Hey all, Marty T Hawkins here, and welcome back to another episode of Warehouse and Operations as a Career! We’ve spent the mid-week in Bolingbrook Illinois, and I am dreading heading back to the Texas July heat this evening!

Today we’re taking a closer look at three important but often underrated roles within the warehouse. These are the kinds of jobs that don’t always get the spotlight, but if they weren’t done, and done well, the whole operation could grind to a halt.

We’ll be talking about the Pallet Sorter, the Warehouse side of Inventory Control or the inventory control specialist, and the Financial Inventory Control Analyst.

Three different jobs. Three different skill sets. But each plays a major role in moving product, controlling costs, and ultimately serving the customer. So, let’s talk about them.

 We’ll kick things off with a position that’s quite literally on the ground floor of warehouse operations, the Pallet Sorter.

If you’ve ever walked a receiving dock or a shipping line, you’ve seen stacks of pallets everywhere. They’re as essential as forklifts or racking systems. But not every pallet is usable, and that’s where the pallet sorter comes in.

So, what does a pallet sorter do?

They inspect incoming pallets for quality and safety. Cracked boards, popped nails, and missing stringers make a pallet unsafe and literally unusable.

They sort pallets by size and type. A 48x40 GMA pallet isn’t the same as a Euro pallet or a block pallet. You can have beverage pallets and small standard wood like a 36x42 pallets.

Some facilities work with exchange programs like CHEP or PECO, and those pallets have to be tracked, scanned, and sorted separately.

They also play a part in cleanliness and compliance. A broken or contaminated pallet can lead to damaged goods or even failed audits.

This position is important because every piece of product we receive, store, or ship moves on a pallet. Damaged pallets can cause injuries, tip-overs, or lead to write-offs from damaged and loss product.

It’s also a numbers game. Imagine a warehouse shipping 500 loads a week. If 20% of those go out on unsorted or poor-quality pallets, that’s a major liability and a cost hit, both to us and our carriers.

This role requires someone who doesn’t mind repetitive work and stays alert throughout the day.

Physical stamina is a must, you’re moving pallets all day, lifting, bending, stacking.

And most importantly, someone who takes pride in doing things safely and correctly.

I know a gentleman that's held the pallet sorter role for more than 15 years. He loves what he does. He’s made it a career.

And many successful team leads, yard jockeys, and forklift operators got their start on the pallet dock. A good sorter becomes familiar with all the ins and outs of product flow, quality control, and dock operations. Working closely with the unloaders, receivers, and even merchandisers. This role teaches discipline, attention to detail, and how to work within a team, and developing foundational skills that can serve you throughout your career.

Now let’s move from the dock to the inventory aisles.

Inventory Control, often called IC, is the department that ensures what’s in the system matches what’s on the shelves.

Theres two departments of inventory control. The warehouse and the financial departments.

Have you ever had a customer order get delayed because something was shown in stock but wasn’t actually there? That’s where the warehouse side of IC comes in. These folks keep the system accurate and the customers happy.

Cycle counting is a big part of this team's job. Instead of doing a full inventory once a year, they count small sections of inventory on a rotating schedule, daily, weekly, or monthly. Maybe an aisle at a time.

It's their job to reconcile all the programs. If the system says there are 12 units in a location, but only 8 are physically there, they investigate the discrepancy.

They must determine what happened. Did receiving short the delivery? Did replenishment put the item in the wrong slot? Did a picker grab from the wrong location?

And there's an audit component too, IC teams often look at past movements, transfers, and adjustments to find and fix problems.

They also work very closely with departments like:

Receiving, to make sure counts and putaway are accurate.

Shipping, to confirm orders are picked properly.

And the replenishment folks, to verify stock is moving from reserve to primary slots or pick locations correctly.

Why is this job so important you may ask?

Well, let’s talk about inventory accuracy. In a world where next-day shipping and real-time visibility are expected, having an error rate of just 1% could translate into thousands of dollars in missed sales, extra labor, or customer dissatisfaction.

Not to mention the costs of emergency replenishment or loss of trust from repeat customers.

So when sourcing for a warehouse inventory control candidate the hiring agent is seeking

a strong attention to detail, you’re often comparing numbers, paperwork, and screens.

And good communication skills are a must, as you’ll be talking to every team in the building to track things down.

You’re going to need to be comfortable with technology, most ICs use a warehouse management system (WMS) and RF scanning equipment all day.

And Critical thinking is important, when something doesn’t add up, you’ve got to figure out why.

It's important, for our goals and planning, to understand our next step or where can this position take us. This role is often a launching pad into, Inventory lead or supervisor positions. WMS administration or system analyst roles. Even Quality assurance or continuous improvement departments.

And if you’ve got that knack for solving problems and spotting patterns, this might just be the job for you.

Lastly, let’s talk about the office side of inventory, the Financial Inventory Control Analyst.

While warehouse IC is counting products and reconciling physical movement, financial IC is focused on the dollar value of that inventory and ensuring that the company’s financial reports are accurate and compliant.

This group reconciles booked inventory value, what the accounting system says is in stock with actual inventory numbers.

They track and explain shrinkage, spoilage, damage, and obsolescence.

They analyze and report on inventory turns, or how often a company sells and replaces stock.

They ensure inventory is valued correctly, especially for tax purposes, this involves cost methods like FIFO (First In, First Out), LIFO (Last In, First Out), or Average Cost.

They support audits, internal, external, or regulatory by providing documentation and explanations.

We’ll usually find these departments in the corporate office or the back office of large distribution centers. It’s less hands-on, but every decision made affects those of us on the floor.

So, what makes a good Financial Inventory Control Analyst?

We’ll need Strong Excel and data analysis skills.

And Knowledge of financial systems and enterprise software like SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite.

We’ll have to have a strong understanding of basic accounting and inventory valuation.

And gonna have to have a Problem-solving mindset, sometimes the issues are buried in transaction histories or system logic.

And here’s communication again, we must be able to explain complex numbers to both the finance and operations teams.

These analysts can become senior finance managers, cost accountants, or supply chain analysts.

It’s a white-collar role that plays a huge part in company strategy and reporting.

Some even transition into operations leadership with a financial lens — a rare and valuable combination!

What else have I noted today, let me see, oh here is a simple statement of each position I jotted down.

The Pallet Sorter keeps our material handling system flowing and safe. It’s an entry-level but essential role with growth potential. A great sorter doesn’t just see broken boards or stacks of wood. They understand that their job is the first quality checkpoint in the flow of product. If they catch a broken pallet, they’ve prevented damage, delays, and potentially even injury. They’re not just sorting wood, they’re protecting the product and the people.

The Inventory Control Specialist is the accuracy backbone of warehouse operations, constantly chasing discrepancies and improving process flow.  This is someone who might start their day with a list of 20 bin locations to count, but ends up having caught an issue that would’ve cost the company thousands. Maybe they found a mislabeled pallet that would’ve gone to the wrong customer.   Seeing something wrong and digging until it’s right.

And think of the Financial Inventory Control Analyst as the bridge between the physical product and the company’s financial health, making sure that what’s on paper matches reality.  But they don’t just stare at spreadsheets. They’re often the first to spot troubling trends in product shrink, loss due to expiration, or slow-moving items that are tying up capital. They might raise the flag that leads to a product rotation policy, or a change in vendor ordering patterns.  One foot in the numbers, one foot in operations.

Each of these positions represents a different step in the inventory chain, from what we stage on, to what we count, to what we report. Together, they create the structure that allows our warehouses and distribution centers to function.

So, if you’re just starting out, or thinking about what your next role could be, keep these three paths in mind. Whether you like hands-on labor, investigative work, or financial analysis, there’s a place for you in the light industrial industry.

And like I always say, show up every day, do the work, and ask for those opportunities and promotions.

Thanks for joining me today here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career. If I can answer any questions, please send us an email to [email protected] and we’ll get them answered for you. Be safe out there and I hope to see you next week!

Thanks for stopping in at Warehouse and Operations as a Career again, I’m your host Marty and we have a lot of ground to cover today! I hope everyone is having a great week.  Can you believe we’re almost through the 1st month of the 3rd quarter of 2025 already. What week are we in, let's see, 29, week 29 is coming to a close. 

