helps.
Use them for maintenance, cleaning, stock counts and training. Agree beforehand how idle days are treated.
We would start at the block yard and slab yard: how lifts are directed, how dust is controlled and how yard labour is recorded. A modest first task is a daily yard record plus a lifting routine sheet. Scope is then confirmed in writing before anything begins.
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