It’s a Long Term…

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Hello all, Marty T Hawkins with Warehouse and Operations as a Career the Podcast! Thanks for clicking into another episode, this just happens to be our 300^th time to visit and talk about the industry I love, and am quite passionate about!

We’ve entertained many guests over the years, order selectors, driver helpers, forklift operators, pallet runners, over the road truck drivers, warehouse leads, supervisors, managers, staffing agency owners, CSHO’s and OSHA Out Reach Trainers, recruiters, Human Resource managers and we’ve had many roundtable discussions regarding our chosen industries, whether they be in manufacturing, production, or the distribution arenas, gosh, the range of topics goes on and on now that I’m thinking about it!

If you’ve ever taken away any thoughts from us here at WAOC I hope it’s that our jobs and careers is a long term commitment, we’re going to work for the rest of our lives with the objective of eventually walking away financially secure, propping our feet up on the front porch with a cold beverage in our hands with our better halves, the kids and grandkids hanging out with us!

You’ve heard me talk a lot about the importance of planning, goals, things to do and things not to do in the workplace! Probably too often and too many times! Those topics are on my mind today but I’m going to try and steer away from them, well, I may explore the edges a bit!

Anyway, It’s been a strange few months for WAOC. I’ve been doing a little traveling for business and working here in Dallas, Tx, visiting with applicants, recruiters, and what I most enjoy, speaking with the backbone of our industry, the men and women on the floor. Those performing the many different positions out there.

A subject that’s came up across 3 different states recently is workplace violence. I won’t go into the whole class on avoiding violence and its consequences, I mean its pretty much common sense, or you’d think so!

Are you seeing more aggravation or frustration at your facilities? Each recent occurrence I’ve heard about lately have been between individuals with less than 6 weeks on the job. Two gentlemen got into a fist fight over water being splashed onto them. It seems things escalated from simple horseplay with water bottles into one of the guys throwing a punch and the other reciprocating. As we all know, horseplaying in the warehouse never ends well. We’re at work, not a social event or backyard BBQ.

Another instance involved 3 men getting into a fight in the parking lot at break. All three lost their positions.

Here’s a good one. Seems that two women, packers that worked across from each other for like 5 weeks, all of a sudden, as the story goes, just started pushing each other around, ending up on the ground wrestling. Again, both losing their jobs.

Each investigation concluded that these spats grew to the breaking points over a few days or weeks. While conducting the investigations it was learned that others had seen and heard bickering between them, in one instance even threats were made. When asked why they hadn’t said anything it was brought up that they didn’t want to get involved, snitch or get anyone in trouble. People lost there jobs over silly comments, I’m not sure we help our friends when we’re thinking like that.

Each one of those ladies and gentlemen could have been charged with assault. An assault charge stays with you for life. I know, you may have been told that it’s a misdemeanor most of the time and that misdemeanors only stay with you for 3 years. Your hiring manager knows about it, for always. Have you ever been job searching and see comments like “background friendly” or BGF, or something about 2^nd chances? Please think long term, work hard to get along. It’s our lives we could derail, not the ones that’s upset us!

Now I don’t necessarily agree with infractions growing up carrying so much weight within our careers, and companies may state that they don’t, but they can and do. DWI’s DUI’s, drug charges, theft, and any kind of assault or domestic violence charges are looked at. They can’t necessarily keep us from getting the job but if there’s 30 other applicants with clean records and the same or more experience with the task, well, you can see how that could turn out for us right?

Another thing I’m hearing more and more about recently is It’s not fair. There is nothing fair about working. We accept a job, know the task at hand, or hopefully asked about the job if it wasn’t explained to us before accepting it. We can’t be concerned about what others, especially in other departments, are doing. Now, I’m not talking about being mistreated by a supervisor, or being picked on by a manager, that’s something different and should be reported immediately to our HR or even higher up the chain if necessary. And it’s important to remember that it is our responsibility do report it, for ourselves and others.

Here’s a good example I heard a few weeks ago. An individual, I think it was only like his 3^rd job to apply for replied when asked why he had left company A. He stated that he couldn’t get along with his supervisor so he just didn’t go back in one day. The interviewer then asked about his stay with company B. The applicant stated that his manager wanted him to work to hard there. The interview never made it to the third question.

We’ve talked about how hard an interview is to complete, we’re nervous to begin with and yes, we should be, need to be honest, when answering every question, but we should think about how direct we answer those questions sometimes!

Oh, heres a good example. We should try not to be that new associate that knows more about doing the job than the supervisor and manager that’s been there for 7 years.

An order selector, on his 4^th week, after being trained was ready to be turned lose on his own. He’d done great all throughout his training, following direction and learning the company’s SOP’s and selection procedures, he knew what the expectations were. Well, on the first night being left on his own, the trainer noticed he was doing things differently than he’d been shown. When spoken to about it he stated that this was how he used to do it at his last job, the one he was no longer with! A while later into the shift the supervisor witnessed him performing the task incorrectly and spoke with him about it. He received roughly the same answer. The supervisor asked if his trainer had explained their way of selecting and had he signed off on his expectations sheet. The associate said yes but that he felt that his way was better, quicker. The gentleman was walked out at the end of the day. It’s important we pick our battles. The company has rules and standard operation procedures for a reason, and most of the time we will not be privy as to how they came to be. Now, I feel, that its always ok to bring up our ideas, we may have a better way, but we should perform the task as asked until we have those discussions.

I’ve digressed! I’ve got to get back to my bullet points here lol. Where was I?

OK, one thing I wanted to point out is job hopping. Many times, we can increase our payrate each time we change positions, and that shouldn’t be a bad thing. However, when a hiring agent sees we’ve had 5 jobs at different companies in 7 years, they don’t know that we improved, or felt like we had improved our career with each hop. Always make sure, even with such a positive move, that, 1, we explain why we changed jobs, and 2, that we’re looking for a permanent, long-term career and position with a company built on growth coming from within. I know one manager that doesn’t ask questions when they see such, its just on to the next resume. Like we’ve discussed before, during an interview we have to be selling ourselves in order to get the job!

I won’t go into a full blown soap box speech about planning but do you have one? Here in the States, we like to think we’ll be retiring around 65 or 67 years young. In todays world it’s necessary to start planning for retirement in our 20’s, no later than our 30’s.

Our chosen professions, in the light industrial areas, can provide great resources for growth, financial resources, and livelihood. However, it’s our responsibility to take advantage of those many opportunities. Savings are important, investing or taking advantage of things like the companys 401k offerings, and understanding them, is important. Does everyone understand how your social security works, know what the qualifiers are, and how we can mess it up if we’re not careful? And how about any other financial plans our company may offer? Its not a long time between 30 years old and 67!

Think about it all, you’re in a long term endeavor, and it’s a great and rewarding ride if we apply ourselves and commit to it! A career is just really common sense, we all know the difference between right and wrong!

Here in the next couple of weeks we’re going to have a roundtable episode with a recruiter, an HR representative, an operations trainer and a V.P. on the show, each explaining there thoughts on the industry and where they believe its going! It’ll be a blast speaking to all of them.

And as always, if you have any questions about todays topics, send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer .com and we’ll get you an answer.

Thanks for listening in and being a part of our 300^th episode. We look forward to many more and hope each of you enjoy them as much as we do!