A renovation contractor works on older buildings, where demolition, repair and rebuild happen together and surprises sit behind every wall. This is how to run people through risk, rework and unpredictable timelines.
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Share your requirementsA renovation contractor restores and upgrades existing buildings: offices, shops, flats, bungalows, old commercial premises. The team includes project managers, site engineers, supervisors and estimators, with crews of demolition labourers, masons, plasterers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and painters. Unlike new build, nobody knows what is behind the plaster until it comes off. Old wiring, damp, weak slabs and dust all appear mid-job. Work is done around occupants and neighbours, sometimes at night. Plans change often and crews move between small jobs. Pay and safety suffer when no one planned for the unknown. For the wider sector, read HR for construction and real estate.
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 renovation contractors. 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 wall comes down and shows a cracked beam or live wire, and the crew is ordered to carry on without a plan.
Breaking and grinding fill air and ears for weeks, and workers have no masks, plugs or check-ups.
Shops and offices allow access only after closing, so crews work through the night with no rest rule or transport.
Props and bracing are placed in a hurry and nobody records who checked them before people worked underneath.
When scope changes, crews do not know whether extra days are paid, and good hands move to firmer work.
Carrying rubble down stairs and loading trucks causes back and hand injuries, rarely logged.
Site engineers spend the day solving surprises and never finish the records that would protect them later.
Noise and dust upset occupants, and a crew member's reply to an angry neighbour becomes a company problem.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; HR Operations and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
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.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
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.
The pieces a renovation contractors business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A pre-work check by a supervisor and engineer of wiring, structure and services, with a record before the crew starts.
A pre-work check by a supervisor and engineer of wiring, structure and services, with a record before the crew starts. Keep it in your HR and site records.
Masks, goggles, ear plugs, gloves and helmets for breaking, grinding and carrying, with a log of issue and replacement.
Masks, goggles, ear plugs, gloves and helmets for breaking, grinding and carrying, with a log of issue and replacement. See safety steps.
Shorter blocks, rest after a night shift, travel arranged and a named supervisor present.
Shorter blocks, rest after a night shift, travel arranged and a named supervisor present. See shift and attendance steps.
An engineer's signature on props and bracing before anyone works beneath, with a daily recheck.
An engineer's signature on props and bracing before anyone works beneath, with a daily recheck.
A change slip for every addition, copied to the crew with the rate agreed, so surprises do not sour pay.
A change slip for every addition, copied to the crew with the rate agreed, so surprises do not sour pay. Align it with your payroll steps.
A short script and one person who deals with complaints, so crews do not argue with neighbours.
A short script and one person who deals with complaints, so crews do not argue with neighbours. Include it in induction.
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.
Task-based protection, support checks and injury logging for demolition work.
Night rosters with rest and transport instead of improvised nights.
Clear rules for extra-work pay so crews trust uncertain jobs.
Survey records, change slips and sign-offs written and filed in a consistent form.
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 construction and real estate, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Site engineers, supervisors, crews and sales teams leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it between projects.
8 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
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 article
Every growing company reaches a point where the founder approving everything stops being speed and starts being the bottleneck. Twelve signs it has happened, and what to fix first.
9 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Survey first, brief the crew on the possible hazards and agree a stop rule when something unexpected appears. Confirm structural duties with a qualified professional.
Provide task-based masks, goggles and ear protection, rotate heavy breaking and log what is issued. Ask a qualified professional about health checks.
Use set blocks, rest after nights, safe transport and a named supervisor on site. Confirm night work rules with a qualified professional.
A named engineer should record a check before anyone works beneath and again each day, with a note in the site file.
Pay extra work clearly through a signed change slip and settle wages on time. Crews leave when pay is uncertain.
Very little. Give them a script, name one person to take complaints and record each one with the action taken.
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