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Gosh here we are on episode 91 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career, and it looks like we’re winding down with the 2nd quarter already! I’m Marty and I thought we’d get caught up on a few of the questions you’ve sent in over the last 13 weeks or so. I hope everyone has had a safe and prosperous quarter and that all your planning is getting you to those goals we set at the beginning of the year. It’s been great hearing from you about the increases and promotions that’s came up this year, I’m excited to see all this advancement in the industry. I was thinking about a situation about 6 weeks ago about a gentleman that was working in a Utility position that wanted to know how he could learn something about equipment operation, he had his eyes on a pallet runner job that was going to come open after school was let out for the summer. He’d been with the company for about 8 months, he was sure to let me know that he had been on time for every scheduled shift and his boss knew he could be counted on any time she needed him. The facility was in the distribution arena so there was a lot of inbound product moving around each shift and they utilized pallet runners to move the product from the front dock after the Receivers had tagged it to the aisles for the forklifts to put the products away. He had experience with the manual jack but had never been giving the opportunity or training on the powered equipment. I hear this pretty frequently so I’d like to walk through how to go about becoming an operator, or one way I’ve encouraged individuals to pursue their goals.
First off, and we talk about it often here at WAOC is we need to get noticed by our Lead or Supervisor. As we’ve learned that starts with being on time every day, have our proper PPE on and following all the rules. Another thing I find is helpful is to be that employee that is paying attention during start up or safety meetings, participating every chance we can too! As ironic as it sounds, if our name never crosses the boss’s desk I can assure he’s noticed us. Next we need to be sure he or she knows what our plan and goal is. If we haven’t told them we want to operate that pallet jack and that we want that runner position, let’s not get upset when we don’t get it!
And here’s a great place for me to throw in my blah blah about operating powered industrial equipment. It’s a rule everywhere, no, not a rule but actually the law that we never, ever, get on, stand on, move or operate a piece of equipment that we’ve not been trained on and certified on, if that’s what your facility calls it, another words, know what we’re doing regarding its Safe operation in the environment we’re in. I prefer just saying do not even touch it until we’ve been through the 29cfr1910.178 training. That’s the OSHA reg here in the states but I’m certain every country has an agency that provides such a regulation or I hope they all do anyway!
Anyway, I feel that our management team should know our goals and plan from our first day one the job. Everywhere I’ve ever worked and every new position I ever had I made sure my direct supervisor knew my intention was to be there every shift and be his or her best employee. The same holds true when we’re ready to advance.
This is where we should go to our boss and ask to see them for a few minutes. Point out that we’ve been in this position for about 8 months, let them know that we assume we’ve done a great job as we’ve never been coached about anything & if we have had a little coaching session that we corrected our behavior immediately. I honestly can’t recall a single situation where a coaching session has ever held anyone back, actually I feel when we’re coached or corrected correctly it can even make better employees out of us. Let them know that we’re ready to move into a runner position when one becomes available and that we’d like to have the opportunity to learn how to operate the electric rider jack. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wording it something like “ Hey boss, as you know I’ve been working as a utility man for about 8 months now and I feel like I’ve shown you I’m a team player. I’d really like to be considered for a runner position when one becomes available, could you help me get certified by the Safety department and maybe help me get some training on it. I really want to be qualified when something opens up and I’ll get those pallets to the aisle for our forks!”
Now he or she knows what we want and what our goal is AND we’ve reached out to them for help! I can’t help but think they’ll get us set up, we’ve put it to them in such a way that it’s to their advantage to get another equipment operator on their team! I’m happy to relay that this gentleman received that training, filled the open runner position and his next goal was to be a Receiver which his direct supervisor had recommended him to the receiving lead already. It’ll take about a year to make that transition but the company knows they have a man ready when the need arises.
Here’s another equipment question that comes up really often. We get a lot of these or something like “I drive a sit-down lift, is it hard to learn to drive a standup”? My answer is always not at all. Every piece of conventional powered warehouse equipment is really just or mainly I guess I should say about Safety. We need to be trained and certified on it and if we are always focused on our surroundings, paying attention to what we’re lifting and practicing everything we’ve learned we’re going to be good at it. I think it’s important we remember we’ll be standing a lot now, I know when I came off the sit-down and went to the reach standup one of the first things I had to do was go get me a more comfortable boot, something with a bit more arch support and a better heal. I assure you it was money well spent. All our controls are about the same, we’ll have lift and lower, tilt forward and backward and maybe side to side etc. Today most of your standups will be operated by one hand, maybe our thumb and fingers are utilized for all the operational controls. I’d suggest to really practice with the steering also, now our steering wheel will be flat and operated with one hand. Typically there’s a forward steer and a reverse steer unit which just means what our drive wheel is going to do when we turn to our right and left. That’s a very important distinction and as an operator I have some strong opinions on the subject that we’ll get too in another episode. Make sure you feel comfortable with the steering though as its going to feel different than the sit down lift’s operation. Another thing to watch for is your turns. You may have gotten use to using the body of your sit-down lift to gauge when your clearing an upright and turning into an aisle. When operating a standup you’ll have outriggers protruding forward from the compartment body on either side of your mask carriage. You’ll need to align your turn with them in mind as they can be anywhere from flush to the body to like 3 to 6 inches on either side. Again, take things slow and focus on what you’re doing, and you should be fine. One of the things that took some getting used to for me was getting comfortable with looking up at a different angle on the standup. I guess I was using a whole other set of neck muscles than I had used when operating my sit-down lift. Another point to remember is your standup was probably designed and you’ll find your operating it in a narrow aisle environment now. There’s another whole episode again, we’ll talk about the history of the narrow aisles and how they came to be on another episode as well.
One more quick question, let’s see, oh here’s one about being an equipment operator and having to wear a PPE Safety Vest even though he’s on a big piece of equipment and usually in the aisles. I have not heard back from the gentleman but I assume he’s a forklift operator as he mentions he’s usually in the aisles so let’s see. I do understand some of us, I guess you could say we don’t like wearing the bright vest. It could be the bright colors, or in my case I sometimes can’t zip it up depending on what size I’ve grabbed or I’ve heard some operators comment that there hot to wear! I understand for those machine operators working around machinery that our vest could get caught on something there’s a legitimate concern there and I’d strongly suggest that those concerns are addressed with management immediately. But for any other position in the warehouse I personally don’t find it obtrusive at all. Most vests are made out of a mesh material for our industry or they are really light weight to work with. It’s a required PPE by the facility, I think it shows us as employees how much our employer is committed to our Safety. And if were being honest with ourselves I hope we’d all say we do feel Safer and easily seen when we’re in the aisles or crossing the docks right.
Well I hope you enjoyed the visit today, I appreciate you listening and thank you for taking the time to check us out today. I love you sending in any questions, thoughts or comments, just shoot them over to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and we’ll get an answer looked up or at least share an opinion with you. If you have a moment please check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds too, @whseandops and if you haven’t checked out the Warehouse Equipment Operators Community on Facebook, please do. We’re having fun over there with the feed, ya ought to join in a share!
I guess it’s time to say Thanks again, and until next week please work Safe, focus on our tasks and Be that Safety Influence at your facility!