Today I thought we’d talk about two different positions. Last week we spoke to several different tasks within the industry, so as discussed, I thought we’d dig in a little deeper. 

I had a couple of questions about the front-line management positions, some kind of entry to management jobs. So, first up let's talk about becoming a Front-Line Supervisor and we’ll work ourselves over to the Global Logistics world. 

Now, these two roles couldn’t be more different in some ways—one’s rooted right in the daily warehouse hustle, and the other is all about managing the flow of freight across oceans and international borders. But both roles are vital to keeping the supply chain moving, and both can launch incredible careers. 

Let’s get started with the role many of us are closest to: 

The front-line supervisor - Most front-line supervisors don’t start as supervisors. They start as order selectors, packers, forklift drivers, or material handlers. They know the floor. They know the work. They’ve came up through the tasks, and they’ve earned the respect of their team by doing the job well—and consistently. 

So how do you get there? Remember me always talking about being THAT employee? On-time for every shift, happy, that strong positive outlook!  

We have to master every role we’re in. Now that doesn't mean we are the most productive or best. It means we understand the mechanics of it and how to accomplish it. – Be the associate others look to. Show up early, hit your numbers, and be the one your supervisor can count on. 

Communicate – Learn to speak with confidence. Be respectful to coworkers and leaders, and don’t shy away from constructive feedback. An important part of communicating is listening. Listening may be the most important aspect of communication!  

Volunteer for Responsibility – Want to be seen as leadership material? Step up for tasks like training new hires or leading a safety meeting. As small as it seems, speaking during the startup and safety meetings will be noticed by both management and your peers. People want someone to follow. 

Understand the Bigger Picture – Learn your KPIs or key performance indicators, understand the metrics, know why the shift must hit its numbers, and how your role contributes to the success of the warehouse. Be open to learning. You know how things get done but you do not know everything behind the curtain.  

If you're already dependable and consistent, leadership will notice. But don’t be afraid to express interest in moving up. Many front-line leads get their first shot just by saying, “I’d like to learn more about supervising.” Think about it. If we’re doing a great job, our boss can count on us, knows we’re going to get the job done for them, why would they come see us about leaving them! We have to share our plans and goals with them.  

If you like looking at advantages and disadvantages or pros and cons, well let's talk about that for a minute.  

First up, Career Progression or that next step This is the gateway role into leadership. From here, you can grow into warehouse manager, operations manager, or even into roles outside the warehouse in HR, safety, or logistics. 

Skill Development – You’ll develop soft skills like conflict resolution, de-escalation, scheduling, communication, and coaching—skills that translate to every industry. 

Respect & Responsibility – You become the go-to person. The one who answers questions and helps keep the team on track. That respect can be very rewarding. 

And of course, Better Pay & Hours – While it varies, most front-line supervisors receive a pay bump and are often on a more consistent schedule than hourly warehouse workers. Many times, quarterly, annual or incentive bonuses are on the table. 

 And as with anything, there may be a couple of cons. I guess it depends on how you're looking at it.  

You’re in the Middle – You answer to your managers and also support your team. Sometimes, that means delivering tough messages either way. 

Longer Hours & More Stress – Supervisors often stay late to finish reports, walk the floor, or resolve issues. You’re no longer “off” when the shift ends. A quick tip. Never divide out your hours to your salary. Its apple and oranges. And we’re on a path here. 

Accountability – If your team doesn’t hit productivity or quality targets, you’re the one who must answer for it. That pressure can be intense. 

Difficult Conversations – Coaching, correcting, and even disciplining associates can be uncomfortable. But it’s part of leadership.  This is a tough one. Maybe we used to do the same things we’re speaking to them about, maybe we used to do it with them! 

Still, for many people, the trade-offs are worth it. If you want to grow in this industry, becoming a front-line supervisor is often the first big step—and it sets the foundation for everything that comes after. 

I want to throw in the importance of listening again. Learning to listen, I mean really looking at somebody and hearing them is hard to learn. Don’t be listening and thinking of your response at the same time. I feel the best advice I have for everyone is to learn to listen.  

How It Can Set You on Your Career Path 

Once you're a front-line supervisor, doors start to open: 

Operations Manager 

Warehouse Manager 

Trainer or Safety Coordinator 

Recruiter or HR Support 

Project Lead roles for implementations or transitions 

You learn how to lead people, manage time and performance, and solve problems in real-time. These are the skills companies want in their leadership teams. With the right attitude and a few years of experience, the next step may be much closer than you think. 

Now let’s shift gears to a very different kind of leadership… 

Becoming a Global Logistics Manager 

While the front-line supervisor is walking the floor in boots, the global logistics manager is tracking containers from China to California, routing shipments, navigating customs paperwork, and making sure goods arrive on time and intact. 

This role operates at the 30,000-foot view. It’s less about boxes on a pallet and more about the movement of freight on ships, planes, trucks and containers around the world. 

 What Does a Global Logistics Manager Do? Lets look at a few of the 1000 tasks! 

Freight Movement – Coordinate the transportation of goods internationally. 

Vendor Management – Work with freight forwarders, customs brokers, and ocean carriers. 

Compliance – Ensure goods meet import/export regulations in every country. 

Scheduling – Plan shipments months in advance and react quickly to delays. 

Cost Control – Negotiate rates and optimize shipping methods to control budgets. 

Tracking and Reporting – Use software and dashboards to track shipments and generate performance reports. 

Unlike the front-line supervisor role, a global logistics manager typically requires a formal education: 

Bachelor’s Degree – Often in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, or International Business. 

Certifications – Like the Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) or International Trade Certification. 

Software Skills – Knowledge of systems like SAP, Oracle, or transportation management systems (TMS) is critical. 

Experience – Most start as logistics coordinators, import/export clerks, or shipping analysts and work up to the manager level. 

The great thing is our company may have programs and help us obtain our education. We’ve been a great employee, they’ve invested in us and will want to keep us.  

Remember, we’ve been talking to them about our goals and plans. This isent the first time they’ve heard this from us.  

 A few pros to the position 

A High Earning Potential   

Strategic Influence – You’re a key part of business success. If you fail, products don’t move. That responsibility comes with status and recognition. 

Variety of Work – No two days are the same. One day might be port delays, the next day negotiating new contracts with carriers. 

Global Perspective – You gain an understanding of how economies and global trade work, which can position you for international roles or executive leadership. 

 And some cons 

High Pressure – Delays, tariffs, storms at sea—many things are outside your control, but you're still expected to solve the problem. 

Work-Life Balance – Time zones don’t sleep. Freight might land in the middle of your night. Expect emails and calls off-hours. 

Complex Regulations – Import/export laws can change quickly. Staying compliant requires constant learning. 

Limited Entry Points Without Education – Unlike operations where experience might carry you further, this path usually demands formal qualifications and technical know-how. 

And as for a career path 

This role can open up high-level supply chain and executive opportunities: 

Director of Global Supply Chain 

VP of Logistics 

Procurement & Sourcing Manager 

International Trade Compliance Officer 

Operations Director – International 

And while it starts global, it can bring you closer to the boardroom. Executives increasingly want leaders who understand the cost, risk, and complexity of global logistics. With the right combination of experience and strategic thinking, this path can take you anywhere—from the port to the penthouse! 

 So, what’s the takeaway today? 

If you’re working the warehouse floor and thinking, “What’s next?”—look at the front-line supervisor role. It’s often the next natural step and a real launching pad for leadership. 

If you’re someone with a passion for strategy, numbers, and international business—or maybe you’re working in shipping or receiving and want to level up—exploring a path toward global logistics management could be right for you. 

Both paths matter. Both paths offer rewards and challenges. And both prove that in this industry, there’s room for all kinds of growth. Whether you're leading a shift or coordinating global freight, your part of the backbone that keeps the freight moving. 

And that’s what Warehouse and Operations as a Career is all about—helping you discover what’s possible and giving you the tools to get there. 

Until next time, stay focused, keep learning, and never stop growing. Stay safe this week and every shift, and I hope to see you back here with us next week. 

