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Does that little voice inside you ever whisper to you, can you hear it saying slow down. Does a friend, wife, or husband ever tell you to slow down. Maybe a coworker, supervisor, manager or safety manager ever shout to slow down! I’m Marty and I thank you for joining us today here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career. Let’s talk about slowing down today!
If you’re a long-time listener, you’ll know that one of my more serious pet peeves isent operations related at all! I’ll never understand why people, instead of waiting their turn to turn left in their vehicle will race up to the light and turn from the center lane. I know their special but by cutting in front of others it cheats others of their time. And the running of red lights these last several months. It seems everyone’s in a hurry. Slow down.
These last several months we’ve been placed on hold. I understand that part. Maybe we couldn’t get out like we wanted, and do everything we wanted to, or our work hours had been cut way back, maybe we were even laid off, I don’t know. But we can’t make that time up by speeding through everything now. Or that’s how I feel anyway! Especially in the workplace. And for several reasons.
So this week I’ve mostly made my way through the days and across the docks observing, commenting and hearing from associates that need to slow down. I’m not talking about letting go of that rabbit switch on their pallet jacks or using the 3rd click position on their forklift accelerator! I mean slow down. Quit rushing everything. Quit trying to position yourself in the workplace hierarchy. Quit trying to do something before we’re ready too just because others can perform the task like that. Slow down.
Here’s a good example of what I’m trying to say. A young gentleman with about 4 years of warehouse experience went through a staffing agency and landed himself a job with a great company. He had experience on the electric rider pallet jack and the sit-down forklift. He had been hired as a material handler, basically unloading trucks, doing a little shipping, things like that, front dock work I guess we could say! Anyway, on his 2nd day. His 2nd day at his new job. He went up to his supervisor and told him that he had forklift experience and wanted to change positions. Now, as you know, I am a big believer that we should always make sure our management team knows that we want more. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with him sharing his short-term goals or plan with that member of management. However, telling his boss that he didn’t like what we were doing, and he’d have to quit if he couldn’t be a lift operator was not the way to have handled the situation! His boss heard that as a resignation and walked him up to HR.
I feel like he would have been an operator in under 12 months. I’m thinking like maybe 6 months. I asked him about it, and he said that would just be too long.
Here’s another good one. A young lady went through a PIT class. She was observed and licensed to operate the electric rider pallet jack. She informed her trainer that she could also operate the sit-down forklift. He explained that her supervisor would have to sign off on the request to pit her on both pieces of equipment. The supervisor said let’s start off on the jack for now as this is where you’ll be working. Well about 6 hours later she was seen on the counterbalance lift. When asked if during her PIT class it had been explained to her that she was not to get on or even be around a piece of equipment that she had not been on and certified to operate? She said yes, but she had told her trainer and her supervisor that she could drive the lift and they should have marked that on her card as well. She was asked to leave. We have to slow down.
One more and then we’ll move on! A young lady is in the grocery store checkout line. She’s the 4th person from the cashier. You can tell that she’s getting frustrated and wanting the line to move quicker. She grabbed like 3 more items off of the impulse buy shelves! The cashier greeted her, she said nothing. The bag person was placing everything in bags for her, evidently not fast enough or maybe she wanted the merchandise bagged a certain way. She handed the cashier some coupons and then seemed put out that the checker had to read them or look them over. Inserted her credit card or pay card and started gathering the bags while it was being approved. Pulled the card out and started walking out with all but 1 bag of her groceries! I and the cashier hollered for her to no avail! Now who do you think she’s going to be upset with when she gets home and discovers that she didn’t grab all her product that she bagged herself! I want to say it again, we have to slow down!
OK, enough of all that. How about we talk about making money! Myself and a couple of other recruiters, well I guess most light industrial recruiters, worked this week sourcing bonified high productivity order selectors. I always use some type of questionnaire or interview sheet before I reach out to a candidate by phone. I’ll source for resumes, fine a few that I feel may be the right fit for the position and send them an email introducing myself, share what caught my eye when reading through their resume and ask that they complete the brief questionnaire that I’m attaching for further review. I explain that once I receive that back, which is all automated, I would like to set up a phone interview to discuss the position. Questionnaires are easy to make and even easier to answer. Yet, well let me give you an example.
