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Hey everyone! Marty here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I hope we’re all having a prosperous and productive week! I made a quick trip out to Lubbock Texas this week to visit with a young Supervisor. He’s doing a great job and is really interested in all his new duties, it’s so exciting to see that kind of enthusiasm and all his questions bubble to the surface. His facility is about 180,00 sq ft and he’s overseeing a shift of about 15 associates. He actually was promoted from the floor about a year ago and has been handling things like Interviewing candidates that his companies recruiting team sends over to him, scheduling the individual’s hours, reporting time to payroll and handling any day to day concerns and reporting them to his management team, kind of a strong Lead role. As I said he’s doing a really good job, he’s been noticed by his manager who has asked that the reins be loosened a bit, he’s ready to give him a little more training and share a good deal more responsibilities with him. I’ve been working with this young prospect for a while, he’s attended several different leadership classes and his company has invested the time and energy for him to recognize his potential and he’s ready to accept more, more information and more responsibilities, hence his promotion to a salaried Supervisor position. I reviewed and presented some regulatory information to him and we reviewed the facilities different files, things like attendance rosters, it’s documentation regarding Safety Meetings, the Associates PIT certifications or the files on its Powered Industrial Training any equipment operators as well as the files on any Near Misses and Accident or Injury reporting. It’s been a rewarding visit for me, I love helping the young and upcoming men and women within our industry, their excitement and enthusiasm is contagious and just filters through everyone on the shift. We had another topic prepared to discuss this week but since we have recently been talking about getting noticed and had a few questions about the Supervisor role an opportunity presented itself today that we just shouldn’t pass up! Rodrigo was actually here today performing a Site Visit, you all will remember Rodrigo from a couple of different episodes he’s been nice enough to share some of his thoughts with us on and he’s participated in both our 1st & 2nd quarter Roundtable discussions as well.
Rodrigo, what brought you to Lubbock Texas today?
RODRIGO –
So WAOC’s been talking about getting noticed by our management teams if we have any aspirations with a career in Management and in particular the warehouse lead and supervisor positions. Can you share your thoughts on those jobs with us Sir?
RODRIGO –
As I speak with potential candidates one thing that comes up really often is the interview process. Some feel it’s too long and they’ve wasted their time and others are surprised by how in-depth the hiring agent is. We here at WAOC believe, another one of my opinions I guess, that when we’re thorough with our work history and our equipment experience, we’re enthusiast and show our interest in the position with them we can cut a lot of the stress associated with an interview and cut the time spent on the interview in half. Kind of try and lead the interview ourselves in a way. What’s your thoughts on the interview process and how should us as young Supervisors be conducting an interview, what do you teach your new supervisors?
RODRIGO –
Another thing we’ve talked about recently regarding the Supervisor position is Organization and Time Management. I personally feel these are two skills needed to be successful as a member of the management team. Would you agree, and if so, how do you express that to new Leads and Supervisors coming from the floor? How do you teach it?
RODRIGO –
You know, one of the hardest things to realize, especially if we’re coming from a position of doing or coming from the floor is how important deadlines are. Wither its regarding a report we must turn in or having a certain number of cases pulled or loaded by a certain time each shift I find many of us tend to maybe not recognize the importance of it happening. I think it could be hard for us because we know how to do those productivity tasks, we’re probably really good at them, that’s kind of been our mindset for a while. In our new position, although, and I hope anyway, these deadlines and their importance have been explained to us, it’s new to us and it’s so easy, that human nature thing, that we stick with what we know. We’ll need to push ourselves with this new thought process & just incorporate it into our timeline because they’re now a part of our Jobs. Do you see new Managers struggling with accepting or meeting deadlines as their learning their new positions and how do you explain it to them?
RODRIGO –
What do you feel is the hardest part or greatest wall a new Lead or Supervisor has to overcome when coming from the floor or productivity position and stepping into management for the first time Sir?
RODRIGO –
Rodrigo I’d like to thank you for taking a couple of minutes with us here today, it was great observing you complete a Site Visit with your Customer and Team, I picked up more than a few pointers and had a good time Sir!
RODRIGO –
And we here at WAOC appreciate each of you, our listeners, for taking a few minutes with us. I know the sound quality’s not the best when we’re out on the road but we hope you find the content interesting at least! Please shoot us an email or comment and any suggestions or topics you’d like us to talk about, our email is host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and we’d love to hear from you on our Twitter & Facebook feeds as well where we can be found @whseandops.
Until next week, lets speak up at our Safety Meetings, get noticed and inspire at least one person with a Safety thought this week, we all want to go home as we showed up today!