A stone quarry sells by the truckload, so its income runs on the crusher plant, the loaders and the trucks that queue at the weighbridge. When the crew is short, the queue grows and customers go elsewhere.
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Share your requirementsA stone quarry cuts building stone, rubble or crushed metal out of a hillside or a flat pit, and sells it by the truck, the tractor load or the tonne. Many also run a crusher unit with screens and conveyors, so the site has a pit crew, a plant crew and a despatch crew. Work starts early because trucks arrive at first light. Most hands are daily-wage workers from nearby villages, supervised by a few permanent mates, a plant operator and a clerk at the weighbridge. Dust and heat are constant, and demand follows building activity. The wider energy and utilities sector and the mining and quarrying hub cover what quarries share.
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.
If a loader operator is late, trucks wait, drivers shout and some leave for a rival pit. The loss is seen the same morning.
A feeder attendant cannot read a jammed screen and the plant stops while someone is fetched. Cross-skilling is rare.
A hand who turns up for a week disappears when a building site offers a rupee more, and the pit never builds a stable core.
Clerks record loads, and any mistake or alleged favour becomes a trust problem between owner, driver and customer.
Masks and ear protection are issued once, then not replaced, and nobody tracks who has what.
Breakdowns bunch up when trucks and loaders are pushed, and one fitter has to choose which machine to fix first.
In slow months people are sent home, and the best are lost to other quarries before the next order peak.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for energy and utilities, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
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.
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.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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 stone quarries business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Write the steps from feeder attendant to screen hand to plant operator, and sign off each step.
What this coversHideWrite the steps from feeder attendant to screen hand to plant operator, and sign off each step. The learning and development process gives the pattern.
Early shift cover for the first truck hour, with a named relief when the main operator is absent.
What this coversHideEarly shift cover for the first truck hour, with a named relief when the main operator is absent.
A short list of experienced hands who get a regular schedule and recognition, so the pit has people who stay through slumps.
What this coversHideA short list of experienced hands who get a regular schedule and recognition, so the pit has people who stay through slumps.
A daily record signed by two people, matched with the cash or credit entry.
What this coversHideA daily record signed by two people, matched with the cash or credit entry. The HR documentation process shows how to keep it tidy.
A register of masks, ear plugs and boots by name and date, with replacement on a schedule.
What this coversHideA register of masks, ear plugs and boots by name and date, with replacement on a schedule.
Agree with the mechanics which breakdowns come first, and who can step in when the main fitter is away.
What this coversHideAgree with the mechanics which breakdowns come first, and who can step in when the main fitter is away.
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.
A ladder from feeder to plant operator, with sign-offs, so a jammed screen is fixed by someone on shift.
A short first-week plan for daily-wage hands, so fewer vanish after three days.
Plain, signed records for weighbridge, protective items and joining papers that stand up to questions.
A look at why hands leave for building sites and which small changes keep your best.
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
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
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 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 articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Pay on a fixed day, give a regular schedule to those who stay and show a small step up for steady attendance. You cannot match every offer, but you can be more reliable than the alternative.
Someone trusted, with a second person checking the daily total against the cash or credit record. Rotate the checker sometimes. A clear routine protects the clerk as much as the owner.
Count the shifts the plant runs and add one trained person who can stand in. Beyond that, build a ladder so feeder hands learn the next role, and you have a bench to draw from.
Provide suitable masks and ear protection, replace them on a schedule and record who has what. Take advice from a qualified professional on the standards your site needs to meet.
Not everyone, but keep a core of experienced hands with a reduced but steady arrangement. Losing them costs more later in training time and slower output when orders return.
We would ask how long trucks waited on a recent morning, which plant tasks only one person can do and how many daily-wage hands from last quarter are still here. A plant skills ladder plus a first-week plan is a sound opening, with scope in writing for you to accept.
All 5 business types in mining & quarrying businesses · Find another business type
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