Why construction and real estate employees leave and how to understand why
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 articleA windows, doors and glass company measures openings, fabricates frames and glass, and fits them on site. This is how to run people when a wrong measurement or a broken pane costs a whole job.

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 windows, doors and glass company sells and fits aluminium, uPVC or wooden windows, doors, partitions and glazing for homes, offices and shops. The team has sales and measurement executives, designers, a workshop of fabricators and glass cutters, store and dispatch staff, and fitting crews. Each opening is different, so measurement carries the job: an error of a few millimetres wastes a frame or pane. Glass is heavy, fragile and sharp. Fitters work at height on facades and upper floors, carrying large panels. Delivery to site, access and customer readiness decide timing. Workshop staff and fitters are skilled and mobile, and good ones can set up their own small unit. 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 windows, doors and glass 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.
A wrong size means a cut frame or glass is waste, and the workshop and measurer blame each other.
Handling large panes, cutting edges and moving frames cause deep cuts and hand injuries that are treated casually.
Fitters work from ladders, outside edges and cradles, often with weak anchors and a hurried crew.
The workshop wants batches; the site wants one window today, and urgent orders disturb the cutting plan.
Panes crack in transit or on the staircase, and the crew argues over who pays.
Walls are not plastered or openings are uneven, so fitters wait or return later.
A fitter who knows customers and methods starts a small unit and takes work.
Leaking windows or sticking doors are reported weeks later, and records of who fitted what are poor.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; HR Operations and Governance; 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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
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.
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.
The pieces a windows, doors and glass companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A second person checks the opening and the order, with a photo of the opening attached to the job sheet.
A second person checks the opening and the order, with a photo of the opening attached to the job sheet. Hold the record in your documents.
Cut-resistant gloves, boots, suction lifters and trolleys, with a first aid kit and cut log.
Cut-resistant gloves, boots, suction lifters and trolleys, with a first aid kit and cut log. See safety steps.
Harness, anchor, edge protection and a second person at the base for every facade or upper floor fitting.
Harness, anchor, edge protection and a second person at the base for every facade or upper floor fitting.
A weekly production plan with an urgent slot, agreed by sales, workshop and dispatch so rushes stop disturbing cutting.
A weekly production plan with an urgent slot, agreed by sales, workshop and dispatch so rushes stop disturbing cutting.
A written rule on packing, transit and shared responsibility for breakage, applied the same way each time.
A written rule on packing, transit and shared responsibility for breakage, applied the same way each time. Link with pay steps.
A job register of fitter, date, product and customer sign-off, with callbacks traced to the crew.
A job register of fitter, date, product and customer sign-off, with callbacks traced to the crew. Hold in employee records.
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.
Glass handling, cut care and height protection for workshop and fitters.
Job sheets, breakage rules and crew terms in consistent forms.
Clear rules for piece rates, breakage and callbacks.
Ways to keep skilled fitters from leaving to set up alone.
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
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 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.
Use a second checker, photos of each opening, standard forms and a brief close-out with the workshop on every error.
Write the rule in advance: packing standards, transit insurance if any, and shared responsibility on site. Apply it the same way every time.
Provide cut-resistant gloves, safe lifting aids and training, keep a first aid kit and log every injury.
Teach anchor, harness and edge routines with a buddy, and sign them off before they work alone at height.
Give steady work, fair pay, recognition and a step to crew leader. Some may be offered a partnership role in service.
Record fitter, date, product and customer sign-off per job, and review callbacks monthly.
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.