Hey again, Marty here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. We work, that's how the world works. I’ve had the fortune of working in the light industrial industry or the warehouse and transportation fields for my entire career, over 45 years. I’ve errored, messed up, been irresponsible, negative at times and I consider myself more than lucky for making it through it all, and having the many mentors with their guidance that's been shared to me.

If I had to pick one individual that made the largest impact on my career, I’m not sure I could. But if I was asked who made the largest financial impact and setting goals impact on me it’d be my first corporate president.

I had started with the company as an outbound loader on nights. I was fortunate to be moved to the hi-rise order selection department my first week. I was 6’ 3in tall and loading the many bobtail trucks of the time was, well, we’ll say quite difficult. Had I not been moved to selection I don’t believe I’d of made it the 24 years I did. I had moved into the warehouse side of inventory control about 2 years later on the day shift, then to the freezer side lead, next as the freezer supervisor.

The operations part of the company, day warehouse departments, as a side note, we had the same fish fry party for the night crews that same night. Anyway, so at the fish fry, my company president at the time called me over to his table, where he was sitting alone. Now, our relationship was a rough one. He had fired me 3 times up to this time. Luckly, he always sent someone to get me before I left the building. I learned something from him every time I spoke with him! So, I went over and sat down, not sure what direction this was going to go! He said something to the effect of Marty, you are doing an alright job, you’ve got to grow up quicker though. Tomorrow you’ll be the director of warehouse and I’m going to add $100/wk to your pay. I of course said something like sure and I can do the job and thanked him. He then asked me what I wanted to be making in 5 years and what did I want to be doing. I told him I wanted the V.P. of Operations and earning more than he was making. I can remember he literally spit out a little of the tea he was drinking. He then said I needed to get back to working. We talked about my goals several times after that, over the next 5 years and a couple of other promotions.

So, where I’m heading today is, how much money are you wanting to earn and what do you want to be doing? If you don’t answer those two questions you are delaying setting or meeting your goals. And that's on you.

If you’re a long-time listener you’ve heard me talk about the many different positions and career paths in our industry. From general labor, the many different positions in the production industries, line workers, assembly, research and development, and then in the manufacturing industries, analysis, Engerineering, electrical, even chemist educations, and the distribution world, where many of the standard warehouse positions intertwine themselves in all three of the industries. Oh, and then you have all the supply chain jobs, even global shipping careers, and the transportation worlds of trailers, chassis, rail or railroad, and shipping on the seas. Your earning potential is unlimited in our industries. Want to go earn many millions a year. Go do it!

So how do you get started? I received no less that 10 messages or phone calls last month from individuals asking about forklift training. I figured we’d start with that question today.

I want to share this one in particular. A young lady called and asked if we had a forklift training class where she could get her forklift license. I explained how we have worked with organizations and companies, instructing safety on equipment. I asked if she had forklift experience. She said no, she was looking at job ads and the forklift pays more. We discussed how having that card or license wasn't going to help her get the forklift position, and how companies needed to hire, from the street anyway, experienced operators. I shared that the quickest way to get trained on a forklift was by doing a little research, locating a company that uses the type of equipment you’d like to operate and that you can commit to being on time, for every shift too. Getting your foot in the door, maybe with sanitation, or loading, maybe unloading or general labor. After being THAT employee, you know, on-time, positive, and always wanting to learn more for maybe 3 or 4 months, then approach your supervisor or manager and let them know you want to be a forklift operator, and ask them what's the next step. Theres just not a short cut. Your management team will start working with you. Maybe in like 6 more months you can be that operator. Such a promotion and increase in under a year is awesome.

I enjoyed speaking with her and was impressed that she knew what she wanted to do and why she wanted to do it. She’s doing her target research now and we’ll be staying in touch.

All you need to know is what would you like your next step to be, do your research, and get started with it. Our industry is an industry where experience is key. You’ve heard me speak about knowing the position before ours and the position after ours. That can be your first step.

OK, let's briefly look at a few of the positions. We’ll start with a few of my favorites; those get a foot in the door job that applies to most all light industrial industries.

You’ll see a lot of advertisements for general labor. This is sometimes referred to as utility work. It can be anything from an e-commerce associate picking and packing apparel, or small electronic parts, to positioning smallware's on conveyors. Almost any unskilled position in the warehouse. One of the great things about these jobs is that they are readily available for us career minded individuals because a lot of people work them for a while and leave. We’re going to use the position as a steppingstone though, right?

Two other easy starts are loading and unloading. Not quite as unskilled, in my eyes anyways, but great entry level positions. As an unloader we could be working from a purchase order or breakdown sheet. These will tell us what ti and hi or the stacking configrations we’ll use to place the cases on the pallet for storage. In many instances we’ll be applying a barcoded label to the front lower right corner of the pallet. This will be used by the pallet runner or putaway forklift operator and the receiver to identify what aisle to drop the pallet for the forklift operator and telling them what slot or reserve location to place it after the receiver has scanned the product into the inventory.

Once we secure that Get In The Door position the sky’s the limit for us. Where we can go from here you may ask:

Let’s see, where to start, the Sanitation department, another good entry position that can take us in several career directions. I've heard of one gentleman that started his career many years ago cleaning aisles and today is a chemist for a manufacturing plant.

Like I mentioned a bit ago, the pallet runner, a putaway forklift operator, the product receiver, and a few other positions in the industry, the replenishment forklift operator, a dock hauler position, stacker, pallet sorter, picker, packer, being an order selector, truck driver, truck spotter, lets see what else, Inventory Control, Assembler, Machine Operator, material handler, building maintenance, Welder, Grinder, Line Operator, Batch Mixer / Compounder, Quality Inspector and quality control, Production Helper, Die Cast Operator.

And then those positions can take us into the Administrative, Technical, or Supervisory positions, like: Production Supervisor, Manufacturing Engineer, Industrial Engineer, Plant Manager, Continuous Improvement Manager, Lean Coordinator / Six Sigma Black Belt, Production Scheduler / Planner, Maintenance Manager, Process Engineer, Quality Assurance Technician Quality Control Analyst, Compliance Specialist, Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Coordinator, Safety Manager, Regulatory Affairs Specialist.

And we havent even gotten to the many Supply Chain and Global Shipping careers or all the technical and support roles or administrative positions. Oh, and I almost forgot about the many levels of management and executive jobs yet.

Todays point being, in our field, the earning potential is ours to set. I’ve shared many times a friends decision to be a forklift operator, turning down every other position in the warehouse and management offerings. He loves being a forklift operator, and he's been doing it for over 40 years now. He had a plan and stuck with it.

If you’re happy earning an hourly wage with the increases it’ll bring, that's great, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And if you’d like more responsibilities, learning every day, reaching for more every year, that can happen in our industry. I think the most important thing to keep in mind though is, you must love what you're doing. If you hit a wall in a task that you don't enjoy, change it. We just named a few other things you can do!

Remember that you control your destiny in this industry.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll do a deeper dive into many of the positions we talked about today. What task they entail, how to get to them, and where each can take you from there. Maybe we can even do a few interviews with associates performing them and making a career in them.

No matter what job we hold or task we’re doing, our first priority is, and always will be, safety. Let's all go home after each shift just like we arrived, our families will appreciate that!

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 [email protected] and I’ll get back to you!

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

We all work to pay our bills and provide a better living for our families.  Some of us, I hope most of us, are fortunate enough to enjoy our jobs so much that it isn’t work at all.  I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and today I’d like to start off with a question from a gentleman here locally. 

You know, we’re often taught and trained how to do our jobs, we’re given all the standard operating procedures, step by step, how to do the task along with all the preferred work methods but maybe we, as managers, or our managers, forget to explain more to the individual aspect of the position.  The question was posed “I’m working a lot harder than a guy named Mike yet he always gets more cases than I do.  Can you tell me how to scam like he does.  We get our pulls from our wrist computer, I can’t figure out how he always gets better pulls.”  Well, it sounds like your facility is using a selection system through their WMS.  If there’s more than just you 2 selecting there’s not much of a chance that he’s scamming the system.  Batches or pulls are downloaded from a que, next selector up gets the batch downloaded to their wrist mount. 

