A mineral processing company turns ore into saleable concentrate, and the plant runs day and night. Its results depend on shift operators, lab staff and maintenance crews who each hold a piece of the process.
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Share your requirementsA mineral processing company crushes, grinds, screens, washes and separates ore or raw mineral into a product a buyer will pay for. Plants run in continuous shifts, with crushers, mills, thickeners, filters and dryers in a line. The people are shift operators in the control room and on the floor, laboratory staff who test samples, maintenance fitters and electricians, stores and despatch teams, and engineers who tune the process. Grades and recoveries are watched by the hour. Annual shutdowns bring contractors in numbers. The wider energy and utilities sector and the mining and quarrying hub cover what the sector shares.
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.
Only the senior operator knows how to adjust the circuit when ore changes, and nobody has written down what he does.
Sample results arrive late or are doubted, and operators adjust on instinct while the lab asks why nobody listened.
Information about a choked chute or a drifting reading is passed by word at the gate and lost by the next morning.
Contractor crews arrive in numbers with different training, and the plant team has to supervise people it has never met.
New equipment arrives and the maintenance team learns by trial, with breakdowns doing the teaching.
The best operator becomes shift in-charge and finds that managing eight people is a different job.
People accept them for a while, then move to day work in another firm, and the plant loses its most experienced hands.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Organisation Design; Learning and Development; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for energy and utilities, not in general.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a mineral processing companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
For each section, list what an operator must watch, adjust and report, in plain words.
What this coversHideFor each section, list what an operator must watch, adjust and report, in plain words. The role design and job descriptions work gives the format.
A short meeting where the lab shares results and operators share what they saw, with notes kept.
What this coversHideA short meeting where the lab shares results and operators share what they saw, with notes kept.
A one-page log of readings, faults and requests that the outgoing in-charge fills and the incoming in-charge signs.
What this coversHideA one-page log of readings, faults and requests that the outgoing in-charge fills and the incoming in-charge signs.
A short induction on site rules, the plant layout and who supervises whom, and a named plant contact for each crew.
What this coversHideA short induction on site rules, the plant layout and who supervises whom, and a named plant contact for each crew.
A matrix of tasks and sign-offs, so new equipment training is planned.
What this coversHideA matrix of tasks and sign-offs, so new equipment training is planned. The competency and talent management page covers the idea.
A short programme for new in-charges on handover, leave planning, difficult talks and reporting.
What this coversHideA short programme for new in-charges on handover, leave planning, difficult talks and reporting.
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 job descriptions for each section of the circuit, so a replacement knows what to watch and adjust.
A skills matrix for operators, lab and maintenance staff, with sign-offs when new equipment arrives.
Preparation for shift in-charges, who run people on every shift and often learn on the job.
Named successors for the few roles the plant cannot run without, with a plan to build them.
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 energy and utilities, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Engineers, technicians and operators leave energy and utilities firms for reasons that differ by project and plant. How to listen, ask better questions and act.
6 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
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.
7 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.
Ask him to explain one adjustment at a time while a second person writes it, then test it with another operator. Do it in short sessions and add to the notes over weeks.
Current readings that are off normal, equipment stopped or choked, jobs for the next shift, safety concerns and who to call. One page signed by both sides is enough if it is used every shift.
Before they enter, cover site rules, the layout, emergency points and who supervises. Give a named plant contact to each crew, and check at the start of the second day how it is going.
Not automatically. The skills differ. Offer a try with support and training, and keep a technical route open for those who prefer to stay on the process side.
Rotate fairly, recognise night work in pay or time off, and provide food, transport and rest places. Ask the staff what matters most, since the answer varies from plant to plant.
We would ask what the senior operator adjusts that others cannot, how handover is done and who briefs the shutdown crews. Job descriptions for each section of the circuit with a skills matrix is a natural start, and scope goes into writing for you.
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