A modular kitchen maker cuts, edges and assembles cabinets in a factory and installs them in homes. Two workforces matter: the panel shop and the site team. This page covers both, plus designers who talk to customers.
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Share your requirementsA modular kitchen manufacturer designs kitchens for homes, then cuts, edges, drills and finishes cabinet panels in a factory and installs them on site. A typical business has a design and showroom team, a factory with panel saws, edge banding, CNC drilling and hardware fitting, a store for boards, hardware and countertops, a dispatch team and installers who work in customers' homes. Orders pass through many hands: sales, design, factory, delivery and site. A small error early shows up as a gap or a wrong cut at handover. Installers carry the brand into the home and are judged by neatness, timing and manners. The HR challenge is to join these groups, keep skilled installers and designers and handle customer-facing conduct. 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 modular kitchen manufacturers. 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 wrong measure at the site visit flows into the cut list. The factory and the installer pay for the error later.
Dirt, noise, delay or rude talk from a site team reaches the customer instantly. Training in conduct is rare.
A good installer who finishes clean and on time is poached by rivals. Pay is piece-rate, and trust in the payout shapes loyalty.
Saws and CNC machines make wood dust and loud noise. Guards, extraction and ear protection vary by supervisor.
Installers wait for missing panels or wrong hardware and lose days. They blame the factory, and the factory blames the designer.
Commission-based pay pushes quick confirmations. Detailed measurement and customer education get less time.
Paying by cabinet fitted can reward speed over finish. Rework is unpaid and bitter.
A customer's complaint at handover is argued by phone. There is no record of who agreed what.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Learning and Development; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a modular kitchen manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A second-person check on site measures before the cut list is released, signed on a simple form.
A second-person check on site measures before the cut list is released, signed on a simple form. The HR documentation process shows how.
A short module on site manners, cleaning, noise, mobile use and speaking to customers, repeated each year.
A short module on site manners, cleaning, noise, mobile use and speaking to customers, repeated each year. See learning and development.
Pay for fitted cabinets plus a bonus for clean handover without rework, written and shown to the team.
Pay for fitted cabinets plus a bonus for clean handover without rework, written and shown to the team.
Machine guards, extraction, hearing protection and authorised operators.
Machine guards, extraction, hearing protection and authorised operators. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
A one-page list that confirms panels, hardware and countertop before the team leaves the factory.
A one-page list that confirms panels, hardware and countertop before the team leaves the factory.
A signed note at the end of each job with what was fitted, what is pending and the customer's remarks.
A signed note at the end of each job with what was fitted, what is pending and the customer's remarks.
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.
Installer and designer training on measurement, conduct and finish.
Measure sheets, delivery checklists and handover forms kept in order.
Panel shop machine and dust safety routines.
A fair mix of speed and quality in installer and designer reviews.
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
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
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead article
A practical design for an IT services appraisal cycle: when to run it, how to rate fairly across projects, and how to explain hikes so they hold.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Add a second check on site measures and cut lists, and trace each rework to its cause.
A piece rate with a quality bonus works well when clearly written. Confirm wage and contract labour duties with a qualified professional.
Pay on time, plan jobs so they are not idle, recognise clean work and give a path to site supervisor.
Reward confirmed and delivered orders, not only booked ones, so measurement care counts.
Use a signed handover sheet and a named person to respond. Keep tone calm and fix the cause.
We would start at the measure sheet and the handover: where errors begin, how installers are paid and trained and how complaints are recorded. A modest first task is a measure check and a handover sheet. Scope is then confirmed in writing before anything begins.
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