Wash basins, toilets and cisterns are cast in clay, glazed and fired in kilns. This page covers casters, glazers, kiln crews, sorters and the cost of breakage in a heavy, fragile product.
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 requirementsA sanitaryware factory turns clay slip into basins, pans and cisterns. Casters pour slip into plaster or resin moulds, wait, demould and finish the green piece. Glazers spray or dip, kiln crews load cars or trolleys for firing, and sorters grade finished pieces. Pieces are heavy and fragile, and breakage at any stage is lost cost. Dust from clay and glaze, heat from kilns and constant lifting define the shop floor. Casting and glazing skill is learned over years, and a good caster can sense when a piece is ready. Orders are sorted by model and colour for dealers and builders. Related reading: 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 sanitaryware 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.
Judging slip, time and wall thickness is learned by feel, and trainees waste many pieces.
A cracked piece may have started anywhere, and workers are blamed without a trace.
Fine dust sits in casting and glazing areas, and masks are not used consistently.
Loading patterns and firing curves decide yield, and mistakes lose a whole firing.
Moving large pieces by hand and trolley causes injuries and chronic pain.
Grading is judgement, and disputes with production are common.
Plaster and resin mould makers are few, and their work sets quality for every cast.
Round-the-clock firing needs night crews, and fatigue leads to errors.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; HR Analytics and Management Reporting. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
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.
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.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a sanitaryware manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A route from helper to caster to senior caster with supervised pieces and sign-offs.
A route from helper to caster to senior caster with supervised pieces and sign-offs. See the learning and development process.
Marking pieces and logging breakage by stage so coaching is based on records.
Marking pieces and logging breakage by stage so coaching is based on records. See HR documentation.
Wet cleaning, extraction, fitted masks and health checks as advised.
Wet cleaning, extraction, fitted masks and health checks as advised. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Posted loading patterns, trained loaders and a check before firing.
Posted loading patterns, trained loaders and a check before firing.
Reference pieces, written grade criteria and joint reviews of disputes between sorters and production.
Reference pieces, written grade criteria and joint reviews of disputes between sorters and production.
Rotating shifts, cover for absence and rest rules.
Rotating shifts, cover for absence and rest rules. See attendance and shift.
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 route for casters, glazers and kiln crews with practical sign-offs.
Dust, heat and lifting routines with training records.
Fair measures of yield and breakage by stage.
A view of pay for scarce casting and mould skills.
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 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
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
Six numbers, one page, same format each month. What they are, how to define them so they mean the same thing twice, and what each one tells you.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Mark and log breakage by stage, look at patterns, coach early and treat repeated faults as process issues.
Silica dust is a known concern. Ask a qualified professional about required examinations and records.
It depends, but a ladder shortens it. Judge by demonstrated quality.
Use reference pieces, written criteria and joint reviews.
Offer fair pay, a trained assistant and respect for their craft.
We would ask how casters learn, where breakage starts and how dust is controlled. A good first job is a caster ladder and breakage log. After a first talk, scope and fee are put in writing.
All 255 business types in manufacturing · Find another business type
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.
