Tiles, cut stone and processed glass are heavy, brittle and made on lines that run day and night. A dropped sheet or a mis-sorted shade costs money, and dust hurts lungs. This page covers the people side of that work.
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Share your requirementsA tile, stone or glass unit turns raw material into slabs, tiles and sheets through crushing, pressing, firing, cutting, polishing and tempering. Kilns and furnaces cannot be switched off for a weekend, so shifts run round the clock. Between the lines sit people who lift, stack, sort and pack products that break if handled badly. Skilled hands such as kiln operators, glass cutters and shade sorters are few and learn on the job. Dust is part of daily life and loaders, often from contractors, form a large share of the floor. Breakage, rework and injuries all trace back to how people are trained and supervised. See also 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 tiles, stone and glass. 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 firing line or furnace needs a trained operator every hour. One missed shift means someone doubles up or an untrained hand stands in.
Cracked tiles and chipped sheets are found at packing or dispatch, long after the cause, and nobody can say which shift or handler is responsible.
Mixed shades reach a customer when the best sorter is on leave, and the claim returns weeks later.
Cutting and polishing raise fine dust, and masks, medical checks and exposure records are patchy, especially for contract hands.
Loaders and stackers come through a contractor or a mukadam, so who was on site, who was hurt and who was paid is hard to confirm.
Furnace and kiln areas are hot, and long stretches without breaks lead to errors, fainting and quick resignations.
A new cutter learns by standing beside a senior. Nothing is written down, so the way one person scores and breaks glass becomes the standard.
Sales people quote finishes and lead times without seeing the line, and complaints come back as a people problem on the shop floor.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; HR Operations and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a tiles, stone and glass business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A simple grid of who can run which kiln, cutter or polishing line, and who can sort which shades, so a day's absence is covered by name.
A simple grid of who can run which kiln, cutter or polishing line, and who can sort which shades, so a day's absence is covered by name. The learning and development process turns gaps into a training plan.
A one-page method for lifting, racking, stacking and strapping tiles, slabs and glass, with a check at the first shift of every new joiner.
A one-page method for lifting, racking, stacking and strapping tiles, slabs and glass, with a check at the first shift of every new joiner.
Mark the line, shift and handler on each breakage report, then review weekly with supervisors.
Mark the line, shift and handler on each breakage report, then review weekly with supervisors. This works as a review of cause, not a hunt for blame.
Every loader, whoever their contractor, is entered at the gate and matched to the contractor's bill.
Every loader, whoever their contractor, is entered at the gate and matched to the contractor's bill. The attendance, shift and leave process defines the entry.
Issue, fit and replacement of masks, break rules in hot areas, and medical checks logged per person.
Issue, fit and replacement of masks, break rules in hot areas, and medical checks logged per person. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Five minutes on breakages, equipment faults and who is short, written on a board so the next supervisor starts informed.
Five minutes on breakages, equipment faults and who is short, written on a board so the next supervisor starts informed.
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.
Records and routines for dust, heat, heavy lifting and glass handling, so exposure and incidents are logged per person.
One record across own and contract staff so each kiln and cutting shift is staffed by name.
A written route from loader to cutter to sorter, so skills are not passed on only by watching.
A short induction on handling, dust and kiln-area rules before a new joiner touches a product.
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 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
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.
Record where and when each breakage was found, then look for patterns by shift, station and handler. Fix training, racks and routes first. Blame only fits when the same cause repeats after correction.
They handle the same heavy, brittle goods, so yes. A short induction on lifting, stacking and site rules, with a signed record, protects them and you. Ask your contractor to present people in time for it.
Offer a clear route to senior operator, fair overtime and rest after night spells, and recognition for yield. Many leave because the role is hot, tiring and never discussed.
The person, area, mask type, date of issue and replacement, and any health check done. Confirm what is required for your unit with a qualified professional.
Their judgement protects your claims, so a skill step in pay is reasonable. Define the skill, test it and pay for it, rather than relying on seniority alone.
We would ask which kiln and cutting positions have no cover, how breakage is traced and how loaders are recorded. A good opening project is a skill chart plus one attendance record for own and contract staff. Scope is then written down for you to accept or change.
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