When productivity or activity-based pay, even incentive pay programs arrived on the scene they actually disrupted the old “this is only what I need to do mentality”.  Now we could work harder than someone next to us and we may earn more pay. But if we work smarter than the person next to us, we will earn more pay. In the world of productivity pay it is not about working hard.  It’s all about the clock. 

Everyone knows about direct time and indirect time right?  Direct time is time handling cases or moving freight. Indirect time is time spent in the restroom, washing our hands, getting our equipment signed out, anything other than handling cases while we are on the clock.  Your company may operate on KPI’s or key performance indicators.  In your position those measurements could be cases per hour selected or pallets per hour that’s putaway or replenished.  A cycle counter may have to count x number of cases an hour and make x number of adjustments.   Anything can be measured.  Lets go back to the selector.  We can know, on average, how many pallets we will load with product and how many drops we will make at the staging area in a given shift.  We can determine that because  we know how many cases are on an average batch and how much cube we’re selecting.  If our WMS is set to say 55 cube, math will tell us the number of pallets we’ll load and how many trips we’ll make to the staging area or doors to be loaded out. 

Those standards are determined by measuring everything we will be doing for any given task.  Lets stick with selection for a moment.  Your larger distribution centers may have an engineering company to come in and assign engineered standards to every part of our task.  Everything will be measured.  How many inches it is from dock door number one to the last slot of our pick paths.  And between each aisle, each bay and each slot even.  That’ll be done for each dock door as well.  With the entire warehouse now measured they would time how long it takes to drive our pallet jack to each slot and each area within those paths.  How long it takes our forklifts to raise to the second level, the third level, the fourth level and so on.  Now they can work the math against the average batches or pulls and determine what the anticipated standard should be.  Yes, it’s complicated, a lot of math and a wealth of information is gathered.  But for us as employees, well, we can use all that to our advantage in an activity based system.  All we have to do is work the system like it was designed.

OK, I talked about not working harder but working smarter. Remember, those engineers designed the system and put reasonable numbers in place for an 8 hour shift.  They came up with, lets say, 170 cases an hour would equal 100%.  The average experienced selector will pull 170 cases an hour.  They have added all our human traits in, saying hi to each other, bathroom breaks, maybe slowly separating our pallets for the next batch, going to breaks early and returning a little late.  They knew that we were going to stop in the aisles and talk for a minute about our weekend plans.  All that is figured on us being the average employee. All we have to do is not be that average employee.  And that’s exactly how we work less by thinking more.  Maybe I should say focusing more. 

I had this friend once, I don’t guess I ever knew his real name, we called him dupee.  Dupee always, and I mean every signal night ended up with more cases pulled than I did. I don’t mean occasionally, I mean for 3 years I never beat him case wise.  I’d pass him up in an aisle and the next thing I’d know was I was passing him again in another aisle.  I’d never see him catch up to me, yet, their’d I be passing him again?  We always joked about it, actually, I always accused him of scamming or cheating, not so much joking.  Years later the light bulb went off in my head.  Dupee wasn't wasting time driving down aisles he didn't have a pick in.  He’d skip sometimes like 5 aisles and back track, running his path the most efficient route possible, hense why I’d pass him like 3 times in the same hour.  Dupee came in, signed out for his equipment, grabbed his pallets and stayed focused on his task at hand.  He never stopped and joked with us or complained about anybody, shoot, I don’t even know what he did on the weekends because he never brought it up!  He’d be on his equipment when break time arrived and be back on it the minute break was over.  Now, Dupee loved lunch time.  He’d talk with us and joke around then but he never hung around after the bell.  Dupee was just working the system.  Every minute the machine was counting him as working or direct time, he had a case in his hands.  He only stopped handling cases during scheduled indirect time.  He was working 20% less than me and getting 20% more credit for it!  Like I said, I figured it out.  Took me three years, but I’m a slow learner.  Over the next 3 years we were the top performers in the aisles.  Once I learned how to stay focused I actually had more fun pulling.  It became a game to maneuver the aisles and beat the system.

So to answer the question, your fellow employee Mike probably isn’t scamming the system.  That’d be hard to do in this day and age.  He’s just working it, as it was designed.  Watch him this week, closely, and I bet next week you’ll be out pulling him!

We just walked through how an order selector can work the system but the exact same holds true for any direct positions.  Even non-productivity positions can perform better by staying focused and, well, working like we’re being paid for!  A couple of weeks ago I had a young gentleman tell me it was his right to talk to people.  He’d been coached about spending too much time conversing with others on the front docks.  His supervisor had told him he wasn’t in high school any more, we weren’t here to socialize, we’re here to work and for him to get busy.  Now I think the supervisor could have handled it a little better, but you’d have to agree he was on point.  We’re being paid to do a job and we should just get it done.  I’ve been watching the employee for a couple of months now, he’ll make a top producer one day.  He’s already one of the better than average unloaders.  He’s working the numbers.  Once he figures out to stay focused he’s going to be one of the top earners! 

I do a lot of talking about having a plan and a goal here at WAOC.  Things like what we talked about today is a plan and a goal.  The gentleman that presented the question has a plan, he is going to out pull mike.  His goal is to be a top selector.  Once we’ve identified our goal it’s easy to develop our plan and easy to achieve it! 

So on that note we’ll wrap up another episode!  If your enjoying the show please subscribe and maybe tell a good friend about it!  And remember we can be found on Facebook and Twitter using @whseandops and one of my favorite groups is the warehouse equipment operator's community on Facebook as well. 

Stay strong and stay Safe in our personal lives and our work environments!  

Hello everyone, Marty T Hawkins here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  I want to sincerely thank you for checking in with us each week and I hope we mention something that will affect your career in some kind of positive way here today!  

I want to share something real quick.  I went to the grocery store today, a national chain, it’s close, convenient and frankly just easy for me to get in and out.  I’m not a big shopper.  I know what I want, I get it and get gone. Today I was the only person in line at lane 5.  The cashier was a gentleman that I’d learn in a bit had just turned 20 years old.  Now I often will hand out or leave behind a WAOC card or maybe even one of my distribution training center business cards if I’m somewhere local, and today, after paying I handed him a WAOC card and told him if he was ever interested in securing a job in the warehousing or transportation fields to send me an email, that I could probably help him out.   

No one else was in line so he took a minute to ask a few questions, and the conversation went something like this: 

Could I make more money in a warehouse? 

I told him probably and gave him the starting wage for a few entry level G/L positions I am presently working on with Belmar Integrated Logistics in Dallas.  

He stated that was a couple of dollars more an hour than he was earning now. I could tell that he was intrigued and wanted more information. 

I told him that all those positions would be full time and at least 40 hours a week with a couple of them providing maybe 50 to 55 hours a week.  Now I was thinking that would be the icing on the cake right?  A full-time position with some over time guaranteed! 

Well, he immediately, and I mean without hesitation let me know that he couldn’t work more than 25 to 30 hours a week.  That he only worked days and preferred something after 10 am.  Maybe 5 to 6 hours a day. 

I ask why those kinds of hours, was he going to school or maybe taking care of a family member or something.  He stated no, he didn’t need to make more than that and he needed his time off or what he called my chill time! 

Being me, I asked what was his plans for retirement?  Didn’t he want things?  He said he needed to be a kid first.  I’m only 20 years old.   

I thanked him and went on to my car! Having a WAOC card still in my hand I noticed a young man gathering up empty grocery carts in the parking lot, so I handed him the card and told him if he was ever interested in a warehouse position to give me a shout.  He said thanks but no thanks man, my brother works in a warehouse and that is some hard work, I don’t have to work that hard here.   

I took my card back and went to the car. I’m still shaking my head a little, but you know what, that may work for them.  They may have a better plan figured out.  Whither they do or don’t I honestly do wish them the best of luck and an amazing life.   

So lets talk some op’s.  To all the electric pallet jack operators out there, especially the rider jack operators.  Did you check your drive wheel and your load wheels today?  I mean really give them a good look over!  Both are on your pre-shift equipment report right? 

