Hawkins with Warehouse and Operations as a Career, it’s great to have you back

with us this week!  Wow, we’re already

ending week 3 of the new year, I have really been enjoying all the Goals and

Plans that’s been sent in over the last few weeks, keep them coming, 2019 is

going to be our best year yet!  I wanted

to mention a couple of podcast that I’m excited about, I feel they’ve helped

kick my year off in the right direction. 

One is the Safety Pro Podcast, Blaine Hoffman does a great job

explaining our needs and keeps the topics interesting and for my financial

thoughts I’m so enjoying Cindy B Browns Podcast Unlocking the secrets of living

rich! WAOC is not affiliated with either show, I mentioned them both last year,

I just enjoy them and I learn something new from them each week!

see, oh here’s a note to self.  I wanted

to talk about Supervision or front-line management for a few minutes.   As we’ve discussed, the first of the year is

a great time to do some planning and get our goals lined out and I hear so many

comments about, and resolutions regarding stepping into management that I went

around to a few facilities to do some follow up with people that may of made

those comments last year.  And how

impressed I was to find several of them had done just that, I spoke with 2

individuals that had been promoted to Shift or department leads and 3 brand new

supervisors that had set their goals, planned them out and, by following those

plans, they had achieved the positions they shot for!  I also spoke with 4 individuals that I

thought would make great managers one day, that I had visited with early last

year.  I wanted to see if they had changed

their minds or if they felt they’d hit a wall or maybe if life and just gotten

in the way, maybe they’d just adjusted their plans a bit!  One gentleman stated he’d just gotten busy,

he was loving his job, really enjoyed his task and simply didn’t want to leave

it.  He was really contributing to the

company, his management team was giving him all the resources he needed to make

a positive impact and in his words “there’s not presently a position in

management for his department and his new plan is to continue being innovative,

reducing expenses and growing within the company”.  I can’t argue with his plan, sounds like a

great success story to me! 

3 others that, well, they all 3 admitted they just hadn’t followed their

plans.  It’s hard, we’re serious when we

write those goals down but it takes so much follow through doesn’t it?  That’s why I feel it’s so important, it’s

just imperative that we look at those sentences every morning.  It’ll help us push through every day.  One of the gentlemen, and I get it, he was

feeling a little defensive about the whole subject, stated to me that he

couldn’t just give himself the promotion, right?  My answer was Absolutely you can give

yourself the promotion, if we don’t who will? 

We laughed a bit, but really, we do give ourselves our promotions.  We let our managers know what our goals are,

we ask them about our progress, we check in with them every month or quarter

about our strengths and weaknesses, our progress.  And we strive to do the best job we can do,

all while educating ourselves to our tasks and our industry.  We are earning those promotions, by

supervising ourselves we will be noticed, and we will advance.  We’re promoting ourselves!

the new leads or supervisors commented about how difficult or challenging their

new positions were.  Everyone agreed that

the first big hurdle was figuring out how to separate those old friendships and

their new responsibilities and how that was much more difficult than they had

planned for.  The second thing everyone

noticed was that decision-making weight on their shoulders.  One of them told her story about

overtime.  She had a friend that needed

the extra hours, but she had another employee that was just flat out more

productive than her friend.  She of

course had to think of the company, her metrics, what she was accountable for,

and she made the right decision, she went with the productivity!  Everyone one of them had a story about

decisions, decisions are just a part of the job!

report that 3 of the 4 that stumbled a little last year are recommitted to

their goals for 2019 and I’m certain they’ll have a strong plan put together, I

bet each of them finds their own success this year! 

planning, your goal setting coming along? 

Get it down on paper, you can’t get started until you have a direction

mapped out ladies and gentlemen! 

gears a little.  Another pretty common

goal is to become an equipment operator. 

I feel the exact same approach can be taken when moving from a G/L or

utility position and into a pallet jack or lift position.  Again, our boss and management team have to

know about our goals.  I had a conversation

with a gentleman on the docks, He’d been unloading for about 7 months so he was

certified on the pallet jack and was using it a little each day.  He told me that he’d never get to transfer to

be a pallet runner, that his boss hadn’t even mentioned it to him before.  I could only agree with him.  He looked a bit surprised and I asked him

what his boss had said to him when he approached him with his wishes.  After a long pause he shared that he hadn’t

talked to his boss about it.  He stated

that he’d done a great job at unloading trucks and his boss was just leaving

him there because no one else could do some of the specialty loads.  Since I was already invested in the

conversation I went ahead and asked him if he had taught anyone else how to do

those special loads.  Of course, his

answer was no but I have to admit I was a little perplexed as he continued to

explain that, why would I teach somebody else how to do my job.  Now I’m not laughing at him, he wants to be a

pallet runner but he’s not promoting himself. 

This is a fine example of how if we wait on our bosses to give us a promotion,

we just need to accept that it’s probably not going to happen.  And if it does it’s going to be for the wrong

reason, there going to offer it to us because they need to get the task done

and not because they understand that we’re wanting more.  Anyway, at break time I went over and spoke

with him.  I asked him how was his boss

going to know that he wanted to be a pallet runner if he hadn’t ever told him?  I asked if his boss knew that he eventually

wanted to operate the reach lift?  He

hesitantly agreed with me that maybe he could have approached the situation a

little differently.  I told him to just

go ahead and promote himself.  His boss

walked up and greeted me, I hadn’t seen him yet that day and sure enough the

gentleman told his boss that he thought he was ready to run some pallets, what’d

he think.  To his surprise his boss told

him to show so and so how to separate a certain load and he could start running

pallets half a day next week!  Ladies and

gentlemen, our management teams aren’t mind readers.  If we’re doing a great job for them there

perfectly content letting us do that great job for them.  Again, lets set us a goal, plan out what we

need to do to achieve it and just go do it.

this sounds simple and yes, I’ve probably simplified it a bit, but it’s really

the way to achieve it.  If we’re being

that employee, we will end up with that job. 

Either the one we want or the one that we’ve settled for, right?

feeling stuck in your present position, it’s a new year, lets do something

about it.  Shoot us an email to [email protected],

we’d be happy to share our two cents, maybe we could share some of our

experiences, or maybe something another listener has experienced could help you

out!

Oh, talking about equipment operators, I’ve

heard about so many little accidents already this year.  Lets slow down, keep our arms and legs in the

operators compartments, control our jacks at all times.  We’re all productive, we all do a great job

but lets be safe doing it.  Well on that

note we’ll wrap up episode 121.  Please

email us with a topic you’d like to hear more on or send us a comment or maybe

share a few of your experiences with us, we’ll pass it on to our group.  Don’t forget about our Facebook and Twitter

feeds too, use @whseandops, Its easy to share your thoughts there too!  Thanks for listening in, go out there and

give yourself that promotion, you’ve earned it and I bet your boss will

agree!  Until next week, slow down, be

safe, make safety your 1st priority!