Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:09 — 8.1MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
This week the theme seemed to be Sanitation. What was and what was not my job was the battle cry. Oddly, I noticed the supervisors either appeared indifferent to the situation or did not know how to handle it. I think I can clear this up with just a few comments. I’m Marty with you here at warehouse and operations as a career. If we are paid hourly, sanitation is a part of our task. Usually, or what works best for me is cleaning, or keeping things tidy as I go. Sanitation is a duty of our lives, we do it everywhere, home, work, our cars the garage, and at work it can become a safety issue. If we’re paid by the case, the pallet, a percentage number, other words any type of activity-based compensation or piece pay. Again, sanitation will be a part of our task. It will be figured in, it’ll be in writing, and besides all that, it’s just the right thing to do.
I was walking a dock this week, it may have very well been the cleanest, most organized large warehouse I’ve ever toured. About ever 5th dock door they had a cleaning cart. It had a corn broom, a dustpan, what looked like a spray bottle of disinfectant, maybe it was cleaner. I didn’t go over there to look at it. There was a dust mop and what looked like a spill kit and some absorbent on it to. Hanging on the side was a clipboard, for documenting what was used and when, and some nylon tape and stretch wrap, and a large 55-gallon trash can attach to it. A pretty slick set up. Just while I was out on the front dock, I witnessed 3 people cleaning as they worked. The unloader would cut the stretch wrap off the inbound pallet and take it immediately to the trash can. The receiver, was checking the pallets for dust and debris as they crossed the dock, and the forklift operators and Order Pickers, they were using a lot of cherry pickers to haul off the dock, they all were checking that the pallets were properly stacked and true, and that the shrink wrap has adhered well and was not going to hang loose once it was placed in the rack. All this took just seconds. It was just a part of their jobs and to them it was no big deal or inconvenience at all. I’m going to say it was just their culture, the company has a culture of clean.
So what I was hearing was that some over the road drivers and 3rd party vendors we’re bad about wanting to wait until the load or task was finished and then clean up the area, at least when they even took the time to clean their work area! We discussed how to remedy those issues. It’s a work in progress, signage, floor markings, things like that are being considered, I’ll let you know how that all comes along.
Another dock I visited, was on the entire other end of the spectrum. That sounded bad, I don’t mean it was fifty, I mean the culture there was more like we’ll get to it later. At the end of the shift everyone would grab brooms and trash cans and get it cleaned up and it’d look nice for the next shift coming in.
Is there a right way and a wrong way? I think so. I visited with several supervisors and managers and we discussed their experiences when it comes to sanitation.
I think we can all recognize some of the benefits of keeping our work areas clean like our first example. Less to do at the end of the day. We’re always ready for a new customer to tour or an auditor or inspector to stop in for a visit. We don’t have to hire individuals to tend to aisles, or the trash compactors. With everybody taking their 55-gallon container over to the compactor area and dumping it, there’s not that huge pile of trash to be dumped all at once. One of the things I loved about their system was that everyone got to drive the sweepers and scrubber. If you’ve never learned to operator a scrubber, well, get with your management team and learn. I like’em anyway! Where was I, oh, and another benefit is everyone gets off when their finished, we don’t have another 30 minutes of cleaning to dread!
Now by waiting until the end of the shift, we’ll experience more trash up front. We’ll have to assign aisles and dock doors to be cleaned, and typically have to run down the individuals to make sure they do their part. How many of you have seen a half a day’s trash stacked up over by the compactor? We typically have to hire a sanitation guy just to be operating the compactor between shifts. An added expense. And in my experience’s O/T will increase once we start asking our employees to be responsible for cleaning a destinated area.
As a department lead or supervisor it’s our job to determine how our departments are going to look throughout the day and what our teams’ culture is going to be.
I was speaking with a young supervisor that came from a facility like our first example, a clean as you go program, and is now working at a facility that although they have a strong sanitation program, they do not clean as they go. They have a few sanitation people that tries to keep things picked up during the shift and then everyone addresses their assigned aisles and areas at the end of shift. That’s his company’s policy. He is a supervisor working with roughly 11 order selectors. Their area has 9 aisles to it. There are 3 other supervisors, each have about the same number of associates and about the same size areas. His selectors carry trash bags on the sides of their palletjacks. Each person has a box that sits on top of their battery for broken boards or balled up shrink wrap, just general trash. He has them pulling by layers, so the pallets are always looking flat and true. At the end of the shift there’s very little to do individually. They take their trash bags to the compactor and throw their shrink wrap in the bailer compactor. His crew works about 3 hours less a week than the other groups. They’re paid on an activity system. By not working that additional 3o minutes or so each day they are increasing their hourly rate!
One of the hardest things to learn as a young member of management or about being on the front line is these kinds of responsibilities. Of course, we have to follow our company’s guidelines and procedures. But we need to take advantage of the little things when we can. The example I just gave you is a great look at how, while not ignoring the company’s policy, he showed efficiencies and how they could be recognized.
I spoke with his manager, asked her how he was coming along. She stated he was a young up and comer. She had to rein him in occasionally, but she’d rather have to rein in a young manager than have to keep pushing them to get something done!
If what he did was so great you may ask why aren’t the other supervisors doing the same thing? Well, it’s change. Even his crew did not like the idea of cleaning as they went. They had always done it the other way. It wasn’t fair they we’re having to do it and the others weren’t. Any of you leads or supervisors heard that before?
He worked with them, spoke to them intelligently and honestly. He asked that they give it a try and explained that he’d switch it right back if it didn’t help them. Slowly, they started getting out earlier and earlier. It became the norm for his crew. They love it. The other supervisors, or maybe it’s their crews, just don’t want to try or do something new. Its change. Change is hard. But change is good. It’s going to happen, constantly. The Manager I spoke with is expecting everyone to be cleaning as they go within the next 6 months. Be open to change!
Have you had a recent experience with change? Send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and share your struggles with the group. Any of our listeners new to the front-line management roles? We’d love to hear from you, I’ve been there, I know there’s some good stories and experiences there!
Until next week, let’s all be open minded, be accepting to change, shoot let’s all implement a change of some kind next week. And of course, be safe doing it!