I was cruising YouTube today for a clip of stretch wrap being caught up in our wheels and ran across a short video that was caught by a security camera of a drive wheel literally falling apart while an operator was in forward motion.  Needless to say, the machine came to an immediate stop, and he was thrown about 6 feet forward.  Luckly he wasn’t hurt.  It showed him and a fellow worker picking up chunks of the wheel from under the jack.   

It made me think, If I am going to be honest here I have to admit that I do not always back way up and check that my drive wheel doesn’t have cracks running across or around it everyday.  I know, I should but, well, it is not something that happens all the time.   

I began to wonder how often it does happen, so I reached out to two different pallet jack mechanics I know for some advice.  They said that a catastrophic wheel failure like that hardly ever happens.  They both felt like a regular preventive maintenance or PM check may have caught it and had the gentleman backed up, bent over and checked the wheel that he would have seen the cracks.  They both felt like the incident was preventable.  

I reached out to the video channel, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.  I wanted to ask him if he ever checked the drive wheel before and if he would be checking it more going forward!  Do you check your drive wheels, I mean other than checking for chunks missing by rolling it forward and backward.  Honestly, before today, that’s about all I did.  but after seeing that film today, I’m going to be checking that wheel out a lot more often! Send us an email to [email protected] and share your thoughts with the group, what are you going to do, will you be adding that point to your daily pre-trip? 

Anyway, so the reason I was looking for a video about shrink wrap getting wrapped around our load wheels was that I had a student going over to a place, a facility, that I knew always had, let’s say, opportunities with excess wrap being everywhere on the floor.  The culture there is if it’s in the way run over it!  I was explaining the additional expense wrap spun up in our wheels and mounts cost and the dangers it presents to us as operators if we don’t take proper care of our equipment and I wanted to show him some footage of such.  I found some really good ones, a few where the mechanics were showing us how much damage is caused to the bearings and even our hydraulic systems and lifting mechanisms. I think he was quite stunned.  

Now our load wheels are easy to check out, I do check them out every day before climbing onto my jack! Do you?   

So, I know the maintenance guys at this facility, they’ve been sharing with me for months how many load wheels are replaced, and I got to thinking.  Ok, we all know it’s a culture problem.  No one brings it up, so the shift just continues to run over the shrink wrap.  So, what if a new boot, a new hire eased into it.  Brought it up to the supervisor ever so often.  Maybe with a little coaching, he could get noticed in a good way.  Who know he could bring about some change.  Maybe even get recognized as helping to reduce expenses and improving productivity.  Imagine how much productivity is being lost with machines not running at full speed or having to be in the shop.   

I’ll let everyone know how our plan goes.  Either way a gentleman has found a great job and he’s trained and ready to take on the responsibilities of an electric pallet jack operator. 

Well, I think that’s enough for this week.  Let us know how you handle those drive and load wheels at your facility.  I’d appreciate it if you would tell a friend about our little podcast, the more the merrier!  And please check out the website at warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and remember by using that little @whseandops that you can find us on both Facebook and twitter!  I forget what our Instagram handle is but you can find it.  Until next week, be safe, utilize your pre-trips, take that extra 60 seconds, it could mean that you’ll make it back home after your shift.

Marty T Hawkins back with you and another episode of Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  Is everyone having a fabulous week so far? Today let’s talk about a few of the things that we as employees sometimes must deal with, many times things we possibly bring on ourselves.  Throughout my travels each week I hear about lost jobs, NCNS, layoffs, and a lot of reasons why individuals have loss those jobs.  This isn’t probably something we like talking about, but I guess it is a part of the job cycle or career cycle so let’s look at it for a bit. 

Ok, being a manager for over 30 years I’ve had the fortune of meeting and hiring many an associate, mainly in the realm of operations only to see them move on to something else voluntarily and non-voluntarily.  Some found better positions or greener pastures and moved on and some through terminations.  I like to believe I’ve never actually ended someone’s job, well I guess I’d have to say I have ended 3, all 3 we’re due to a position actually being done away with due to a loss of cases, through a customer loss or once a particular product line, the selectors job was to pull that one line of product only.  In all 3 cases I helped them seek gainful employment at another company or made the effort and offered anyway. 

A V.P. of mine, kind of a mentor to me for several years, once told me, that he’d never terminated an associate, that they’d always terminated themselves.  He honestly looked at it as the rules, or processes and procedures weren’t being followed and as the associate knew that, that they had terminated themselves.  I guess that’s one way to look at it but I subscribe to the belief that I’ve failed in some way or another every time I’ve lost an employee.  I always wonder if they we’re given the Orientation properly and received the welcoming, they needed, had they received the training they needed, had management supported them in every way?  In previous episodes I spoke to the Corrective Action Process, what I prefer to call the coaching process and presented the question to young managers as “Did we give them every chance to succeed, did we discuss any job-related deficiencies’ we were experiencing with their performance & offer solutions to help them succeed?  Personally, I think the Orientation of a new associate is the one thing we as managers have to get right.  It’s where we have a chance to express how important they are to the organization, learn a little about them and share the expectations, rules, processes or procedures of the company with them.  It’s intimating walking into a new job & managers need to make us feel welcome and allow us to leave that first day wanting to come back early for the second one, right? 

Ok, I’ll step down off the soap box now you can see how easily I get sidetracked.  Let’s look at a few of the reasons I’m given by associates and managers each week from a few different industries I deal with, all types of positions and regions as to why a term form ends up being turned into our HR departments. 

Let’s start with the simplest, this is one I’ve never been able to get my arms around, the infamous NCNS.  I mean we as new hires have filled out the application, went through all the hoops to get the job, the interviews, background checks, maybe drug screens, we’ve filled out all the onboarding paperwork, had the job descriptions explained to us, maybe even met our coworkers and bosses and then don’t show up for our first day on the job, don’t call anyone, just kind of disappear?  Don’t get me wrong, things certainly come up sometimes and I don’t want you to think I’m being or going negative today at all but this one I’ve never figured out.  If we’ve decided the position just isn’t for us, and it’s going to happen sometimes, maybe something comes up in the job description that we figure woah, this isn’t going to be for me. But why don’t we just speak up right there and then?  I guess what I hope we think about is if we’re dealing with a staffing or sourcing company we’ve probably just burnt a bridge and while looking for permanent employment we should never burn any bridges! 

And then there’s the NCNS when we’re employed.  I hear almost weekly from an associate that says yeah, I got mad, or my boss didn’t treat me right so I decided not to go in.  I just don’t see how that’s fixed or hurt anyone, I don’t think we’ve won anything by quitting like that have we?  If someone’s made us mad or our boss did us wrong, wouldn’t it have been better to communicate that to someone, maybe their boss or our HR departments?  There’s not going to be a check with our name on it next week!  Again, I know things happen from time to time, but it’s rare I hear a valid reason from anyone concerning a NCNS.  A phone call is just too easy to make.  If we’re taking off no matter what our boss says, go ahead and do it, but call.  Then on our next interview we can say we’d asked off, had a valid reason but my boss fired me for missing.  It’ll go over better than them finding out about us NCNSing.  The NCNS we’d have to agree we’ve actually quit or terminated ourselves, right? 

I hear this one a lot, every week, Excessive Absentees and missing too much work.  Our employers are going to need a certain headcount to hit the needed productivity numbers everyday.  The hours and shifts were explained to us when we applied for the job and even if the hours were changed later, we were probably told about it and I’d assume we accepted them.  We stayed with the company so why are we surprised when our supervisor counsels us 1, 2 or 3 times and then lets us go?  Typically, we’re not terminated on our first or second absence in 90 days.  Again, I’m not being negative about us quitting our jobs, and I think we all would agree we’ve quit, we just took the long road to doing it, we knew it was coming, I think. 

