Welcome to another Episode of Warehouse and Operations as a Career! I\u2019m Marty and today let\u2019s answer a couple of questions that came to me this week. I\u2019ve been working with several Job Boards in the social media world lately and we get asked all too frequently about the positions of Order Selecting and Forklift Driving. I\u2019m pretty passionate about both of these positions, and yes, they are the short-term goal for many of us. They typically pay well & can offer us a good solid career, really long-term employment in many instances. We\u2019ve spoken to both of these positions in previous discussions but there seems to be a lot of interest in them now with job postings and advertisements hitting the classifieds and Recruiters offering interviews for them. We\u2019re going to kind of off our planned schedule of topics but hey, we got asked to talk about them so let\u2019s dive a bit deeper into the hiring process for them and see if we can\u2019t map out a plan and path to obtain our goal!
\nIn the Distribution world, an Order Selector will probably be operating an Electric Pallet Jack or a Forklift, maybe even a Tugger or some type of Powered Industrial Equipment. We haven\u2019t spoken a lot about the Tugger, and its referred to by many different names but is really just a piece of equipment you can stand on, usually within a driver compartment that buggies or carts can be connected too and you pull them through the warehouse aisles selecting your orders of product, placing them on the carts or pallets on the carts. As we\u2019ve mentioned several times, yep I\u2019m going to talk about Powered Industrial Equipment training again, here in the states the regulation is 29CFR1910.178 which put simply means that if we operate any type of powered equipment we must be trained in the safe operation of that equipment. Please check out OSHA.gov for the complete reading, it\u2019s honestly more interesting than you\u2019d think! Anyway, and I know I talked about it often, but please don\u2019t get on or operate any equipment, don\u2019t even attempt to move it if you\u2019ve not been trained to do so, just stay away from it, it could be dangerous and its actually the law! And we\u2019ll be discussing short cuts, or lack of them here in a bit. In my experiences, especially in the Position of Order Selecting you should have or will need at least 3 to 6 months, sometimes up to a years experience operating a piece of equipment to be hired on with a new company. I know there is companies offering a certification card and equipment training for \u201cX\u201d number of dollars out there, and I suppose that\u2019s all good and fine BUT that does not bring with it the experience that may be needed for the position. Remember, almost all employers, at least every employer I know of will train and certify you for free upon hire. You will need to be on-sited at the dock you\u2019ll be working on, or observed by a trainer and the employer will, or should, be willing to do this for you as its in their best interest as well. Almost every month I hear about a young man or woman that\u2019s gone and paid for a course, then goes to an employer and is really disenchanted to learn they need experience to perform the job or to be hired on. So let\u2019s talk about short cuts, how does one get the needed experience?
\nWe talked a bit about what employers or recruiters are looking for in an order selector Episode, let\u2019s see, that was Episode 12 titled Order Selection and we went a little deeper I think with Episode 33 called A Few Thoughts on Order Selecting with James, where we spoke with James a Top Gun and really accomplished selector, check those two shows out, I think you\u2019ll find them really interesting. Oh, and we did a program with a Warehouse Trainer, let\u2019s see, that was Episode 19 titled Warehouse Training Techniques & Advice from a professional where Anthony does a great job sharing his thoughts on training with us, we talked about Order Selecting and different training techniques there also.