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Hey everyone, Marty here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career, and I have absolutely no ideal what I’d like to talk about today. We’ve received so many great questions and topics suggested lately, I’ve got to try and get caught up with’em. Last week I briefly mentioned Planning and Goals and a long-time listener shared his plan with us, he didn’t want to join me recording it but was happy for me to share it with the group! The gentleman had been working out in the oil fields of west Texas for the last two years. He never really liked the work, it paid really good, but he’d decided he had no interest going back to school and felt like without further education his advancement opportunities we’re going to pretty much be nil to none. His girlfriend has ran across our WAOC podcast somewhere and passed it on to him! They we’re moving to Dallas about 3 weeks after that and he decided to plan out his next career.
The day after they got moved in, he got started. He knew the pay rate he wanted to make after 12 months and focused only on the larger distribution centers, the larger national corporations. He actually took the time to call several companies and ask a few questions. I was surprised to hear he got so many answers. I mean I encourage everyone to do a little research on their prospective employers, but he really dug into them. He got answers like what type of equipment the facility used, how they felt about promoting from within, one place even shared their safety ranking with him. I think he faired so well with the questions and answers because he’d done his homework and let the HR generalist or hiring agents talk about their company. Remember how we’ve talked about how we need to interview our prospects before or while there interviewing us! Well, as he suspected he was being told that he’d need experience to make that dollar amount he’d envisioned so he started on his quest with a solid plan!
So, he’d picked 3 companies that he felt fit his needs and applied directly with’em. He did the leg work, went to their HR departments, filled out the application right there, on their premises. Now normally I preach this approach, makes sense that it’d be the best approach, right? A little shocked he was surprised that the first two places he applied just took his application and was told someone would be calling him if they had any positions that we qualified for and the 3rd place went as far as interviewing him and then stated they’d be giving him a call should something become available that he was qualified for. He said the puzzling thing here was that all 3 we’re advertising on different Facebook job boards!
He had listened to our episode on using all the job boards to our advantage and how we could, while still being honest, rework our resumes a bit to reflect what we wanted to do, instead of what we’d done. He removed all the information about the oil fields, added all his certificates earned and classes he’d taken, kind of on the job training type stuff and leaned heavily on his thoughts of safety and what he wanted to be doing in 2 years! He took his new resume and uploaded it, through those on-line ads, for each of his three choices, the same 3 companies that he’d just applied, in person, with! All 3 companies reached out and he secured a phone interview with each! I think this reinforces our thoughts regarding todays hiring agents. I don’t mean that negative in any way but, I guess I mean their looking at our resumes only and not looking at us during that face to face interview. On his first visit they’d all just read his past experiences, and no one dug in to find out what he was wanting to do.
Anyway, so the first company pretty much implied that without equipment experience they weren’t interested but, yep you guessed it, should anything become available that fit his qualifications they’ed give him a call. Companies 2 & 3 set him up with a face to face interview for later in the week, he’d nailed those phone interviews. Although both of those interviews went well, after speaking with them he didn’t really get that good feeling in his gut about their overall organizations. They both offered him a G/L position, so he was going to choose one of them, didn’t really have a choice, he needed a job. When he got home that afternoon, he’d received a call from company number 1, he’d been called in for an interview! He went the next morning, loved the company, was offered a G/L position, at a higher pay rate than both the other two, and accepted right there on the spot! He says the morale to the story is never ever give up! All this happened by his second week, 8 days actually, after he’d initiated or put his plan into action!
He started the following week, it was a second shift position, kind of a warehouse sanitation slash utility job but he had free roam of the building, he scooped out all the positions in the plant. By his 1st month his supervisor was working with him on the electric walkie jack and by his 3rd month he’d been promoted to the day shift and was pulling or order selecting for the will call department and on an electric rider jack. He wanted me to point out that an important part of that promotion was that he asked questions all the time, and he let his boss know that he wanted to operate the electric pallet jack and work a day job. By his 6th month, since he now had a little experience on the rider jacks, he was offered a position, as an order selector, on the night shift. Nights wasn’t particularly what he wanted but the money was! With the productivity incentives that came along with the position he’d surpass that original pay rate wish that he’d started out with. All this accomplished in half the time he’d planned on! So, with a little adjustment to those plans and goals he set his eyes on a receiver position next. It paid a little more and it was a day job! One year and 9 months later he asked for and received that promotion to receiving and was back on days. He achieved his goals in 27 months or 2 years and 3 months. He’d changed his industry, changed Careers and a little more than doubled his starting wage!
The gentleman attributes his success to planning, setting himself a goal and making himself stick to it. He made it a point to be on time and present for every shift and standing out to his management teams. He wanted me to point out that he’s definitely not the most productive employee, but he states he’s always tried to be a little above the average. He speaks up at every meeting and places an emphasis on errors, he tries not to have any errors period.
His next step is supervision, his goal for this year is to become a leadman. He told me he’ll probably have to go back to nights for a while but that’s the path for being the dayshift supervisor so that’s the plan! WAOC wishes him the best of luck in those endeavors and we’ll be following him, he may just be president of that company one day!
Oh, I did have something I wanted to mention today. This can be a bit tricky, we have to follow our managements direction, but I can’t help but feel, and I’ve mentioned before how we as employees bare the responsibility to do what’s right and part of that is keeping our managers apprised of any safety concerns. This week I heard of a dock door that was missing the trailer chock, guys we’re unloading from it anyway and had not mentioned it to their management. It’d been gone for over a week. Of course, when they brought it up it was replaced immediately by their building management manager. Another thing I heard about was a driver’s truck had been unloaded, his load locks we’re put back in his trailer and the dock door was closed and the light switch turned to green. A load strap was attached to his E track and the other end was under the dock door laying on the dock plate. Well the driver pulled away and the lower two door panels we’re pulled out, bent up pretty bad. A costly error for there company! Ladies and gentlemen, its our responsibility, our job, to work safely and take care of each other and our company’s assets. That needs to be a part of our plan and goals, right?
I know I learned a lot about planning and goals this week. By the end of the month I’m going have mine adjusted and I’m going to be back on the straight and narrow! How about you? Are you on track to meet all your objectives?
We’ll be having a lot of discussions this month about planning and goals on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, where we can be found using @whseandops, join in and teach us all something! And as always feel free to send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com, we love getting mail!
I hope I didn’t just get to rambling today, I get excited when someone’s plan comes together, I love hearing all ya’lls success stories! Until next week, please work Safe, do what we know to be right and lets all help take care of each other!