Then there’s insubordination, when I hear this one I come close to understanding sometimes.  We here at WAOC have talked a few times now about handling ourselves in a professional manner, and boy that’s very difficult at times isn’t it?  If we assume we’re liking our job it’s important to remember we have other recourses than saying no to management or something like “that’s not my job”.  As long as the request is ethical and legal we need to do it.  Many times, we won’t know the reason or the end result but hey, we’re being paid and it’s just a part of it.  I was a high rise selector, I’d only been on the job for about 3 months and a supervisor hurriedly came to the back and asked me to go clean the men’s room real quick and disappeared.  I was still a new employee, had 2 kids at home that was going to want donuts when I got home that morning. Yep I was pretty upset but I went ahead and cleaned it up and wiped it down.  I hadn’t been finished but for like 5 minutes and another sup came by with an auditor from one of our larger accounts and sure enough they walked right on in to the men's room to check it out.  I ended up working for that company for 26 more years.  As employees we have other resources when we get upset, we have management members and our HR departments we can see.  Another time, a couple of years later I had a young supervisor come back to high rise and tell me I needed to pull pallets while I was up in the air instead of bringing them down to the ground first.  I respectfully told him I was uncomfortable working around our Safety protocol and suggested we go check with the manager first.  He told me to go ahead and do it like I wanted to but get it done.  We became good friends after that, I’d actually helped him do what was right in that instance.  We need our jobs; there’s nothing to be gained by throwing a fit on the docks.  Let’s try and do as request and voice our opinions to another member of management.  By being insubordinate we’re really just quitting again, we’re probably fully aware of the consequences? 

And then there’s horseplay, this ones tough.  Our shifts are sometimes long, its hard to maintain our focus for 10 hours, keep our heads down and focus on our jobs isn’t it?  You know, there’s Safety concerns, quality concerns and we probably know the rules.  I hate hearing about a young employee, meaning a new employee, losing his or her job for horseplay.  I just always trust us more tenured associates will kind of mentor or advise the new boots to do the right thing.  Once again, I hope the consequences to horseplay has been explained to us.  With horseplay there may not be any corrective actions applied to us, It’ll depend on what we were doing I’d think.  Anyway, we probably knew better, why do we get upset when we’re dismissed, maybe its just a human nature thing. 

Several weeks ago I heard about an order selector that’d done something wrong, or at least his supervisor thought he had.  Anyway the selector ended up getting in the sups face and threatening to hit him.  In today’s world that’s a threat, could even be a terroristic threat since it happened at work.  The associate was walked off the property and honestly didn’t understand how the authorities could have been called.  He got hot, calmed down and was now out of a job.  That’s a good example how not handling ourselves in a professional manner can really cost us dearly. 

Here at WAOC we spend a lot of time talking about how to get our jobs, planning for our advancement and reaching our goals but keeping those positions are just as important.  Terminations are a part of the work experiences, and being such we should recognize our responsibilities in keeping those jobs.  It’s hard, we’re humans and we all have reactions but I think we’d all agree it’s easier to be in charge of ourselves and in many instances, prevent terminations. 

Again, I hope I didn’t come across as negative today, I’d like to think I presented us with something to think about and consider. If you’d like to add to our list of terminations or share an example or situation with our group please shoot an email to [email protected] we’d love hearing from you!  Check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds too, @whseandops & we’d appreciate a Like and Follow should you find any interest there.  If you operate any type of powered Industrial Equipment check out the Facebook group Warehouse Equipment Operators Community group, we’re usually hanging around there through the week!  Until next week – Be Safe and lets all take care of our Families and our Positions!

Hey hey all, you found Marty and Warehouse and Operations as a Career here again. Here we are in week 50 of 2024. I just realized we haven't talked about our 2025 goals or plans yet. Maybe we can get that in over the next few weeks. I’m big on goals and planning, and I’m pretty much right on target for the year. Anyway, before I get started running down that path, I’ll get back to today's bullet points! 

I’ve been talking about the workforce out there right now and how we’re seeing people exploring new industries and changing their career goals over the last several weeks.  I was asked by a listener if I could talk about warehouse positions, at distribution facilities in particular. She wanted to know how to get started and how do you get into a management position. Speaking with her I found that her work history, although she hasn't been in the workforce but for about 4 or nearly 5 years I guess, she's had about 18 months in a production type facility, doing a little picking and packing for assembly parts. I’m not sure what they built though. Her only other jobs had been with 2 restaurants and 3 retail stores. She states she so enjoys the physical aspects of the job and the warehouse environment overall.  

One of the comments she made was that, in the restaurant industry, you could be trained as a manager after being there for like 3 months. There was a lot more responsibility given to you and the pay was pretty good, but the hours we’re never set. They we’re different week to week. She was wondering if she could be a supervisor in a few months? 

OK, there's a lot to unpack there. She has a friend working in the distribution world, she’s spoke with them regarding the pay, and I think that's where we landed on the distribution industry.  

So, let's talk about distribution and delivery!  

I thought we’d walk a case of product through the building. We’ll start with that case being purchased. I know a merchandiser or procurement department isn't actually a warehouse position, however they do interact with the warehouse more than any other office position, and we’ll talk about that more in a bit.  

Our merchandiser understands how valuable the real-estate is in our warehouse. Space is at a premium, square footage is expensive, and it has to be utilized to maximize our efficiencies on the floor! So, quantities are purchased with days on hand in mind. 

Pick slots are assigned to facilitate that products movement. Meaning how many times a week does our selector stop in front of that slot and how many cases does the warehouse select and ship in a week. Once we know that, we’ll calculate the amount of space needed to store, or slot, that number of cases so we don’t have to move pallets around more times than absolutely necessary. The merchandiser will purchase in that pallet quantity, hopefully, and where possible, even the correct ti and hi configuration for our slot size. Ti meaning how many cases on a layer and hi being how many layers criss crossed or reversed stacked on the pallet.  

So, the company has purchased the product, it’s on a trailer and on the way to us! 

First the load will need to be scheduled to arrive and be unloaded. Let's say we’re working at a large facility, with an inbound trailer or container count of, oh, let's say around 60 loads a day. The first position we’ll discuss is the Inbound scheduler. 

In my humble opinion, this is one of the hardest jobs in the warehouse. I didn't like it and to be honest I never was very good at it! This individual works closely with merchandising and our logistics department scheduling the loads for each day. They are usually working about 2 weeks out. Setting up appointments through freight brokers and over the road operators for date and times to unload. It’s a tough job. Everyone wants the appointment to work with their schedule! This person has to be patient, be able to deescalate many situations a day, handle multiple phone calls a day and deal with people that may have been lied to regarding an appointment already. With all that being said, our case has arrived and the load is given a door to back into! 

Now the driver or operator may utilize a lumper or unloading service to remove the product from his or her trailer, segregate each item-by-item number, stack it in the correct pallet configuration using a breakdown sheet, and stage it on the dock for our receiver to work with it. 

The lumper position or unloader job is a great get your foot in the door job, an entry level position that can take us on to most any position in the warehouse. We’ll learn every item in the building, by sight. That ability can certainly take us places. 

The next position or person to see our case will be the receiver. Now this is a very important job. Typically, a very experienced person will have this position. They are responsible for receiving or verifying the item is what was ordered, the correct quantity, with nothing damaged, and entering it into our inventory. Once received; by accepting the delivery, the receiver is basically writing a check for the product right then and there. He or she works off of a p.o. or purchase order to see what is being delivered, or what should be delivered! They will then tag the pallet as received. At our large dc that tag will have a barcode which states the quantity on the pallet, the item, and any information our WMS, or warehouse management system has been given for it, maybe something like fifo or first in first out, the pick slot location or the reserve location to store the pallet in.  

The next position would be the pallet runner position. This person will work from a single, double, or maybe even a triple electric rider platform pallet jack, hauling the received pallets from the dock to the assigned aisles and staging them for the forklift operators to place in the reserve slots or the pick locations as instructed by the information on the barcoded pallet tags. This position may be filled from the lumper position, or off the streets with a person with like 1 + years of electric rider jack experience. It's referred to as a skilled position, but I feel it still falls in that gaining experience category. It is a PIT position, so we’ll have completed the classroom portion of OSHA’s 1910.178 standard and had the machines operation demonstrated to us and us observed on the equipment in our working environment. A great growth position in my humble opinion. 

From here the put away forklift operator takes over. He or she will scan the receiving tag and place the pallet in the proper location, possibly a reserve slot or the pick slot. This position requires quite a bit of experience. Typically, this individual will have several years of warehouse experience and at least 3 years of forklift experience. Your placing pallets many feet into the air, working around others and different types of equipment. This is a job with more responsibilities than most. For all those reasons, and the importance of safety with the task, it usually pays pretty well. 

