A mounting structure maker cuts, punches, welds and galvanises steel or aluminium frames for rooftop and ground-mount solar plants. Work arrives as project lots with fixed dispatch dates, and good welders are scarce.
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Share your requirementsA mounting structure maker turns steel sections, sheet and aluminium profiles into rails, purlins, legs and brackets for solar plants. The shop cuts, punches, bends and welds, then sends parts out for hot-dip galvanising or coating before bundling by project. Orders arrive as lots tied to a plant's installation schedule, with a drawing and a dispatch date, so the shop races before each lot leaves and idles between. Welders and press brake operators carry the skill. Helpers lift, load and bundle, and stores track material by project. Truck loading and site delivery add a late push at the end of every lot. See also HR for energy and utilities.
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.
Each project lot has a delivery date, and the final days before loading bring long hours for welders and helpers.
One who reads a drawing and welds neatly is courted by rival shops, and pay alone is seldom why he leaves.
Purlins and rails are shifted by hand and crane, and injuries come from poor lifting and careless rigging.
Parts packed for another site or missing brackets are found only on arrival, and stores and dispatch take the blame.
People working near the galvanising bath and weld bays breathe fumes, and masks are worn unevenly.
Pay per part encourages fast cutting, and a wrong length or hole spacing becomes rework on the roof.
Idle spells send workers to steadier shops, and the next lot starts short-handed.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for energy and utilities, not in general.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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.
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.
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 solar mounting structure makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Levels from helper to fitter to senior welder, tied to the drawings a person can work from and the joints they pass.
What this coversHideLevels from helper to fitter to senior welder, tied to the drawings a person can work from and the joints they pass. See compensation benchmarking.
Read the project order book every week and settle hiring, overtime and borrowed hands in advance.
What this coversHideRead the project order book every week and settle hiring, overtime and borrowed hands in advance. The recruitment process supports it.
A short session on carrying long sections, chain checks and crane signals, repeated as new lots arrive.
What this coversHideA short session on carrying long sections, chain checks and crane signals, repeated as new lots arrive. See health, safety and wellbeing.
A list signed by stores and checked by a second person before the truck is loaded, with errors logged by lot.
What this coversHideA list signed by stores and checked by a second person before the truck is loaded, with errors logged by lot.
A quick length and hole check before parts go for coating, so the piece rate counts only what fits.
What this coversHideA quick length and hole check before parts go for coating, so the piece rate counts only what fits. The performance management work covers it.
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.
Welder and fitter grades set against nearby fabricators, so skilled people stay.
Lifting, rigging, fume and galvanising safety habits for helpers and welders.
Piece rates tied to parts that pass inspection, so speed does not cost fit.
Hiring plans matched to the project order book, with a ready list of welders and helpers.
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 energy and utilities, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Engineers, technicians and operators leave energy and utilities firms for reasons that differ by project and plant. How to listen, ask better questions and act.
6 min readRead article
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 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 article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Give a clear grade, a pay path tied to skill and a voice in job planning. Check what others pay at that level and ask your top welders what would keep them.
Share the order book with the floor early and plan hands for the last days. Spread loading over more than one shift so the same people are not worn out.
It can, if only passed parts count and rates are fair and written. Without an inspection step, accuracy is traded for speed.
Teach lifting, chain checks and hand signals in the first week under supervision, and repeat for each new lot. Pair the helper with a trained senior.
Use a checklist for each project and a second check before loading. Log each error by lot and person so patterns show, not just one-off blame.
How many welders work independently from drawings, which recent site complaints came from bundling or fit, and what overtime ran before the last dispatch. A fair first job is a welder and fitter grade with a bundling checklist. We agree scope in writing before any work starts.
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