A natural stone manufacturer cuts and dresses granite, sandstone, slate or limestone into slabs, tiles and paving. Work is heavy, dusty and often paid by the piece. This page covers safety, gang labour and holding the few who can dress stone well.
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Share your requirementsA natural stone manufacturer buys rough blocks or slabs of granite, sandstone, slate, limestone or similar stone and processes them into tiles, paving, cobbles, steps, wall cladding and monuments. A typical unit has a block yard with cranes, cutting machines, splitting and dressing sheds where workers shape edges by hand, a polishing or honing line, a calibration and sorting section, a packing area and a yard for loading. Many orders go to builders, landscape firms and export buyers who inspect shade, size and finish closely. Much of the dressing is hand work paid per piece. Dust, noise and flying chips are daily hazards. The HR task is to protect workers, keep honest piece-rate records, hold skilled dressers and manage seasonal order swings. 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 natural stone 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.
Dry dressing and cutting fill the air with fine dust. Workers cough and tire, and illness shows long after exposure.
Hand dressing and splitting send sharp chips. Goggles and gloves are used by some and ignored by others.
Dressers work for a rate per piece with a contractor or head man. The owner may not know who works or how pay is split.
Moving slabs and blocks by hand and by crane injures workers. Lifting aids and training vary.
A dresser who produces even faces and clean edges at speed is valuable. Training is informal and rivals offer more.
Rejections for shade or size land on the sorting crew. Without clear specs and records, blame is passed along.
Building and export demand peak at certain times, leaving gangs idle in others. Advances, debt and attrition follow.
In some regions, young or very poor migrant workers enter stone work. Age and living conditions need careful checking by the owner.
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 natural stone manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Water suppression, extraction and masks that fit, with a record of who was given what and when it was replaced.
Water suppression, extraction and masks that fit, with a record of who was given what and when it was replaced. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
A list of who works under each head man, with attendance and piece counts checked by the unit's own supervisor.
A list of who works under each head man, with attendance and piece counts checked by the unit's own supervisor. The attendance and leave process shows how.
A simple intake check for every worker, with a record, to rule out under-age work and to know who is on site.
A simple intake check for every worker, with a record, to rule out under-age work and to know who is on site. See employee information management.
A senior dresser mentors two learners with skill sign-offs, so craft survives.
A senior dresser mentors two learners with skill sign-offs, so craft survives. See learning and development.
Slings, trolleys, team lifts and crane signals, with training.
Slings, trolleys, team lifts and crane signals, with training.
How advances, idle days and recall work when orders dip, shared with the gangs.
How advances, idle days and recall work when orders dip, shared with the gangs. See 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.
Dust, chip and lifting routines with training records.
Gang and piece-rate records tied to payment.
Identity, age and personnel records for every worker on site.
A dresser ladder that keeps craft skill in the unit.
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.
Use water or extraction, give masks that fit and keep them replaced. Ask a qualified professional about health checks and legal duties.
Know who works, count output yourself, pay on a fixed day and keep records. Confirm contract labour duties with a qualified professional.
Collect and record proof at intake and review it. Never employ anyone under the legal age; confirm limits with a qualified professional.
Pay for quality and speed, give a senior role and recognise clean finish.
Use the time for maintenance, stacking and training. Agree beforehand how advances and idle days work.
We would start at the dressing shed and the muster: dust control, gang records and who is learning the craft. A modest first task is a gang list reconciled with attendance. Scope is then confirmed in writing before anything begins.
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