Expectations – Accountability – Assurance

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Hey everyone, Marty T Hawkins here, and I want to thank you for checking in with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. We all, or most of the time, we know what our job is. We know the task, the function, and we may even think we know what expectations our boss has for us. Or do we know any of that? And who’s responsibility is it to know that we know those things?

Well, today I thought we’d talk through a few of those things and why, I believe, we as employees need to know those things and be responsible to learn them, and why us as employers should be making sure that our associates understand them. Meaning that it’s our employer’s responsibility to explain all of them to us! Let me share what I mean.

Let’s look at the Sanitation position. Our job description will give us our start time, the days of our shift, who we’ll be reporting to, a brief summary of our overall job, then a detailed, probably a bullet pointed list of what we will be doing on a day-to-day basis. Being a great employee, being a that employee, we may not even think about what is expected of us. When you’re given a job description or read one do you even think about the expectations that come along with it? We should be reading it as “Here is the time we expect you to be at work, and these are the days we expect you to be here, this is the lady or gentleman we expect you to communicate with and discuss concerns too. You are expected to read this brief summary and let us know if you have any questions. And lastly here are the detailed task, broken down individually that we are expecting you to accomplish. Oh, and somewhere there’s a disclaimer that other duties and expectations may be applied as well!

In my experience I believe that same logic applies to all positions. Honestly, isent it our responsibility to know and understand what’s expected of us. How can we measure our own performance if we don’t recognize that we have to hold ourselves accountable for meeting our own expectations of ourselves?

I oversee a couple of different types of large facilities within the production and distribution industries, oop’s, I have a good-sized manufacturing building as well I guess. Anyway, while I was speaking with each manager, supervisor and lead, we collectively decided there needed to be a defined list of expectations for each of their positions. We found that sometimes the manager was doing a particular report while a supervisor had already gathered all the needed information and just hadn’t had time to complete it. Or a lead had spent 20 minutes checking the inbound doors only to find that his or her supervisor had already done it 10 minutes ago. They felt that defined, written duties or expectations would help them and save the whole organization save time and energy.

Carrying it one step further I asked a utility person, a transportation router, a replenishment forklift operator, an inbound pallet runner, and a warehouse clerk what was their managers expecting from them, what are your job expectations? Four said I’m not sure and 1 said to be here every day, on-time, get my roster completed and turned in, keep expenses to xx percent of sales and make sure daily thruput doesn’t fall below xx or I am to notify my boss. That person was the warehouse clerk. I’m going to say that she knew a bit about her expectations because she worked closely with the manager, and just due to the specifics of her task that she’d had to ask questions along the way to learning her job!

That brings us to what I meant by it’s the employer’s responsibility to explain our expectations to us. I know, I just spent 5 minutes telling you that it’s our responsibility to know and understand the expectations we’ll be measured on as it relates to our position. Just bear with me a few minutes!

Our employer needs a long term, career minded, motivated employee. Here’s a quick example from my experiences last week. A group of new hires were walked into their new facility for a 3-hour orientation meeting. They all were told they would start work after the orientation. After the meeting they all were asked to go outside and pick up trash and debris along the fence line and then they would be placed with the trainers and get started. Well, 2 of the 4 took exception to picking up the fence line. They both walked out without asking any questions. Now, if it had been explained during the orientation that they would have inspectors coming out this afternoon so everyone was in cleanup mode this morning would it had made any difference? They have these inspections once a month, shouldn’t that had been explained as well. The new employees didn’t know what the expectations were, and it cost two individuals their jobs and the company two good associates. I’ll agree that the 2 employees didn’t handle things right but neither did the management team!

With the employer measuring our attendance, productivity, all their metrics, it’s only fair that they share what those expectations are. How can an associate hit all his or her numbers and task if we do not know them all & how to accomplish them.

Can you see why I’m thinking it is our responsibility both as employees and employers to make certain that all expectations are understood, by both parties. It only makes sense for an employee’s success and the company’s goals.

I want to expand on expectations in two other forms as well real quick.

As Merriam Webster tells us. Expectation is the act or state of expecting. Anticipation. Something expected. Basis for expecting. Assurance. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expectations

Let’s check out that last word too. It’s one of my favorites! Assurance. Confidence of mind or manner. Easy freedom of self-doubt or uncertainty. Excessive self-confidence. Pledge or guarantee. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assurance

As employees, say an order selector or forklift operator as an example. I find that we hold high expectations for our peers and those teammates that have positions that touch ours too as well, right? I mean we want and need the pick locations to be replenished before we roll up to an empty location. And as that replenishment fork operator we have the expectation that our inbound staff have properly received it and put it away in the correct spot. And then others have expectations of us in these positions as well. The loader expects us to have placed the product properly, facing the direction so they know how to load it. And let’s not forget about the delivery driver, he or she holds the order selector accountable and expects the product to be placed in the proper zone on the pallet so they can unload it efficiently.

Well, did I ramble on too much or did I get my thoughts on Accountability, Expectations, and Assurance across!

I find it hardest for me to uphold the expectations of myself to the standards I set for myself! A lot of people call me an ABC person or a Rules kind of guy. It’s really not that. I want to always be growing, advancing, learning, I want to be accountable to myself and the family, to meet the self-imposed expectations on myself.

As we’re always saying here at WAOC. If you are happy, and enjoy what you’re doing, by all means stick with it. That job can be your career. If I’ve learned anything about working in our industry it’s that you must love what you’re doing. If it’s more responsibility you’re interested in, well, it’s there, just go for it!

So we’re on episode 290! If you enjoy the show each week, let me know, send us an email to [e-mail] and tell us so! I enjoy putting it together, it takes some time, but it’s fun. When we hit the 300th episode we’ll need to make the decision to stop or raise the bar a bit! That is still 10 weeks out, so until then we’re going to keep enjoying what we’re doing right!

Thanks for listening, I hope to see you back here again next week. If you haven’t subscribed, please do so, and we’d appreciate you telling a friend about us as well. Show them how to subscribe too!

Until next week, check out and learn what is expected of you and help others know what you expect from them. Be safe out there all.