It’s part of the responsibilities of the boss to make the workplace better suited to the workers. The more demanding the job, especially when it comes to the physical labor side, the more that you should try to accommodate them. Reducing the stresses of their work can help prevent the burnout that is so cost-inefficient and morale damaging for the whole team. Warehouses are notoriously hard-working. However, you can make sure they’re not unnecessarily difficult with some of the tips below.
Work their schedules out better
Everyone who employs a warehouse team needs to understand that there is such a thing as diminishing returns of productivity when it comes to scheduling shifts. You might think to have a worker come in for a double shift, but fewer times a week, but they are guaranteed to be less productive as that time goes on. Use scheduling software like opendock.com to offer shorter shifts more often to each member of the team. Get them when they are at their most productive.
Structure it properly
The more that your team has to work to figure out where goes what and how best to store it, the more stressful the job is going to be. They shouldn’t spend all their time struggling with inventory, it should have a reliable and systematic approach to it. For instance, with storage installations like those from Biltindustries.com as well as digital inventory systems, it can be easy to find the appropriate place for any item that comes in. Otherwise, you can waste a lot of their energy puzzling over riddles that don’t need to exist.
Make sure communication is clear in each direction
Unclear instructions for your team, as well as poorly defined roles, can easily result in frustration, mixed signals, and poor motivation. If someone doesn’t know what, exactly, they should be doing throughout their day, then they can feel like they have no purpose. Opening communication both ways is crucial. The better your employees feel heard, especially when it comes to matters that affect their day-to-day work, the more motivated they can be, and tools like slack.com can help you open those lines of communication.
Know the signs
There’s a lot that you can do to systematically reduce the factors that contribute to burnout in the warehouse. However, you also need to keep an eye out for it as it is happening in their day to day. Training your managers to recognize the signs of burnout, as well as physical and mental fatigue is crucial. What’s more, people in positions of authority need to know that they can and should offer breaks to those who need them, even if they’re not formally scheduled for breaks then. Too rigid an approach and you’re likely to see your team start to suffer the effects.
Given that their function is to store and move inventory, warehouses are always going to require hard work. With the tips above, you can make sure that you’re not adding more to your team’s plate.
