Marty T Hawkins with you here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I hope everyone’s enjoying the changing of the weather. I’m in Texas, we don’t really see all 4 seasons every year but I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the cooler evenings right now! So, I’ve had a couple of questions about what I mean about self-education and how we should be learning something all the time. Carl wrote I drive a lift, what else is there for me to learn? And Maria asked what else could she learn about Sanitation? We’ve been talking about our Goals and planning the last couple of weeks and I’m thinking maybe some of us are thinking about making some changes or stepping up, thinking about our futures a bit!

So about Carl’s question. A couple of weeks ago we bought a used Toyota Counterbalance forklift. It is a model 7FGU25. That didn’t really tell me anything, so I looked it up on-line and found a great site at

https://www.toyotaforklift.com/blog/how-to-read-toyota-forklift-model-numbers

I learned the 7 was the Series, the F is for the category of the industrial vehicle, F is forklift, T is tow tractor, H is electric jack and B was for baseleg. G tells us what type of drive, G is CNG LPG or Gasoline. The U means it was manufactured in the USA and T would mean Italy. The last 2 digits tells us chassis capacity, 25 represents 5000#.

Now it’d been a while since I’ve sat on a propane unit, so I went and reviewed it’s start up and shut down procedures just to refresh my mind to them. Oh, and the operating levers or controls. I ran through the tilt, side shift and raise and lower controls, found the horn and the strobe switch for the lights and of course checked the unit’s weight and balance plate. Toyota actually had a page for how to drive a sit-down forklift. I’ll add it to today’s show notes if you’d like to look at it. https://www.toyotaforklift.com/blog/how-to-drive-a-sit-down-forklift

Anyway, just between these two websites I picked up about 5 keywords I could throw out to a member of management and spark a conversation with. Something like that is what I refer to as learning, I think of learning as anything that’ll get us noticed, up for a promotion and making more money!

Maria does Sanitation, I’m not sure what all her job entails but I think sanitation is one of those tasks that we never learn everything about! I was putting together a Spill Kit section in a warehouse, just hanging some brooms and mops over in the corner and the company had purchased a XXX Spill Kit. It came with a big plastic container of absorbent, a small broom, a couple of trash bags and a little dust pan looking thing to sweep up the absorbent once it’s been applied and done its job on a spill. So you guessed it, my curiosity was peaked by what those granules were so I pulled up spill kits on-line. I now know more about spill kits than I ever thought I would in 3 lifetimes. We could have actually bought a little cheaper kit if we’d have checked them out before buying one, we’d never be using half the things for such a powerful absorbent. Myself when I think of Sanitation the first thing that comes to mind is chemicals. Maybe becoming a pro at understanding our SDS books and pages is something she could learn too.

My job requires I do quite a bit of training, mainly with warehouse positions, writing policies and procedures and keeping up with the different regulatory rules. I usually make quick presentation power points, something simple just to speak too and convey efficiencies and Leadership techniques. I had seen a Prezi presentation and wanted to do one. After a few hours on YouTube I put one together and now I’ve given two presentations with that program. Again, learning can be anything. Like I said I consider anything that’ll get us noticed, gives us some keywords or sentences we can toss around to management and make us more money or get us promoted to that next step as learning right?

There’s just two quick examples of on the job learning. We’re taught or trained to the specifics of our jobs, I won’t say the bare minimum or just what’s required but honestly just how our management wants us or needs us to get them done. The self-education or learning I always reference is that next step. I’ve been using the phrase subject matter expert a lot lately, I think that’s what I mean. Let’s make sure we’re experts at our task and know everything about it, even above and beyond what’s expected of us!

So let’s talk a little about goals and planning. For the last two weeks I’ve mentioned we’re entering the 4th quarter of the year and I talked about how this is the time of year I tend to start scrambling to be sure I reach all my goals. Well I’ve heard from a few of you that you want a promotion, or you want to change positions and I have to assume you’d like to make a little more money too? The question was posed “OK, I want more, how do I get promoted before the first of the year?” At first glance that’d seem like a huge want but I really feel it’s possible, honestly if we really work at it I’d say it’s doable and we can make it probable even!