An order selector filled out about half the questionnaire, I think it had 15 questions, all but 3 or 4 were multiple choice, some as quick as click on a picture. The one he stopped on was. What kind of pay program would you prefer? The answers were Activity Based Programs, Base plus incentives, Pure piece pay, hourly rate or any of the above. He chose hourly and hit submit. Of course, his answer was fine. I myself do not know of many high productivity selector positions that pay by the hour though. An order selector, in that setting, generally wants to be paid for what him or her actually does instead of earning the same as someone producing less cases per hour than them. I reached back out to the individual, thanked him for his reply and stated that if I run across something that met his qualifications and wants that I would be in contact. He gave me a call and wanted to know why he didn’t get the job? I shared that, as he had not completed the brief questionnaire, I did not have enough information to give him a call regarding his experiences and qualifications. He was upset with me. He was in a hurry.
I get it, an applicant may fill out 10 applications a day, maybe more on-line. I’m sure it get’s old, probably even frustrating. It’s part of the process though. That’s how we get a job.
Think of the recruiter for a minute. They may look at 200 resumes a day, for each position they are sourcing for. Sometimes people just apply to everything on the job boards, even if they do not have the experiences or skills necessary to perform the advertised task. Out of that 200 resumes they may find 50 people that they feel like would be a good fit, so they call or email them for a response. We, as applicants have to be on our game from this point on.
Well, I’m drifting from the points I wanted to talk about! I have a great webinar titled Seeking Work is Hard Work. Send me a request through host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and I’ll send you a free link to it. Seeking employment is a job when we’re unemployed.
So productivity is what I wanted to get back to! When I’m interviewing for a skilled distribution position I am wanting to talk to that individual that is experienced, the man or woman that come’s in talking about selection averages, cases per hour, case percentages, I don’t even mind if I’m asked what is the most I can earn! In this business safety, accuracy, and productivity is your key to success.
Tuesday a gentleman came up to me and said he felt like the batches are rigged. He never gets an easy batch. Batches are just the next batch of labels to be pulled, the next stop’s, in this case the next 3 pallets of 62 cube! I shared that in todays world with the strict WMS or warehouse management systems it would be pretty much impossible to know what routes we’re coming down next. He agreed but said he’s working harder than everyone else and getting fewer cases. I agreed with him and said quit working harder and start working smarter! That stumped him for a few minutes.
So we discussed how he handled breaks and lunches. He said he would head to the break room a couple of minutes before break time or lunch time so he could get a good seat and be able to take his whole break. I pointed out that I bet you then wait until break is over before you head back to the aisles and your pallet jack right? He confirmed for me. I asked were there others that got there late and left early? He said yes, but I don’t know what they don’t take their whole break. I expressed that they were selecting before their time started again, giving them more cases per hour, and earning more money.
I asked him if he did much talking in the aisles. He stated not really but you can’t just work work work when you’re selecting. I asked did he know anyone that never spoke to him during the shift. He said of course, several actually! I asked him if they were the same ones that left the breakroom early? He laughed and said yep, pretty much. And then I asked him if that group was the ones he felt was earning more than him. At that point he said, you know, those guys have their own little pallet stash, cut through the cross aisles, stack their pallets level at all times. They have to hate their jobs. I laughed and said they love their jobs, they’re the best at it! I pointed out that they all had been doing this a lot longer than he had. Maybe learn from them? Work smarter than harder, earn more, and then help out another new boot!
There are no magic pill people. We all can do more and work less. We just need a plan, learn from others and apply ourselves to produce more and earn more. If you’d like to know more about improving your productivity, send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and we’ll set up a free call. Maybe we could give you some pointers!
Well until next week, oh, I just noticed this is our 260th consecutive weekly episode! You keep showing up and I’ll keep talking! We appreciate you stopping in each week. Like I was saying, until next week please slow down, listen to others, they may be able to help you, and above all be safe. It’s what we should do.