Hello and welcome to the Warehouse and Operations as a Career Podcast, I\u2019m Marty and I\u2019d like to thank you for clicking in with us today! Let\u2019s see, I\u2019ve gotten behind on a few questions that\u2019s been sent in, let me see if I can get a few of them answered really quick!
\nI liked this one here, a gentleman asked, \u201chow would you recommend I get into warehousing\u201d. I\u2019m not sure what his work experiences are but he goes\u2019 on to state \u201call the good companies are wanting someone with experience.\u201d
\nWhen we\u2019re looking for work and we\u2019re cruising all the job boards and classifieds of course the first thing that catches our eyes is going to be the pay rates. Now this is where human nature will kick in a little, of course we want the job paying the most. If we see two postings for order selecting paying X number of dollars an hour and one right beside it paying $5 more we\u2019re putting on our shoes and heading out the door to fill out that application, right? Almost always, that higher paying position is going to be in a heavy productivity role, it\u2019s paying more because theirs a lot more responsibility & experience required to hit those pieces per hour numbers or quotas.
\nI feel we can be there within a year though, all we need is to learn how to reach those numbers, it can be done in just a year or 12 month, all we need to do is have a plan. I\u2019m not exaggerating or talking a lot of self help talk here, it really is up to us and all we need is that plan in place. I reached out to the gentleman and he hasn\u2019t gotten back to me yet so let\u2019s make a couple of assumptions and develop a quick plan and set our goal of getting a warehouse job and making at least 5 more dollars an hour in less than 12 months. There\u2019s typically 2080 regular work hours in a year, if we increase our earnings by $5/hr that\u2019s a $10,400.00 increase year over year, and that\u2019s before any overtime. Now if your shaking your head right here I\u2019m pretty sure you\u2019re not going to reach our new goal, you\u2019re probably already setting yourself up and accepting that first rate of pay.
\nOk, so how do we get started? We need to first target a warehouse, industry or company that has the position we\u2019d like to learn. Wither its order selecting or forklift driving, maybe inventory control or maybe we\u2019re interested in transportation, delivery driver is another really good job! And don\u2019t forget about all the Production and Manufacturing facilities out there, operating machinery and assembly work are great Career fields too! Let\u2019s look for any open position they have, we\u2019ll need a general labor position or utility task, any entry level position will do or anything that meets our present skill levels. Remember this job is just to get us past HR, we have to be an employee to get started with our plan. Don\u2019t worry about the pay rate. I know that\u2019s a whole lot easier to say than to do. We\u2019ve all got bills and responsibilities and we need to make x number of dollars a week to pay them. If we can let\u2019s think it through though, yes, we\u2019re worth more than what we\u2019ve just been offered but we want even more than what our experience is earning us right now. If we\u2019re out of work, take the job, I really believe we\u2019re going to start getting increases within our first 3 months, if there\u2019s any way possible ride it out, its going to pay off. I was speaking with a young lady last month that said no she couldn\u2019t work for less than x dollars an hour, a dollar more than shed ever earned before. We\u2019re out of work, any income is better than 0, lets take the position and see where it goes, what we can make out of it!
\nI\u2019ve found Produce companies, Grocery distribution, the Big Box retail distribution centers or maybe the institutional or foodservice broadline facilities to be Great \u201cfoot in the door\u201d warehouses. Almost every large Manufacturing company will have utility positions open too.
\nOnce we\u2019re on the inside or and we\u2019re an employee we put our plan ...