Now we have to be sincere about it and we need to accept that it’s going to be a lot of extra work. We’re going to have to get noticed by management so we’re going to have to be an above average employee and we need to know more about our jobs than our lead or supervisor does, we’re going to have to make their jobs easier for them. That means being productive and effective at our tasks. We’ll need to keep our names off everyone’s desk. By that I mean When our boss runs our name up the ladder we don’t want anyone to know our name already, if they do it’s usually going to be in a negative light. Think about it, if we’re always 10 minutes early for our shifts and never call in or miss a scheduled day HR or payroll never puts our name on any list that ends up with any senior management. Remember our direct supervisor is just that, our direct supervisor. He or She may not see our time sheets before their turned into payroll each week. If we’ve made a mis punch or skipped a lunch punch we’re possibly going to end up on another report. When our Supervisor goes to their boss with a recommendation for advancement or a transfer to another position it’s better that he or she knows nothing about us. They’ll take our supervisors suggestion into consideration and 9 times out of 10 accept it, after all they’ve put them in the position to handle these kinds of things for them. But if they know our names, due to some report or something we’ve done on the floor then some explaining may be required and that’s always going to slow decisions down if not flat out get rejected!

So we have 83 days left in 2018, I think that’s more than enough time to realize movement in our careers. If we’re already that employee with great attendance and above average at our jobs we’re well on our way. If we’re not quite that employee just yet, then I believe there’s plenty of time to get our act together and get noticed like we want. Luckily for us front line management, our leads and direct supervisors usually have a short memory regarding our indiscretions. I think we can clean it up for 20 or 30 days and shazam, we’ll be on that “A” list. Remember, their responsible for getting things done and they lean on those that they can depend on. All we have to do as a step one is be that person for like 20 days and we’re in!

Ok, so our attendance is perfect and we’re not going to have any issues on the floor. No arguments, we won’t be involved in any drama in the aisles and we’re going to speak up every chance we have. Learn something about Safety and bring a topic up every 3 or 4 days. If our boss leans towards lifting safely, look up some ergonomic exercises, if they push equipment safety bring up something on pre-trips one week and post-trips the next. I know one Supervisor that always throws in something about a clean work area. Maybe make a suggestion to add a trashcan at the end of an aisle or next to our pallet staging areas, that’ll get his attention! See where I’m heading, become a participant, help him do his job, giving him or her more time to do something else.

Next we have to be one of the best on our team. As important as productivity is don’t worry about being number 1. Focus on more important things like error’s, don’t make errors and don’t cause any damages. Errors and damages cost money and those types of things are on reports. Remember, it’s important to fly under the radar and keep our name off of any kind of report. Our direct supervisor is who we’re after to recognize us.

And drama, we need to keep our cool on the floor, head down and doing our jobs. Don’t get sucked in to others issues. Stay the path!

One of the biggest things we can do is check out with our leads and supervisors each shift. A quick “great shift chief” or I’m wrapped up and heading out, do you need anything else will get us noticed. 99% of the time it won’t even be acknowledged but I assure you its noticed.

Then we need to learn a little about the jobs that touch ours. We need to know the terminology, of course what all they entail but more importantly why it’s being done the way it is. We’re hoping to get moved into one of those positions, it’s our next step and we need to be able to talk shop about it to our lead and supervisor.

Alright, we’ve accomplished all the above so it’s time to approach our boss about that promotion, raise or transfer now. We’re not going to go say, hey I think I deserve a promotion, or hey how about a raise or I want to be transferred to so and so department. We talked about this more professional approach back in episode 101 I think it was. Let’s find a time towards the end of our shift after he or she sees everything’s closing down alright and ask for a moment of their time. I always like the approach of something like....