A solar installer sends crews to rooftops and open land to fix panels, wire inverters and commission systems. This is how to run people when height, electricity and customer sign-off meet in a single day.
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 solar installation company designs, supplies and fits rooftop and ground-mounted systems for homes, factories, schools and farms. The team has sales and survey staff, design engineers, project managers, procurement staff, site supervisors, electricians, panel fitters and helpers, and a service team for faults after commissioning. Crews work on roofs in heat and monsoon, handling glass panels, structures and live electrical connections. Jobs depend on delivery of panels and inverters, utility approvals and customer readiness. Many fitters come from electrical or fabrication backgrounds with varied training. Growth in installations has drawn more rivals, so trained crews are poached. Documentation of commissioning matters for the customer and for future service. 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 solar installation companies. 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.
Crews fix panels on hot roofs at midday, with dehydration, slips and no fixed break rule.
Connecting strings and inverters needs trained hands, but a helper sometimes does it because the electrician is elsewhere.
Carrying panels up narrow stairs or ladders risks cracked glass, sprains and falls.
Fitters from other trades learn solar methods by watching, and quality differs between crews.
Waiting for panels or inverters leaves crews unpaid or posted to jobs they are not ready for.
Test readings, serial numbers and photos are taken on phones and lost, and a warranty claim later has no evidence.
A rival offers a small raise to a leader and takes his crew with him mid-project.
Sales promises output and savings that survey staff then have to explain to the customer.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
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 installation companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Harness, anchors, edge guards, no work during rain or high wind and a midday break rule in hot months.
Harness, anchors, edge guards, no work during rain or high wind and a midday break rule in hot months. See safety steps.
A list of tasks only qualified electricians may do, a check before connection and a sign-off record.
A list of tasks only qualified electricians may do, a check before connection and a sign-off record. Confirm requirements with a qualified professional.
A short structured course on mounting, wiring, torque and testing with a checklist, recorded in employee records.
A short structured course on mounting, wiring, torque and testing with a checklist, recorded in employee records. Support it with a learning plan.
A job is released to a crew only when materials and approvals are confirmed, with a fallback task for idle days.
A job is released to a crew only when materials and approvals are confirmed, with a fallback task for idle days.
A standard sheet for each system: serial numbers, test readings, photos and customer sign-off, stored centrally.
A standard sheet for each system: serial numbers, test readings, photos and customer sign-off, stored centrally. File with HR and project documents.
A ladder from fitter to crew leader to site supervisor with pay stages.
A ladder from fitter to crew leader to site supervisor with pay stages. Compare rates using pay benchmarking.
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.
Roof, heat and electrical rules with a log of injuries and near misses.
A standard course and checklist so every fitter works the same way.
Rates and stages for fitters and crew leaders that discourage poaching.
Skills, training and issued equipment recorded per technician.
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
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
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.
Only suitably qualified people. Confirm the exact requirement for your region and project type with a qualified professional, and record who did each connection.
Schedule the hottest hours for ground work, provide water and shade, enforce breaks and watch for signs of heat illness.
Use a short standard course with a checklist, assess on a real job and record the result per person.
Offer a clear ladder, prompt pay, steady work and recognition. A small raise elsewhere matters less when work and respect are reliable.
Serial numbers, test readings, photos, drawing of the layout and customer sign-off, kept centrally for warranty and service.
Agree standard claims with sales, share survey findings before quotation and record approvals in the job file.
All 109 business types in construction and real estate · Find another business type
See all HR topics for construction and real estate, or another industry.
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.
