Industries
Why manufacturing employees leave and how to understand why
Operators, technicians and supervisors leave for reasons that sit in shifts, skills and supervision. How to ask, read the pattern by shift and act on it.
6 min readRead article
Paper and Printing · Offset Printing Presses
HR for Offset Printing Presses: Plates, Ink Balance, Make-Ready and Press Crews
Offset presses print long runs of books, magazines, catalogues and cartons using plates, ink and water. Their people problem is a heavy press with a crew of three or four, a senior minder who sets quality, and long shifts when a run is late.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsAn offset printing press prints on sheets or reels by transferring ink from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to paper. The flow runs from plate making and plate store to the press, where a minder sets register, ink and water balance, then through drying, cutting, folding and binding. Make-ready, the time between jobs to set colour and register, wastes paper and time, and its length depends on the minder's skill. Presses are costly, so they run in two or three shifts, and a late run means a night. The senior minder usually learned from an older hand who has left. Assistants who feed, clean and wash up often stay assistants for years. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in offset printing presses, you may see
- Make-ready depends on the minder's hands
- The next generation of minders is not being trained
- Night shifts run thin
- Plate making errors travel to the press
- Guillotine and folding work injure hands
- Press mechanics are hard to find
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in offset printing presses
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.
- Press minders
- Second hands and assistants
- Plate makers
- Ink and roller room staff
- Cutting guillotine operators
- Folding and binding staff
- Paper store and handling crew
- Mechanics and electricians
- Shift supervisors
Where HR strains in offset printing presses
Make-ready depends on the minder's hands
A skilled minder reaches colour in a few sheets, and a weaker one wastes a lot of paper, so skill shows in cost directly.
The next generation of minders is not being trained
Assistants wash rollers and carry paper for years without being taught colour balance.
Night shifts run thin
A late run is finished by a reduced crew, and a minor press fault at night becomes a long stoppage.
Plate making errors travel to the press
A plate with a wrong imposition or damage is found after mounting, and press time is lost.
Guillotine and folding work injure hands
Guillotines are fast and dangerous, and workers under deadline pressure bypass the two-hand controls.
Press mechanics are hard to find
The one mechanic who understands the press's quirks is rarely replaced quickly, and a breakdown waits for him.
HR topics for offset printing presses
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Career and Succession Management; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a offset printing presses business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Create a minder-in-training path
A named second hand follows a set list of skills such as register, ink balance and wash-up, signed off by the senior minder.
What this coversHide
Create a minder-in-training path
A named second hand follows a set list of skills such as register, ink balance and wash-up, signed off by the senior minder.
What this coversHideA named second hand follows a set list of skills such as register, ink balance and wash-up, signed off by the senior minder. See the learning and development process.
Grade minders by press and job type
A scale across single-colour, multi-colour and special jobs, tied to pay.
What this coversHide
Grade minders by press and job type
A scale across single-colour, multi-colour and special jobs, tied to pay.
What this coversHideA scale across single-colour, multi-colour and special jobs, tied to pay. See compensation benchmarking.
Plan night crews with a named senior
A night shift with a minder who can solve faults and a mechanic on call.
What this coversHide
Plan night crews with a named senior
A night shift with a minder who can solve faults and a mechanic on call.
What this coversHideA night shift with a minder who can solve faults and a mechanic on call. Reflect it in the attendance, shift and leave process.
Add a plate check before mounting
A short sign-off of imposition and condition by the plate maker, then by the minder.
What this coversHide
Add a plate check before mounting
A short sign-off of imposition and condition by the plate maker, then by the minder.
What this coversHideA short sign-off of imposition and condition by the plate maker, then by the minder.
Train guillotine and folder staff on guards
A monthly demonstration with real examples, and a rule that controls are never bypassed.
What this coversHide
Train guillotine and folder staff on guards
A monthly demonstration with real examples, and a rule that controls are never bypassed.
What this coversHideA monthly demonstration with real examples, and a rule that controls are never bypassed.
Start by checking where you stand
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 requirements- Ask your senior minder who could take over his work in two years and what they still need to learn.
- Compare make-ready waste between two minders on similar jobs.
- Look at who is on site at 2 am during a late run.
- Count plate errors found at the press last month.
- Check guillotine controls and note any taped or bypassed.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment obligations that apply to your offset printing presses business.
Confirm 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.
How GullyHR helps
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.
- Learning and development process
A staged path for second hands to learn register and colour balance from a senior minder.
- Compensation benchmarking
Minder grades and pay that reflect skill with the press and the job type.
- Attendance, shift and leave process
Night and late-run rosters that keep a capable senior and a mechanic available.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Habits around guillotine and fold machine controls, solvents and noise.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
"What if this person resigned tomorrow?" A succession exercise for small companies
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 article
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Name a second hand, give him a written list of skills and let the senior minder sign them off. Give him real jobs with the senior beside him.
Often it reflects skill, but also plate quality, paper and set-up routines. Compare minders on similar jobs and agree what a good make-ready looks like.
Place a senior minder or capable second hand in charge, keep a mechanic reachable, and keep a short list of what the night lead may decide alone.
Overtime rules vary, so confirm them with a qualified professional. Practically, plan the late crews by name and pay promptly to keep goodwill.
Pair him with an electrician or younger mechanic on repairs and record the press's faults and fixes in a simple log.
We would ask your senior minder who could replace him, compare make-ready waste between two minders, and check night crew cover. A good first piece of work is a minder training path with a pay grade for each step. Scope is agreed in writing afterwards.
More on HR for manufacturing
All 7 business types in paper and printing · Find another business type