Mineral export companies buy ore, lumps and processed minerals and ship them to overseas buyers. This is how to run documentation staff, port coordinators, surveyors and sourcing teams around shipping dates, quality claims and long payment cycles.
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Share your requirementsA mineral export company sources ore or processed material from mines and processors, arranges testing, storage and loading, and sells to overseas buyers on contract terms. The office team usually has sourcing executives who deal with suppliers, a quality and survey coordinator, documentation staff who prepare invoices, packing lists and certificates, a shipping and port coordinator, an accounts team and a trade manager who talks to buyers. Shipping dates, vessel slots and letter-of-credit deadlines are fixed, and one wrong certificate or late paper delays a whole cargo. Buyers raise claims on grade, moisture or weight after arrival. Port and yard staff may belong to contractors. Payment comes weeks later, so cash is tight. For the wider sector, read HR for professional services.
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 mineral export 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.
A mismatch in a certificate or invoice delays clearance, and the documentation staff face blame in front of the buyer.
Vessel slots, bank deadlines and inspection dates collide, and the same few people work late for days.
Buyers dispute grade or weight at the other end, and sourcing, survey and yard staff each point to the other.
Loading and tally staff belong to contractors, and the exporter's people cannot control their pace or care.
The person who knows each bank's and buyer's paperwork habits leaves, and the next shipment stumbles.
A supplier relationship held by one executive moves with that person when they leave.
Salary and supplier payments are squeezed while money is stuck, and morale falls.
Staff spend days at remote sites with poor facilities, and the cost to health and home is ignored.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Operations and Governance; Employee Administration; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
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.
The pieces a mineral export companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
One folder per shipment with the same papers, a checklist and a second-person check before anything is sent.
One folder per shipment with the same papers, a checklist and a second-person check before anything is sent. Keep it with HR and operations documentation.
Mark vessel slots, bank dates and inspections on a shared sheet, and arrange cover in the heavy weeks.
Mark vessel slots, bank dates and inspections on a shared sheet, and arrange cover in the heavy weeks. See attendance, shifts and leave.
A shared sample and weight record at loading, with a single person handling any buyer claim.
A shared sample and weight record at loading, with a single person handling any buyer claim. Learn from claims through performance management.
Written instructions for loaders and tally clerks, a supervisor on the dock and a daily count.
Written instructions for loaders and tally clerks, a supervisor on the dock and a daily count.
Contact, terms and history stored in a shared record, with two people who know each supplier.
Contact, terms and history stored in a shared record, with two people who know each supplier. Use employee information.
Fair allowances, rest days after remote stays and a check-in routine.
Fair allowances, rest days after remote stays and a check-in routine. See health, safety and wellbeing.
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.
Shipment file discipline and second-person checks.
Cover and rest around vessel and bank deadlines.
Learning from buyer claims without blame games.
Supplier and buyer knowledge held by more than one person.
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.
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Use a standard checklist, a second-person check and a record of past errors. Look for patterns before blaming a clerk.
Keep sample and weight records at loading, assign one owner and review the cause with sourcing, survey and yard together.
Share supplier and buyer knowledge, have two people on each key relationship and write contacts and terms down.
Provide fair allowances, rest after remote stays and a check-in routine. Confirm legal site-safety duties with a qualified professional.
Tell people the truth, pay what you promised on time and avoid shifting delays onto the lowest paid.
We would trace one shipment, then draft a shipment checklist, a deadline calendar and a role map. We do not do legal advice, customs work or payroll filings, and scope is written down after we talk.
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