Awe were at the order selector task now. This is considered by many to be the golden ticket in the distribution arena. In our large facility it pays very well. The work is hard, the pace can be unbelievable. We could be paid by the piece and our productivity, so we are focused and moving! Our errors have to all but nonexistent, and safety has to be on the forefront of our minds and actions at all times. Yes, this position pays well but I encourage everyone to have an exit strategy. This is not a job we’ll want to do for 10 years, its rough on our bodies! Many order selectors move on to inventory control, or becoming forklift operators, maybe even receivers. With this position we’ll learn every item in our building and where its located! Again, having that item knowledge give us a leg up on others. 

Throughout the selection process the slots are being depleted or emptied, hence our next position. The replenishment forklift operator. This person is responsible for, besides the safe operation of the forklift, to keep the picking slots filled at all times. They bring the freight down from there reserve locations to the pick slots. Now, I know that forklift drivers want to stay on their lifts at all times, and you see a lot of that in the manufacturing and production facilities because a lot of times there moving freight from one location to another department to be worked, but in the distribution centers we’ll probably have to occasionally have to get off our lifts and hand stack product onto another pallet, and pulling empty pallets from slots by hand and stacking them to get them out of the way! This is a very respected position. We’re working in the aisles with others, and people are depending on us to help them hit their productivity numbers. And again, as with any type of equipment or machine usage, safety has to be our first priority. I’ll take this opportunity to slide in the fact that no one should ever, under any circumstances, touch or get on or operate any machine or piece of powered industrial equipment they have not been trained on and certified to operate. I know you get tired of me saying that but it's just that important. 

Where was I, oh, next up is our loaders. Here’s another position I consider a great get our foot in the door position. We’ll be running pallets of selected products or orders into the route trailers to be delivered. In today's world, I consider this job a bit of a skilled position. We’ll need a little experience on a pallet jack as we could be moving the staged pallets filled with orders into the correct position of the trailer so the driver can find his or her deliveries by stop numbers. In some instances, we may be required to load the trailer by hand or floor load it for various reasons or requirements. This is another position or importance and a productivity driven task. The trailer will have a dispatch time and it's our responsibility to make sure the driver is ready to roll at that time! 

Theres a few other positions in the distribution center we’ll have the opportunity to learn or work in, positions like inventory control, drive helper, slotting coordinator, and then the frontline management positions like warehouse leads, supervisors, managers, and more senior level positions like directors, and vice presidents.  

As you can tell, experience opens those doors to growth, more responsibilities, and wages in our industry. Each position or task I mentioned today is a great career in and of itself. We need to be doing what we love.  

I don't know of any other career where we can work our way up to a six-figure income through our experiences and without any formal education or tech schooling. Of course we have to keep self-learning every day, gather as many certifications as offered by our industry and continue to grow personally and professionally. But what a rewarding career we can have.  

I wanted to talk a little about that personal and professional growth and goals and planning, but I’ve ran long on time today and we all probably need to get back to work! We’ll get into all that a bit later, I guess. 

If you have any questions about anything discussed in today's episode please shoot us a message to [email protected] and I’ll make sure we get an answer back to you. 

Until next week, be prosperous, productive, thankful, and safe out there!  

It’s been another great week hasn’t it! I’m Marty and I’d like to thank you for joining us again here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  This week let’s spend a few minutes on controlling expenses.  I had a conversation last week with a V.P. of Op’s about a facility that had had over 1000 short on truck cases the previous week.  That’s a huge error ratio and creates a very real expense to the company, not to mention the disservice to their accounts.  I tell you what, we’ll get into all that in a moment, but let’s start with how we handle wasted expense when it’s our own.  I’m certain we’ve all, probably on a daily basis, talked or commented to our kids about leaving the lights on in an empty room, or leaving the A/C running way to cool when no one’s home, or how about running the bath for like 15 minutes before their ready to get in it.  All that can be a drain, an actual waste of our hard earned money.  By managing those expenses or that waste we’re able to have more and do more right?  The same holds true in our work lives, our companies can have more, maybe newer equipment or supplies and share or afford more, those monies we as associates don’t help manage could end up in better wages or incentives for our positions!

About two weeks ago I was speaking with a building maintenance supervisor, I’ve know him for about 15 years, hadn’t seen him for like 4 years now though, he’s now working in a new industry. I’d known him from the distribution arena and I’d asked him how he was liking the new job.  One of the things that he mentioned was how he didn’t miss all the pallet jacks and forklift maintenance he use to deal with.  His biggest complaint was always the shrink wrap and cardboard being ran over by the equipment and all the load wheels he’d have to replace and the cost it incurred for his department each month!  We can all realize those wheels aren’t cheap, those bearings we burn up each month not only cost a pretty penny but think how much time our equipment’s down while there being repaired.  Oh and speaking of cardboard and shrink wrap, these days a lot of companies recycle them, I’m sure we could all pitch in and save a few more bucks by saving as much as we can and getting it to the proper staging area!  One of my old pet peeves was the waste of things like tape and rolls of labels.  How many partially used rolls of strapping tape or rolls of labels that get changed out too early because we didn’t want to run out during a batch so we just put in a fresh roll!  Our one roll doesn’t hurt anything, but multiply that by 60 of us times 6 days and we could have saved the cost of a whole box. It’s hard, I mean we have a task to perform, thinking about expenses and saving or not wasting that money.  But I’m sure we can all agree it’d be a win win if we could do a better job at it!

So shorts or not on trucks.  The facility I spoke to earlier typically ships around 400k cases a week, with over a thousand shorts or not on trucks that’d be an error ratio of 1 in 400! That’s 1 case out of every 400 didn’t get delivered to the customer. Think about that cost, there’s an expense to get it ordered again, send a selector out to get it again, get it loaded and then driven back out to the account, times 1000 times.  I know that’s an exaggeration but wow.  A typical error ratio I work with is at a minimum 1 in 3000 and I know accounts that are hitting 1 in 20,000.  Those numbers include misships as well.  Short on truck and misships are a huge expense, and we can’t forget the impact to the customer.  If we take the family out for a nice dinner and the kids want spaghetti but a selector mispulled stewed okra in the can for spaghetti, well that’s not going to be a good thing.

Ok, so how can those expenses happen, what causes a short on truck and how can we prevent it.  And a mispull, how do we grab the wrong thing.  If you can answer those questions and eliminate them from the industry you can be a wealthy individual, every corporation would pay you just short of a king’s ransom.   Take shorts, we’re selecting our batch and we pull up to an empty slot.  The inventory may be off so the machines sold a case that we just don’t have.  If we don’t turn that label in as a empty where it can be removed from the invoice, bam, it becomes a short on truck.  Its quantity is still on the invoice yet the driver does not have it on his trailer and the customer can’t sell it!  Another scenario could be our forklift driver hasn’t yet replenished the empty slot, so when we get there it’s empty.  Again, if we’re busy and fail to get that label turned in, bam again, it’s a short!  So much has to happen when we’re dealing with an exception, or something happens to take us out of our normal pace or process and it’s then hard to get it done.  But we need too, I think we’ll all agree there.  And of course I’m sure theirs that one peer that, it may even be one of us, that just isn’t caring at that particular moment and thinks, heck I’m not going to mess with this, and bam bam, it becomes a short on truck again!  Human nature takes over, we need to fight against it, and we’ll be better employees if we do, but I’m sure it happens.

And a misship, I’ve always struggled with a misship.  Our label or pick ticket will give us the description, the item or sku number or supc number, the pack quantity, color or size etc.  We’ll be directed to a slot and we have the opportunity to verify all that, yet the misship is a real thing, happens every shift, and cost our companies and customers.  They happen, I’ve made more than my share over the years.  Again, if we could solve this problem we wouldn’t have to work for a living anymore.

