A gasket maker turns rubber, cork and fibre sheet into sealing parts for engines, pumps and pipework. Repeat customers stay when the part seals, arrives quickly and matches the drawing.
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Share your requirementsA rubber gasket maker supplies parts that seal the joint between two surfaces. Some are punched from sheet on die presses or cut by waterjet or laser. Others are moulded in a heated tool. The route runs from sheet or compound stock to die or mould, cutting or moulding, trimming, inspection against the drawing and packing by part number. Orders are small and frequent: repeat jobs with urgent changes for workshops, engine builders and pump firms. The toolroom makes and mends the dies. A gasket that leaks costs the customer's trust faster than it costs scrap. A busy week can mean thirty part numbers a day, each with its own check of hole position and thickness. For the wider sector, read the manufacturing overview.
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 rubber gasket makers. 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.
Wrong die, wrong sheet thickness and mixed bins happen on a busy day, and nobody owns the cause afterwards.
Training a toolroom hand takes years, and one person may be the only one who knows how each worn die was last repaired.
Reading hole position and thickness against a drawing is a learned skill, and a rushed inspector lets bad parts through.
A workshop customer ringing at four for parts by morning turns the shift over, and the same operators stay behind.
Operators answer for scrap that really comes from nesting, sheet quality or a worn die, because no shared record exists.
Die setting, press stroke and sheet feed are picked up by guessing, and the scrap bin pays for the lesson.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Employee Administration; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
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.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
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 rubber gasket makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Die, sheet and part number confirmed and signed by the operator before the first cut.
Die, sheet and part number confirmed and signed by the operator before the first cut. Role design can write it into the job.
Choose a young toolroom hand and pair them with the master on real repairs, against a written skills list.
Choose a young toolroom hand and pair them with the master on real repairs, against a written skills list. A learning plan gives it structure.
A short test on reading drawings and using gauges before anyone inspects alone.
A short test on reading drawings and using gauges before anyone inspects alone. It protects the customer and the inspector.
A time after which a request needs approval, an overtime rule and a fair turn among operators.
A time after which a request needs approval, an overtime rule and a fair turn among operators. Add it to your shift rota rules.
Log offcuts and rejects by job, cause and die so talk rests on facts.
Log offcuts and rejects by job, cause and die so talk rests on facts. A reporting view can show it.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
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.
Clear steps for each job so part number checks and inspection are owned by someone.
A planned path for a second die maker and for operators learning die setting.
Fair turns for urgent overtime in a unit running a lot of small jobs.
Scrap and attendance views by job and shift, to move talk from blame to cause.
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 can struggle 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 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
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
What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Add a signed check of die, sheet and number at the start of each job, and keep bins separate by job. Look at mix-ups weekly with the crew.
Look inside first for a hand with patience for fine work, and pair them with the master. Hiring from outside is slow and uncertain.
Yes. A short test on drawings and gauges protects everyone, and it should be repeated when drawings or gauges change.
Keep a rotation list, record who stayed and agree limits with the crew. Have the employment terms checked by a qualified professional.
Record it by job and cause, then review it with the operator and the toolroom in the same room. A worn die or poor sheet is not the operator's fault.
We would see how many part numbers run in a day and where mix-ups occur, who could cover your die maker, and how inspectors are tested. A start-of-job check plus a second die maker plan is a sensible first project. We would write the scope down after we speak.
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