Think it through…Agencies & Sweeper/Scrubbers

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Ha, I just noticed this is episode 250, the 250th consecutive Thursday I have uploaded some thoughts about Warehouse and Operations as a Career! I thought today I’d try and get a couple of questions answered and I wanted to mention, how important knowing what we ask for is what we want when it comes to our careers. We will circle back to that in a few minutes though. Let’s get a couple of questions answered or at least I can share my opinions on a topic or two!

Ok, here is question #1. So, a listener from up north, that’s her location, just up north, is upset and asking why are companies running everyone through an agency vs hiring them out right?

Alright, so I do believe I’m seeing more organizations utilizing the skills and advantages of sourcing companies or staffing agencies a bit more than I used too. I think it’s been a developing trend for, oh, around the last 4 or 5 years now. I’m even seeing facilities with their own HR departments, who will hire all positions except the Operations tasks or warehouse positions, and they hand them over to agencies. Now there’s going to be a couple of reasons for that. One of them, maybe the biggest reason is that the operations management teams may want to interview all prospective applicants anyway. I mean they know the skills there needing and looking for. I had a VP of Op’s tell me once that he’d never seen an HR generalist at his company that had ever came up through the warehouse. And by the same token, I had a VP of Human Resources explain that she’d never been able to make a hire that pleased her op’s team before!

Another reason is just simply due to the cost of on boarding an individual in today’s world. They could have advertising, background, drug screening cost to consider. Oh and the amount of time a generalist or company recruiter might spend asking the right questions for the interview or having to read a very descriptive job description to an applicant that they do not understand themselves!

Every company is not for every job seeker and nor is every applicant a great fit for a company or job task. By using an agency, well, it may just benefit both parties at a much lower cost. As a new hire to a large Corportation we may have to go to something like three interviews, maybe a day long orientation and then a weeks’ worth of corporate training before we actually go perform our hired task only to find out that this is just not the place for me! Same for the company, before they invest so much time in us, just as we just did with them, well, they may realize that its just not going to be a good fit in a particular position and will need to find something else for us. Another quick thought is that if we cannot properly perform the task we stated we could, well, all that liability falls on the agency.

And then, yes, there are those companies out there that are going to mislead us and our staffing agency by saying the position is temp to perm yet only occasionally hire or bring someone on their payroll. It happens, but I hope such outfits are few and far between.

And on the downside you may ask. Well, the hourly rate for most of the light industrial task will be a little less than the companies payrates. Many call this a carrot. Something to look forward to in 60 or 90 days once we’ve fulfilled our contracts with the agency. Our goal is to be that employee that is on time for every scheduled shift, doing a great job so we can be an asset they want on their team permanently.

Don’t let the fact that your targeted company, the place you want to work, only hires through an agency be your deciding factor regarding a job. go apply, accept the position, and get started on your career. It’s a business decision and we’re going to continue to see more and more of it.

So sticking to our WHY type of questions, I recently was asked, and it come up a lot more often than you think it would, but we had a very nice lady ask what is so special about operating a sweeper/scrubber unit? At her facility they have only 2 people authorized to run it, 1 sanitation person and then the supervisor covers for him when the associate is off or calls in. She states that they will train no one else. She says she doesn’t care if it’s her or another team member, but someone needs to be trained to use it. She is correct of course but her management team may be so strict about it operation because there is a lot of responsibility, and knowhow to running those units.

I was taught on a combo unit myself. A large propane unit. Our dry and cooler area was about 410k square feet. The things you have to watch out for are the brushes and the blades or squeegees. A large unit like that will have a circular brush on the front right side of the unit. It’s roll is to sweep loose debris under our unit so the vacuum in the middle can suck it up and deposit it into the dry holding tank. Then we’ll have a long horizonal brush located under our machine just forward of the vacuum device and it’s job is to pick up any loose debris and apply a little scrubbing pressure should something be stuck to the floor or maybe very granular debris and push it to the vacuum piece.

Those brushes are expensive. We can easily wear them to nothing if not careful. If we do not understand how to apply pressure, at the right time and in the right amounts, well, we’ve spent a lot of money.

The scrubber functions. Now here is where we can really tear things up if we don’t know what we’re doing. A squeegee will be attached to a flexible rod, a guide. Lowering it to the ground to soon will damage it. Turning on the solution flow to late will damage it and turning on too early and your squeegee will just spread it around the edges of your unit. This piece is very very expensive to replace or have adjusted.

I hope that our management teams understands our desire to learn more and that we want to take on more responsibilities but its important that we remember they answer to a boss as well. Maybe he or she is just following orders!

She’s done the right thing though. Her manager knows that she wants to be the next sweeper/scrubber operator. I can’t help but think it’ll happen!

Where was I, oh yeah. Earlier I mentioned it was important that we understand what we ask for because we may just receive it. Always have an exit strategy!

When we go to our management team and ask to be taught or moved to another task it’s important we expand on the comment a bit. I know of a young man right now that went to his supervisor about 14 months ago wanting to be an order selector. He was coming from a day will call position but he wanted to go nights as a selector so he could earn the productivity incentives. And he did a great job. After about 6 months he was the top selector, the top earner. Great job right!

Yes but, he now wants to move to become a forklift operator. Had he told his boss 14 months ago something like ”hey boss, I’d like to be an order selector for a while, maybe then become a lift operator, can you hook me up or what can I do to earn that job?” Maybe he’d have a better chance. What he did say 14 months ago was “hey boss, I’ll go nights and be your best order selector”.

Now his boss has a great guy, pulling over 200 cases an hour every night, every hour, and now he’s asking to be transferred again. It’s not setting well with his boss. Management feels like they gave him the opportunity that he wanted.

Here is where I can throw in my planning and goals sentence! If we think things through, we will control the outcomes much better!

I hope I mentioned something that helped you out this week. Oh, and we have some guest coming up this month, I’m putting those shows together right now. You won’t want to miss these two!

Until next week, think it through, and be safe in all we do.