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In the world of warehousing, wither we’re in manufacturing, production or distribution we have a saying, Get the doors closed. Our supervisors and managers use that amongst themselves and their bosses, that’s their primary goal for the shift. Now that encompasses controlling their hours, meeting their production or productivity needs and setting the plate for the next shift. Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I’m Marty T Hawkins and with this episode we’ll all be getting the doors closed on 2019! I’ve had a blast this year, and our Thursday get togethers have been a big part of that fun. We have some great plans for WAOC in 2020. We’ve lined up some interesting guests, on a variety of different topics and we’ll be talking a lot about those first steps into the front-line management opportunities out there. I’ve met several new recruiters and hiring agents that’ll help us with our career choices this year & I’m excited about learning from each of them! As we get those doors closed on this year, I’d like to thank you, all of our listener’s for stopping in each week and for all the participation, emails & questions you’ve sent in. It’s each of you that have kept us going for 170 consecutive weeks. You’ve made it worthwhile for us and I hope we’ve brought you some useful information, somethings you’ve been able to advance your careers with this year!
So, a part of getting the doors closed each shift is the planning that goes into tomorrow’s shift! I take a moment every day to review the days successes and what I could have done better! I actually as myself “What is one thing that’ll make me better tomorrow” every night. We’ve learned a little about planning & goals this year, it’s such an important part of our careers whither we have found the perfect job for ourselves or we’re on a path to a position we see as our long term career or where we’re wanting to retire from. I was thinking what better way to review the years planning than from those that’s lived it with our group! The logistics of getting everyone together for a show proved impossible here at the last week of the year so we thought we’d try reaching out to individuals separately and adding those calls to the show as they called in. As I’ve mentioned several times, we here at WAOC are nowhere close to being audio experts. It’s going to be a lot fun anyway! As you know one of my favorite podcasts is hosted by Cindy B Brown, if her show Unlocking the secret to living rich is not on your weekly got to listen list you’re missing out when it comes to your money! Anyway, I grabbed about 2 minutes of a recent episode, #115 titled Set Goals Now that came out the first of December, with her permission of course, and I wanted to play a couple of highlights it here for you. I’ll be sure to post a link to the full episode in today’s show notes too, I’m sure you’re going to want to catch the whole show, it’s just that good. So, let’s hear her 5 points to setting goals. http://unlockingthesecretoflivingrich.libsyn.com/115-set-goals-now
Wow, powerful stuff. After I listened to that episode I called Cindy, yep I know a published author, not affiliated with her book or podcast but I like them both, anyway I called her and told her how great that episode was. In our world of operations, we can apply each of those 5 tips in our planning and structuring our goals! I have integrated those 5 thoughts into my overall goals for next year. We have to accept the roadblocks that we’re going to experience with our tasks. Our jobs are touched, I won’t say controlled by others but at least touched by the task before us or our mechanics or in many instances our computer systems. Things like, let’s see, if I’m a loader trying to get my productivity and the selectors aren’t focused and brings my product up in a timely fashion, I’ll need to adjust my workflow. Or maybe our maintenance department didn’t fix our pallet jack and we’re working with a manual jack for a few hours. We will have to compensate for those roadblocks in order to hit our shift goals. Or of course we could say, well, didn’t hit my productivity because I didn’t get my product quick enough or my jack wasn’t working, I guess. I probably set my goals a bit high, but I use them to push myself, I place a lot of worth in myself. And her #2 & 3, visible and accountable, our systems and metrics can do all that for us, I never want my productivity to be towards the bottom of the printout. I think I mentioned it before, but one of my biggest motivators when I was an order selector was to stay out of the bottom half percentage wise on the productivity sheet posted at lunch each shift. The supervisor would highlight all the names in pink marker that were under the nightly average. Even if we were all selecting at average the bottom half would get the pink marks. As silly as it is, that only happened to me once. My goal was not to be in pink. And as for aligning our goals with a purpose. Well, I think, work wise or employment wise, it’s to make money, grow with our companies, make more money, advance within our positions, and make even more money, right? Setting goals and planning our careers will achieve those dreams for us and our families!
So, Let’s get to a couple of those calls and talk a little about 2019, planning and 2020!
You may remember Corey, he’s been on the show a couple of times. I believe the first time we met cory he had just been promoted to unloading lead, he went on to become a unloading supervisor and is now learning all the tasks involved in setting the plates between shifts. The receiving, running, put away, shoot all the different tasks, I guess. Cory how have you been Sir?
You know Corey is a long time WAOC listener. When we first met, he was living and working up in Pennsylvania and really had the itch to move to Texas one day. He developed his plan, transferred within his company, advanced through several different positions over about two years and is now working for a National Foodservice provider and continues his growth through great goals and planning!
Next up our old friend Phillip, Phillip really needs no introduction, he’s visited with us several times. He oversees several facilities in a couple of different states as well as manages their unloading and time keeping programs. Wow, I guess the last time we spoke was when we did a show from your office in Chicago, I think that was late in 2018! Are you getting the doors closed on 2019?
And I was very fortunate to catch up with John, the V.P. of Operations for a large National Sourcing company. John with you overseeing so many Supervisors and Managers spread across the nation I’m sure you understand Getting the doors closed on 2019! How have you been?
Did everyone pick up on a recurring theme today? All of our guests had taken responsibility for their success. They planned for it by writing those goals down and holding themselves accountable for their results. No one achieved everything they wanted too, but everyone was positive about rolling them over and getting across the finish line next year!
Well with all that being said we’ll get the doors closed on another year for us here at WAOC. I hope you join us next Thursday for the first show of 2020. Oh, and Our W2’s will be coming out next month, if you didn’t make at least $5200 more than you did in 2018 lets fix that for next year! As we’ve learned this year, we can control our earnings, our savings, and our careers! And as always if you have any questions, comments or topics please email host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com. We love getting mail! Until next week and next year, Be Safe, productive and prosperous!