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Well Welcome to Episode 52 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career! I can’t believe it’s been a year now, and that we’ve dropped an episode every Thursday. I’d like to thank you if you’ve been with us from the beginning and welcome you if you’ve just recently joined us. We’ve had way too much fun these past 52 weeks and are really looking forward to the next 52. All the email’s, questions, suggestions and topics sent in have been interesting and it’s so much fun to maybe help out where and if we can or have and at least share our thoughts with you. And we’re appreciative of who’s listening in as well! We’ve had down loads and streaming in 20 – 25 Countries across the globe, here in the states California and Texas show up at the top list. Several Safety organizations, Staffing agencies, Recruiters and Employers as well as those actually performing the many different tasks try and make it each week! If you’d like your Country or County, maybe the Parish or City and Town mentioned shoot us an email and we’d be happy to give you a shout out, maybe we can start doing that each week! When we started the Podcast it was for fun just to talk about a topic we loved and share our thoughts and experiences about the Operations industry. As I’ve said I wouldn’t consider us experts on anything but we don’t mind sharing our opinions and maybe too much about our experiences in the worlds of warehousing and transportation. This year we didn’t get into the transportation departments to deeply, we’ve just kind of taken the paths sent into us and tried to explain them a little along the way. And what about our guest, I’d like to thank all of them for their time and participation, we’ve had some very knowledgeable people visiting with us and we’ve enjoyed their contribution to the group as well. If you’ve listened to our first few episodes I hope we’ve improved a little since then, at least audio wise. Remember, we’re just Op’s people and what we know about audio things we’ve picked up this year and we hope we get a little better every episode. Well that’s enough about our anniversary let’s get to this week’s thoughts I guess.
The words Deployment Team came up this week concerning an ad placed on some job board or social media group, looking for workers that could do some traveling and the pay looked very attractive. I was asked if I knew anything about such and did I think it was a good idea to apply.
I’ve heard of Deployment Teams, Rollout Teams, Contingency Teams, and each company probably has other names for their individual purposes as each reason or need for such a group of workers can be quite different. I think it’s safe to kind of broadly discuss their purposes at least I can share my experiences with them and what I’ve heard. I’d suggest that you really discuss all the expectations, rules and pay structure with the person that’s offering the job though as your making a commitment here and there could even be penalties of some sort if we don’t hold up to our part of the bargain.
The first thing I think of are like move teams. Our employer may be opening a new facility in another state and may need order selectors, forklift drivers, unloaders, loaders, sanitation associates etc. to go out and spend a week or so to train the new hires their procedures, processes and how to actually perform their new jobs. It’s fun to get out of town and show others what we know and teach them about our company. Our company would put us up in a hotel and of course our regular meals are usually taken care of, either catered or purchased for us. All our transportation is taken care of, pretty much all our daily needs are provided for with the exception of snacks and extra beverages, I’m sure you understand what I mean! We’ll typically be paid a set amount over and above our regular hourly wages or our hourly wage could be increased by anywhere from 3 to 5 dollars an hour to compensate us for being away from home. I always enjoyed being on the move team and had the honor of leading a couple of them as well. I feel it’s a great opportunity and we should go for it when offered.
There’s also offerings like a deployment team or contingency team, again these are something our employer may utilize for disasters or when a sister company needs immediate assistance bring in or shipping out its product. With these types of offerings, we may be asked to make a commitment that we are willing to leave town on short notice should an event come up within the company. I’ve known individuals on teams for like 5 years and was never deployed, nothing ever came up but their organization had a plan and luckily just never had to use it. Usually our management team will be looking for individuals that can perform several different functions as once the team arrives on site we never know what may need to be done. If we can Load, Unload and Order select we’d be a prime candidate for such a team. Sanitation and Running pallets is another skill set usually needed for these types of teams. Being proficient at both a Standup Forklift, reach lift and a counterbalance or sit-down lift could be a need also.
There are those that can make a job from working for these teams too. I know a few people that may do some work on the side that they really enjoy such as building fencing, concrete work, one gentleman owns his own landscape business, has contacts in the warehousing industry and offers to go, he’s been on enough rollouts or deployments that he has ran teams for a couple of different companies. Now we’re talking about quite a bit of experience with the individuals, from general labor, sanitation, order selecting and forklift operators, they were some of the best in the fields but wanted to venture out in their own businesses and now warehouse as a second profession I guess you could say.
I mentioned earlier that these teams can pay pretty well and yes most all of the expenses are covered but I’d only be speaking to half the story if I didn’t mention the commitment and work is hard, can be long hours and being away from our homes isn’t really for everyone. Then again, getting away from our regular daily grind can even be relaxing in a way I guess. I always enjoyed the teams, and of course the monies can be nice too. If all the above can fit into your lifestyle and you can truly make the commitment, being part of such a team will give us a wealth of experiences and will without get us noticed by our Management, not to mention the great people we’ll meet along the way, many times contacts we’ll run across later in our careers!
We’ll that’s a little on kind of a different segment or position in the industry, again were talking very broadly and I strongly suggest if offered or approached to join such a team that we ask questions and really understand the expectations, commitment and pay as each company and organization, even each job can be very different from each other or the last one!
As you may have picked up on, I loved working with the teams and I’d encourage you to check them out should you be offered the opportunity and can leave when the need arises or is offered.
Well that’s a brief summary of my experiences with things like a Deployment Team or whatever your company may refer to it as and I hope we answered the question of “think it’s a good idea apply”. A shorter answer, or my personal opinion I guess may be certainly, ask questions, educate ourselves a little on the subject and go for it. That’s what it’s all about right?
So, in closing our 52nd episode I’d again like to thank you for listening and ask that you share our show with your friends in the industry, Subscribe and maybe leave us a review if you have a moment. We won’t try and sell you anything here, all us old Op’s guys have to share is a little experience and a lot of thoughts about light industrial positions. Oh, and please Like our Facebook Page if you like the show and follow us on Twitter, we try and post as many job openings as we run across each week on our feed. Your participation is where we get our idea for each episode and we enjoy hearing your thoughts and suggestions!
I know we push having a strong Safety Culture on you each week and I hope you understand as much fun as this career can offer it can be dangerous also, please follow your company’s procedures and keep Safety in mind, it’s really our most important task within our jobs!