It is no secret companies tend to put most of their HR workers handling only their white-collar employees. This can frequently be a big mistake, as a lot of the workforce doing warehouse work could benefit from strong human resources management.
Warehouse work can involve a lot of bureaucracy, and handling that paperwork can impact how smoothly a warehouse runs.
This is especially true now that most people have shifted to online buying of goods. In addition, HR can often struggle with worker retention, expanding the workforce, motivation of workers, and safety to keep up with the demand. So here, we will explore some of the challenges that HR teams have when they are working closely with warehouse workers.
Finding and Retaining Workers
Beat competitors with competitive salaries
One of the essential things in finding new potential workers is competition. Most places have warehouses bundled up in the same area or neighborhood. With that much competition around, a company must offer competitive wages for starters. So when a warehouse employee first applies for a position, their main concern is the wage.
Branding and reputation of your warehouse
Competitive wages will get new employees through the door, but that's just the start. The other is branding and your company's reputation. When you work hard on safety regulations and give out great health benefits, you will have no problems retaining your workforce and attracting new ones. If your company is starting up and you can't afford to give competitive wages, you can do other things.
Stay flexible and open minded
Offer flexible working hours, where they are happy to spend time and are engaged. This way, workers will set their hours to suit their lifestyles and needs better. This will significantly increase your recruitment pool to single or working parents, retirees, or anyone who was looking to supplement their income.
Offer career advancement based on the time and experience gained working. For example, if an employee proves to be loyal, offer finance training courses and other ways to advance in the company. In addition, if workers see that you are a company that plans to invest in them and their future, they are more likely to remain.
Offer gift cards, gas cards, and other little perks. For example, you can offer a gift card to employees who reach their quota fastest when they reach specific goals each month.
Challenges of HR department
One of the most significant challenges HR, or even the entire company, can be facing is declining customer satisfaction due to specific problems in a warehouse. This can happen in a myriad of ways.
Poor Warehouse Bureacracy
First, it can be due to poor warehouse bureaucracy where their goods are delayed or arrive at incorrect destinations. It can be due to sloppy training where their products get damaged in the warehouse and experience high returns. All of this will negatively impact you as well, as you will develop a bad reputation and fewer clients.
Understaffing or overstaffing
Another challenge has to be either understaffing or overstaffing. The number of workers you have in your warehouse should always reflect the amount of work needed at any given time. If your work calendar is always busy at a particular time, always keep that in mind and hire additional staff beforehand. On the other hand, if your warehouse has too many workers, things can get as bad as downtime can negatively impact employee efficiency and encourage reckless behavior.
Poor management
Have the right tools to manage workers effectively and get them into the hands of your managers. When managers have the proper tools, they can single out top performers, reward them, and adequately train the under-performers. In addition, they can be more engaged supervisors when they have the right tools to log and use data.
Security of a warehouse
If your warehouse is unmonitored, it can become a haven for thievery. You have to be able to identify why and how thefts happen. Check out how local companies can help you improve the security of your warehouse, and install security equipment.
In the end...
An HR's most essential job in successful warehouse management is to coach good supervisors. It would be best if you had good supervisors on the floor who know how to talk to their workers and solve their issues. There is no better way to retain hardworking employees than having a good leader who understands their problems and helps them solve them.
For a related topic, check out how to recruit and manage workers in the oil & gas industry!