Roots, leaves, barks and seeds arrive from growers and traders, then get cleaned, dried, ground and extracted into powders, tablets and syrups. Harvest-week floods, hand sorting and formulas known to one elder define the people work.
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Share your requirementsA herbal product maker buys roots, leaves, seeds and barks from growers and traders, then cleans, dries, grinds and extracts them into powders, tablets, capsules, oils, syrups or teas. Raw material varies with season and region, so receiving and sorting rely on hands and eyes at the sorting table. Drying floors, pulverisers and boiling vessels follow, and a lab checks identity and quality. Many formulas come from traditional texts or family practice, and a vaidya or senior formulator guides how each herb is treated. At harvest, stock arrives in a rush and must be weighed, cleaned and stored fast. Workers are mostly local, seasonal and taught on the job. See also HR for pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
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.
A few weeks bring all the year's stock. Temporary hands sort by eye with a thin briefing, and mixed grades slip through.
The senior formulator knows the soaking, drying and boiling for every herb. Nothing is written, and nobody is lined up to take over.
Hours bent over a table or turning herbs on a drying floor bring eye strain and coughs, and workers drift to lighter jobs.
Staff leave for sowing, harvest at home or festivals and come back late or not at all, so the skill is lost each year.
The buyer wants to close a purchase while the lab calls it off grade. Nobody has been told who has the final word.
Operators are paid by task or day, and a good sorter has no sign of where that skill could lead.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Career and Succession Management; Health, Safety and Wellbeing. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for pharmaceuticals and life sciences, not in general.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
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.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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 herbal product manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A seasonal plan for receiving, sorting and drying shifts, with a short briefing on day one.
What this coversHideA seasonal plan for receiving, sorting and drying shifts, with a short briefing on day one. The recruitment process consulting work supports sourcing and screening.
Sit with the senior formulator and record how each herb is soaked, dried and boiled, then pair a learner with them.
What this coversHideSit with the senior formulator and record how each herb is soaked, dried and boiled, then pair a learner with them. Use the succession planning approach.
Masks, rotation between table and drying floor, rest breaks and good light.
What this coversHideMasks, rotation between table and drying floor, rest breaks and good light. The health, safety and wellbeing work builds the routine.
A list of each seasonal worker with skills and a call-back date, held under the employee information management approach.
What this coversHideA list of each seasonal worker with skills and a call-back date, held under the employee information management approach.
A simple rule between buyer, lab and plant head on accepting or rejecting a lot, with a note of each decision.
What this coversHideA simple rule between buyer, lab and plant head on accepting or rejecting a lot, with a note of each decision.
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 seasonal hiring and screening plan for harvest peaks.
Capturing the senior formulator's methods and growing a successor.
Dust, strain and rest routines for sorting and drying crews.
A roll of seasonal workers and their skills that survives from one year to the next.
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 pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why people leave pharma and life sciences roles, and how to ask about qualification, shifts, territory and quality culture in an exit conversation.
7 min readRead article
Candidates who accept and never arrive are usually lost in the silence between offer and joining. What actually causes it, and a contact plan that closes the gap.
8 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 article
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Plan crews and roster before stock arrives, brief temporary hands on the first morning, and pair them with experienced sorters. Keep notes for next season.
Sit with the senior person, record each step and the reason for it, and name a learner. Do this early, not in their final month.
Keep a list, call them early, pay fairly and on time, and recognise those who return. Skill builds across seasons.
Give masks, light and rest, and rotate tasks between table and floor. Arrange health checks with a qualified doctor.
Agree the rule among buyer, lab and plant head before the season starts, and keep a record of every decision.
We would list herbs that hinge on one person, count seasonal returnees, and watch the sorting table with you. A harvest crew plan and a written record of the formulator's methods suit a first job. Terms are set in writing after the first talk.
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