Our Part

Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I’m Marty, and it has been a bit. Life and careers both are why we work. Over the last 7 months, well, off and on longer than that I guess, referring to my lack of weekly episodes, a lot has changed in both life and careers for a lot within our manufacturing, production, and distribution industries. Today I’d like to talk about just a few of the areas that I’d like to understand how we’re handling them as managers and employees. Hence todays title,  Our Part!

Lets start with a safety thought. As managers, what I’m seeing across the fields I work with is a “Check all the boxes” mentality. And of course we have to check all the boxes, but we, as management, have to understand , believe in, and know why each box is important. We need to educate ourselves. How can we express to and educate our teams and associates to those topics otherwise. And we as associates. We have responsibilities here as well. And I think we need to remember it can be quite lucrative for us too. We’ve learned over the years that it’s not necessarily our hard work that increases our earning potential but taking on more responsibilities and educating ourselves in other tasks and values.

Let me share a few thing’s I asked a some young supervisors over the last couple of months and was surprised at their answers real quick.

So it’s summer here in the states. Its hot. I’m in Texas, 100 degrees is hot, but I deal with a few accounts in Arizonia where 115 and above is hot as well. And Chicago, there 90 degrees seems as hot to those residents as the Arizonia group. Its all about acclimatization. Do you sense a definition coming!  Acclimatization – the Oxford dictionary tells us its the process or result of becoming accustomed to a new climate or to new conditions.  No manner what state were in,  when its hotter than our norm, its hot and can be dangerous.

Several states have issued standards regarding employers responsibilities to their  employees in creating and explaining heat illness guidelines and prevention policies.

We all talk about heat stress around this time of year and it’s a typical topic for our daily start up meetings. Saying stay hydrated states the point of course. But would taking 1 minute longer and explain the signs of dehydration, maybe showing a urine color chart to our team, and explaining how our body will tell us what it needs, and pointing out the importance of keeping an eye on each other while in the aisles, watching for redness and sweating wouldn’t hurt either! Are we as executives correctly teaching our managers how to understand the policies and how to teach their supervisors and associates about heat illnesses?

From a quick review of start up or safety topics I found we needed to put some work in on the topic!

And as an employee, its our bodies, our livelihood. If I go home and don’t hydrate, go to work and drink sodas or energy drinks all day, I am going to get sick. That’s not our employers fault. We should know what to do anyway. Following our employers policies just help with those endeavors.

I won’t go into specifics on a few others, we all get the idea I think.

As employers we need to have a policy for each danger or task and as employees we should think of protecting ourselves and following all safety policies right?

What about carrying a razor blade in our shirt pocket?

And when working around heavy objects should we take precautions to avoid dropping them on our toes, and or wearing proper protective equipment?

When working around a machine with a roller component, its important to keep our fingers away from it.

Lifting, there’s a right way and a wrong way, when team lifting is the policy we should ask a peer for help.

All of those examples have an employer and an employee component and responsibility to them.

Are you doing your part?

One more thought and we’ll move on. I want to bring up First Aid/Cpr/AED training. Probably the cheapest, simplest, and most readily available training, life saving training, available to us in the light industrial arenas. Do you have a person trained on each shift? Is there someone trained to support and help your employee or peer for that 3 to 11 minute period it could take for medical help to arrive? If not please check into it, as an employer and as an employee.

OK, moving on. Lets talk about the new hiring process, that’s something that’s definitely changing! I read this week that two of the largest job board companies have filed for bankruptcy.

As an employer we need to be much more communicative. I’m seeing very weak job descriptions, pay ranges that are way to wide, and expectations that are a bit over the top to be honest. I know its not possible to answer each uploaded email individually but your software can do it. Set it up, don’t just leave us hanging. Are we doing our part?

And as employees we can do a better job communicating as well. I’ve explained how the hiring agent could be receiving over a hundred resumes or answers to every ad. Oh, as a side note here, why do we do the one click option on the job boards? If we do not meet the stated qualifications we are not going to be considered for the position. Highlighting 25 openings and submitting doesn’t mean we’ve applied to 25 openings!

Where was I, oh yeah, our recruiter may receive a hundred resumes along with ours. They may be using a ATS or applicant tracking systems, a computer program that seeks out keywords, achievements, work histories and such. As an employee we need to adjust our resume to the position we’re applying for. And remember our social media, its going to be looked at. Right or wrong it is. If its locked or shows a bunch of partying we could miss an opportunity. And lets be sure to treat the interview, both phone and the face to face like it’s the difference in getting the job and not.

What other opinions do I have to share today! Oh, and this is a passionate one for me. Employers and managers, we need to be respectful of every position and each associate. If you’re having turnover if could just be because of you. Either it’s a bad hire, which could mean the associates experiences doesn’t match the task, or the hours weren’t a good fit for their life needs of lifestyle, or they weren’t trained properly, or maybe they didn’t feel welcomed? And as an employee, lets make sure we’re honest with those listed experiences, and the hours and schedules we’re committing to. Thinking, well, if I can see someone do it I can learn it, or maybe the boss will let me leave an hour early to go to my other job just isent going to work. So again here I’ll ask, did we Do Our Part?

Ok, enough opinions for one day. Thanks for checking out episode 321 and I hope you’ll join us again next week. I’ve been asked about career opportunities and could I put together another series on the positions and career opportunities within the supply chain. I think thatd be fun and I’ll get to work on that. If you have any topic suggestions or comments shoot us an email to [e-mail] and I’ll get back to you!

Be safe out there, we have people counting on us!