Revisiting the Supervisor Role

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Hello again, Marty T Hawkins with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I was asked again this week if becoming or accepting a promotion to Supervisor was or would be a good move. It seems I’m asked that pretty regularly, so I thought we’d talk about Supervision for a few minutes today. My answer is always unequivocally yes! I’m probably wrong to say that but seriously, if that’s a part of our plan and goals then we need to accept the position and enter into our new role with an open mind and be willing to accept some corrective criticism and the all the experiences of others. You’ll need to understand that yes we understand the job and task we’ve been doing, probably can perform it better than our previous boss but our new job may have very little to do with that task and we’re going to be exposed to responsibilities and concerns that we’ve never even imagined before. Now management isn’t for everyone. Just do to our life styles and our family responsibilities or maybe even our present friendships with our peers. I always suggest that we speak with our spouses and family before we accept a role in management, their lives will be affected in some way as well, maybe in small ways but I assure you they are going to feel that things have changed. My experiences are in Operations, Warehousing and Transportation, the distribution and production environments. I’m not just talking about the odd hours, or the many many emails and phone calls we may experience in our new position either. We’re going to be introduced to the logistics, planning and reason’s that things are done the way they are. And we’ll now be responsible for those outcomes. Be it expenses, productivity, profit and loss, the safety of others and the growth of our company and our employees. It sounds a little overwhelming when I say it like that but honestly things are going to change. And change for the good! If you’re a long time WAOC listener, you already know that we’re all about advancement and our long term careers, right? The front-line management positions like Leads and supervisors are those first steps and they are, or I feel that they are, the proper steps to advancing our careers. I hear from so many that are considering taking those steps with questions like can you believe theirs a pay cut to get a promotion, or something like I’ve been offered a promotion but they can’t tell me exactly what the hours will be, or something like they expect me to be basically on-call all the time. If you feel this way I’d ask that you step back for a minute and think things through, think about what your wanting down the road. Remember, all those things are just what we’re use to, they’ve been a part of our working lives since we’ve started working and that’s how we’ve learned to think. Remember earlier I spoke about entering our new role with an open mind? Rather think of it as what it is. Were accepting a new job, literally a new job. Oh, it’s with the same company and on the same floor, the same environment we go to everyday and around all the same people we’re use to seeing but our job is different, and it comes with a new pay program, new tasks and all new responsibilities. It’s as simple as that, we’re changing jobs ladies and gentlemen. We’re very fortunate though, it’s not like we have lost our old position and having to seek employment though so we can keep doing what we’re doing and being very successful at it. Or we can change jobs and look at it as what it is, advancement and opportunity in a new field. We’ll be using the experiences we’ve learned and applying them to our new Career.

Of course, pay is something we need to consider, that’s how we pay our bills and take care of our families. A salaried position is something we can’t break down into an hourly pay rate, don’t try to do it. I can almost assure you that your W2 at the end of the year will reflect our promotion and additional earnings. Along with our salaried position may come paid days off, maybe incentives or bonus programs or other small perks and compensation. We’ve already learned that we must enjoy our work, I use the word passion a lot, maybe passion is the wrong word, but we do have to be enthusiastic about our job to be successful. When we enjoy what were doing those phone calls or additional odd hours won’t bother us at all. These kinds of things will affect our families though. Being out to eat with them and the cell phone goes off or with us needing to check our emails every couple of hours. None of these things will typically be required by our companies but you’ll want to stay in the loop, at least to some degree so we’ll do it on our own. After all this is just one part of our plan, a stepping stone to our next goal, right?

I’m instructing a class next week on just these very subjects. It’ll be geared towards unloading Supervisors and what some of their duties or responsibilities are and how they can prepare themselves for those new positions. A few of the more general thoughts will be on:

Scheduling Manpower – In our new positions it’ll be our responsibility to schedule enough employees to unload the freight, trailers, containers or loads each day. We’ll want to have all of our employees’ names and phone numbers on a roster sheet and be sure to keep that sheet with us all the time. We’ll need that not only for our Corp offices use but possibly for regulatory reasons too. We can use it for our evacuation plan or headcount sheet if we ever have to go to our staging areas for fire, emergency planning or weather concerns.

