Think it through

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Hello all and welcome to week 15 of 2022. You’ve found Warehouse and Operations as a Career and I’m Marty T Hawkins. How is everyone doing? I have been super busy for the last several weeks, but the ends in sight. Speaking about the end of something, the first quarter of 2022 is here. How did you do with your goals and how is your 2nd quarter planning coming along? I’ll change the topic so I don’t run down the rabbit hole known as goals and planning, you know how I can be!

As we’ve established, Q1 is wrapping down. That means your management teams have been busy finishing up year-end reporting and their first quarter reports. I’m bringing this up because a lot of those reports may have something to do with our productivity, the headcount of our shifts, even how our task or duties, even our job descriptions, can change because of numbers on a page! And you know what, that is exactly the way we as associates should want it! We need to know, and understand, how we’re being graded and what our jobs are, what is expected of us. Without that understanding, well, we’re not going to grow! I won’t harp on being that employee today but I do want to share a few things that came up this week.

I attended a virtual conference last weekend. It was set up pretty cool. It had individual breakout rooms, each one discussing a different topic, just like the old attend in person kind. One of the topics was about learning. How to learn, you know, quiet environment, being prepared, taking notes, setting in the front rows. The instructor was really knowledgeable. The talk drifted to conventions and the breakout rooms. She made the comment, If you’re the smartest person in the room that you’re in the wrong room. That stuck with me. As we’ve discussed here many times, you are or will become who you hang out with. That thought process is why I feel it’s important to know the job next to ours. By knowing the next step the freight will take, we’ll know that person, and by knowing that person we will learn something we did not know. Simply put if we have more experience and experiences than everyone in the room we’re not going to learn much from them. But, if we’re in a room or at a table with people that have more experience and experiences than we do, we’ll, we’re going to be busy taking notes and learning all day. Being the smartest in the room is easier but not very rewarding in the long term.

Well there’s thought one for the day, but I need to move on to today’s notes!

I feel that thinking clearly is one of our jobs as an employee. I had a gentleman call me this week regarding a raise. He stated that he’d been working for his company for just under 6 months and had not received an increase and he wasn’t making enough money. I happen to be very familiar with his organization. They offer overtime weekly, sometimes even weekend work. They have an attendance bonus that pays quite well too. I asked about how he did with the weekly attendance bonus, didn’t that secure him the equivalent of about $2/an hour. He stated that he rarely earned the bonus. I pointed out that the only requirements were to show up for every shift and to be on-time, and to them that meant no more than 8 minutes late to work! He said yeah but that’s not part of my hourly pay rate. I mentioned that his company paid 30% of his insurance each month, and asked if he was figuring that into his hourly wage. He did not agree with me that his paid premium should be considered along with the hourly wage. I brought up the overtime that was offered each week. Now, I agree with him here. He said that although working overtime did bring home more money it has nothing to do with his hourly wage. We had fun talking about the pros and cons of overtime and I asked him what would he like to be making hourly? He gave me a number and we started backing into it. We removed overtime from the equation and dealt only with the hourly salary.

So with his present job, taking his hourly wage, then figuring in the worth of his company’s part of his insurance, and if he achieved the weekly attendance incentive, his present hourly wage was $4.84 cents higher than the wage he wanted to make. He understood, and agreed with the math, yet wanted the hourly wage he had written on the paper earlier. And I think he’s looking for another job that will pay that rate whither they offer benefits or not. I get it, I do, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with either choice but Ill have to agree to disagree on this one!

Lets go on to another topic real quick. I talk a lot about job descriptions. I think it’s important that we as employers present an applicant the job description and us as employees understand that job description and ask questions as needed. Check out this scenario. A gentleman is hired for a position. He has stated that he can operate a standup forklift and the smaller dock stocker to his hiring agent. Upon arrival for his first day at work he finds out that the required equipment is the cherry picker, for which is has no experience with. Reviewing the job description would have eliminated this embarrassing issue. We as employees need to ask for that job description. We need to know what’s expected of us, right?

Tuesday, I had a gentleman call me from out of state, one of the companies I oversee. A new position was being created and a complete job description as of yet had not been created. He asked what his duties were. A very good question. I explained that we were still working on one but promised we’d have a working draft put together by the end of the day. I felt bad about not having at least something put together for him. We completed one, discussed it, and now he at least has a target in his mind.

I was speaking with a Manager at a production facility about attendance. He wanted to define how many days an employee could miss each month before any corrective actions were taken. I shared that, in my experience, if you set a number of days or instilled a point system, that will become the number of days an associate, maybe even everyone on your shift will take off each month! I don’t know, I think attendance is a culture thing. Just like safety, if you have built a strong team, morale and ethics, pride in the job and the workplace environment, your team isent going to be looking for a number of days they can miss!

As employees and managers, what are your thoughts about attendance? Maybe send us an email to [e-mail]. It’ll be interesting to see what thoughts are out there.

I have another thought I’d like your input with! Let me give you two different situations. First up, in today’s market, an equipment operator is making pretty good pay. When applicants say they have experience on a piece of warehouse equipment or operating a specific extruder or CNC machine, they know they are going to have to show someone right? I had a young man last week in a PIT class. The instructor, through asking a few simple questions, started to wonder if his student had ever actually operated the electric rider pallet jack before! Anyway, he took him out to the equipment before the class started. The instructor demonstrated the controls, then drove the short course he had set up. Then he again asked his student if he could demonstrate the controls and control arm to him and run through the course as he had. The student stood on the equipment, and realized he was not going to be able to fake it. When asked what his plan was, he stated, and honestly thought, that he’d be able to see someone operating it and be able to figure it out. He now understands that’s just not the case. Be Honest, we’ll get there faster by just being honest people. I understand he just wanted a job and to be earning the better wage. But if he gets hurt or hurts somebody else, well, he may never earn what is wants too. Can anyone share their thoughts with me?

And real quick, I have recruiters asking me this all the time. Why would an applicant spend the time to post their resumes on all the job boards, accept the phone interview, drive out to the face to face interview, complete the paper work, do the drug screening, allow their background check to be ran, and commit to the start date and then ghost the job and recruiter. Not even a phone call. Better yet, not answering the recruiters calls? Please send us an answer to those questions if you can. I’d love to pass them along!

I believe that human nature just kicks in. I think its important to remember that we as recruiters don’t know the struggles and opportunities our candidates maybe facing. I always wonder, could I have better prepared them for the position. Had I given them a strong orientation of the task, had I explained the job description to them and had I explained the level of commitment needed to them. And lastly, did I offer them an opportunity to tell me no, had I given them an out? What do y’all think? Ever feel that way?

Again, please share your thoughts with us, email us at [e-mail] and educate us!

We’ll call that a wrap for the week and I look forward to you checking us out again next week.

Until next week, think it through, and help keep someone else safe.