Errors are costly in every profession and industry.  I guess we as associates can help by realizing those cost and helping where we can, maybe paying a little more attention when we can.  Again, it’s hard.  We have production numbers to hit, we’re making our money.  If we can improve with these two areas I’m certain we could see some more incentives.   Maybe that’s an idea you could bring to your management team, if you could present them with a way to measure our improvements they very well may just share those savings through an incentive or bonus program.  When I was selecting if our names weren’t on the short or misship sheet we’d get a $5 petty cash slip each night.  Back then that was quite an incentive, I’d come in every night, check that sheet and go count inventory, talk to the driver and loader, I was always pretty persistent that I hadn’t errored! Sometimes I found it or proved my innocence and sometimes I just had to accept it.  There’s no perfect system or WMS or warehouse maintenance system that can eliminate errors, yet anyway, but I’m sure we’ll all agree we could probably try a little harder!

I almost forgot about damages, that’s another expense we can help attack.  I’m sure we all see that staging area where we place damages at the end of the shift.  Again, it’s just that we’re working, maybe we take a corner too tight and graze the upright or stacking, I was probably the world’s worst stacker, anyway, if we’ve stacked a bit loose and have a tower stack fall over and damage a couple of cases, bam again, expense we maybe could have avoided.  And let’s not get into the cost of rack or building damages.  Those overhead doors aren’t cheap either!

I was thinking a few minutes ago, when we were talking about running over shrink wrap and cardboard.  I wanted to point out the safety aspect of it.  If you’ve never had a set of bearings lock up on you when you’re in motion, be thankful.  I hate to admit it but once the load wheels were so wrapped up in plastic it locked up and nearly threw me off my machine, and I’ve seen the same thing happen to a forklift a couple of times!  Not a safe situation at all! And things like that are incidents too, could even be near misses and could count as a Safety incident.  We may expose ourselves to retraining or be hit with a couple of Safety points as well.  I know we will if there’s ever any rack damage or one of those overhead doors are involved.

A bit of preaching today, but I’m sure we all understand the opportunities.  If you have any ideals or could share what your facility does to combat shorts and errors or damages please email us, [email protected] so we can share them with the group.  Talk about getting noticed by your management team, if you can help reduce those types of expenses you’ll get more than a handshake!  And please join in with our discussions on Facebook and Twitter, you can find us @whseandops on both, and we’d love it if you could like our Warehouse Equipment Operators Group on facebook as well.

We hope you stop by again next week, and until them let’s all gather up that cardboard and shrink wrap, maybe pick up those pieces of pallets on the floor and be Safe on our Equipment!

Hi all, it’s Thanksgiving here in the states, a time to spend with family and friends, a time to slow down a bit and reflect on what is really important in our lives and be thankful for what ever that is.  We’re working on a few great episodes with some long-time listener's I consider subject matter experts in the coming weeks that I’m super excited about. But for today, well, I have a few questions that was sent in I wanted to get to and keeping with the theme speak to a couple of things I’m thankful for! 

Lets start today with the word attendance. An associate received a written coaching regarding their being absent 4 days in a 30 day period. Their supervisor also, just verbally, brought up their tardiness. The associate had been tardy 8 times in that same 30 days. The associate shared that they had been spoken too about the absences twice before the coaching or write up, and they knew a written coaching was going to be the next step, but, disagreed why it was such a big deal. So lets talk about this individuals work history, and a couple of differences in their previous industry vs our light industrial and warehousing task and why our attendance is so important. 

The individual has been in the workforce for almost 6 years, did almost 2 years in the fast food sector and 2 more in the front of house restaurant world, and most recently had been working in retail, they mentioned a big box chain. Throughout their career they felt the pay was decent but the hours, the inconsistent schedules, all the weekend work, and lack of hours just wasn't working for them as their life responsibilities and bills had grown. They had a friend working for a national food service distribution facility and wanted to get a job there. So, they applied and was hired. Day 1 was an experience like no other was the way they put it to me!  

They felt like they were at boot camp! The orientation covered all the company dress codes, the safety procedures, where you could walk and where you couldn't, how to use a fire extinguisher, where the eye wash station was and how to use it, how to navigate the SDS book, the importance of keeping a clean work area, ergonomics and proper lifting techniques, how to evacuate the building, and they said the rules went on and on! 

Their job was loading the delivery trailers. They were hired on at the same hourly wage as they were making while at the retail big box store, however week one gave them 52 hours vs the 30ish they were receiving in the food and retail worlds. They were tired and worn out but liked the physical aspect of the task and really liked the first check after week two. With that first check in hand and in the bank, well the weekend had been a long one, both Friday and Saturday nights had been spent with friends so Sunday night they called in. As many of you know, Sunday and Mondays, like Fridays are not the best shifts to call in on in the fast-paced world of distribution! Monday night, right after the shift start-up meeting the supervisor called them over and asked why they didn't make it in Sunday night. While honesty is always appreciated and the right story to tell, the associate shared that they had partied over the weekend and was worn out Sunday. Now, that can be ok in the food service, and retail industries, there's usually backup that can be called in or the employer can get by if needed. But, and their supervisor explained, that their productivity had been missed, and the team had to work much harder to get the loads out without them. The attendance policy was reviewed, and the supervisor had stressed that this verbal warning needed to be taken seriously.  

From what I could tell from speaking with them, the associate was good at the job and the Companys management felt like they could be a great asset. Two weeks in the employee shared they had missed that 1 day and had been tardy twice, but only by less than 10 minutes. Well, on the fourth tardy, the supervisor had spoken with the associate about the importance of being at our work station on time and attending the start-up meeting to know what the case counts for the night were, to stretch out the muscles, and review the safety topic for the shift.  

The associate felt like the supervisor was being a bit what they called overboard. At their other places of employment, they’d never been counseled on tardiness and attendance. They shared with their friend who worked there that they were getting into trouble. The friend told them they’d been lucky to still have a job and to get their act together!  

On day 36, after coming in 7 minutes late, they were terminated.  

In our industry, well, and I don’t mean the restaurant and retail worlds, or any other jobs are any more flexible or less dangerous but working in a warehouse is what I want to call the bigs. And yes, I’m a bit biased of our light industrial industry. We can make very good money, and it's an industry that we can grow in any direction with, the supply chain is a huge industry with 10’s of thousands of different positions. But with that comes responsibilities. I won’t break off into a rant of those expectations today, but, and I think we all know that our jobs are important. To us and for our employers, and most importantly our teammates.  

Moral to the story. We accept a job knowing the shift times and scheduled days. Yes, things are going to come up, life is going to get in our way, and that's why it's important to not abuse time off and tardiness. That way it’ll never become a problem. Work life balance is important. Jobs in the bigs pay well, the pace has to be enjoyed being successful. When accepting a position, we need to consider all the expectations and remember safety is our first priority is all I’m trying to say! 

And a quick success story! I was visiting a warehouse this week, I have an associate working with an agency, that's been with this account for just a little under 90 days. She had started her assignment as a G/L literally just building boxes at an e-commerce facility. While walking with the account manager, he pointed her out and shared that she was transitioning to their team next week and he would be probably be promoting her to a lead position shortly after that.  

At hire she had very little warehouse experience. She had actually targeted that facility, it was close to where she lived, she had researched the reviews of other employees prior to applying with the agency that sourced for their positions. After 30 days of great attendance and working any hours offered, she had approached her lead and expressed a desire for more responsibilities. All that is coming true for her, and I wish her great success, this won’t be her last promotion. 

You may have heard me say I’ve only worked a hand full of days in my life. I honestly wake up and look forward to going in every day. I have always loved what I do. I’ve done most every task in warehousing and transportation and held most management positions offered, along with all their responsibilities. I can say I love my job, every job I’ve held. And I’m thankful for each of them, and I’m thankful for every person I’ve met along the way, every mentor that's giving me their time, and I’m thankful to know each of you! 

For the month of December we’ll be offering a live Q&A on Thursday evenings if anyone is interested in joining us. I’ll be posting the link on our Facebook page Warehouse and Operations as a Career, and you can find it using @whseops, and a couple of our more frequented Facebook job boards. It’ll be the first time for that format, we’ll see what it brings! 

Think of at least one thing your thankful for this week and share it with someone. I hope to see you again next week, and until then, be safe out there.