Speaking of regulatory we’ll need to have and communicate that evacuation plan to our employees. Any equipment certifications too, we’ll need those filed within easy reach too incase of inspections or audits.

Reporting – this is a tough one for us, especially for young sup’s. We’re learning how to do our jobs, learning how to manage cases, doors, dock flow and managing people. Its all to easy to just think our reporting is a waste of time, I mean its just pieces of paper with numbers, is anyone really looking at it anyway? Yes, someone is, I assure you. Reporting can be regulated by some agency, our companies’ accountants, our vendors or customers even. Besides our management and bosses have asked us to record it, it’ll probably give us some information we can use and probably should be using. I mean if its important to someone maybe we can learn something from it, it’ll help us advance personally even.

Safety – this is a big one. We should always take our start-up shift meetings seriously. Not only for cost and loss reasons, but to protect our associates, we’re responsible for their livelihoods now too. If we see someone acting in an unsafe manner, even if it’s an old friend, we have to intervein and put a stop to it. If a piece of equipment is not functioning properly, we need to lock it out. Even if it’s going to hurt our productivity, and who knows, maybe it’d be ok to use it for the rest of the shift, it’s our responsibility not to take the risk. Lock it out and figure out a plan B ladies and gentlemen, don’t risk an accident to your employees. Develop or enforce your companies Near Miss program, if theirs not one, learn it and incorporate one of your own. Build a strong Safety Culture within your shift. I’m a big advocate of a Safety Committee too, it’ll help your employees understand they play a part in the reporting and decision-making process when it comes to safety in their workplace!

Time keeping – All so important. It’s important to record it properly and notate any and all adjustments with your employee. It’s the law and honestly, it’s only right. Be an employee advocate when it comes to a person pay. Make sure they understand their pay program and it’s our responsibility to ensure they receive every penny they’ve earned.

Accident Investigation – Learn and follow your companies’ procedures and processes. Its going to take time, you’ll need to stop what your doing and properly fill out any supervisor sheets, make sure to get the employees statement and any witness statements too. Take pictures, draw diagrams if needed. Give as much information as you can to help health providers, your company officials and your employee. Know the phone number and address of your emergency care provider and keep it with you at all times!

I could go on for hours about the duties and responsibilities we’ll be learning once we take that next step towards our goal of retirement, but I’ll just say that YES, take that next step when the opportunity knocks. We’re in this game of life for the long haul. If your enjoying your job in operations now and like challenges and want more, seizes every opportunity your presented with. And please share your success stories or even concerns with us here at WAOC, just send us an email to [e-mail], we’d love hearing from you!

Last week a long time listener ask about our recording studio, and asked why our voices changed sometimes. We’ll first off, we don’t have a studio of any kind. We typically record each episode at home but we’re on the road quite a bit too. We’ve had to record from hotel rooms, hotel lobbies, we’ve even recorded from a couple of convention floors. I do try and make each show as easy to listen too as possible. We do as much with the background as possible but remember we’re all just a bunch of Op’s guys sharing our experiences, not sound engineers or radio people. You may occasionally hear rain, garbage trucks or lawn mowers in the background or even large crowds from festivals or conventions. We try and give you the information that’ll help you with your transportation and warehousing careers. As long as your enjoying the programs and we keep growing as a group we’ll keep trying to share that information. All our guest volunteer their time and we don’t accept any advertisements or affiliate links from vendors either. We want to say what we think and feel about things and not say what they’d request we talk about.

Well, all that being said I hope you enjoyed todays show and I want to wish you a Safe, productive and prosperous week ahead!