Hiring new employees, whether temporary or permanent, is always difficult, but it’s especially challenging to fill empty positions at a warehouse. Whether you’re looking to hire general labourers, shippers, receivers, forklift operators, assemblers, or packagers, one thing’s for sure: the workers need to know what they’re doing. It takes unique skills to work in a warehouse where health and safety are a top priority, special equipment and machinery need to be used, and workers must be as productive as possible.
When you have a busy season or just big work orders to fill, you need optimal staff levels in your warehouse to get the work done quickly and efficiently. You need your warehouse to operate at peak capacity with reliable and competent personnel working across multiple shifts.
Here’s how to fill those empty positions in your warehouse so your business can run as smoothly as possible,
Hire on Your Own
Hiring warehouse workers to fill empty positions on your own is always an option. However, it’s not the best option available. When you hire on your own, you have to spend money on ads, spend valuable time sifting through resumes and interviewing, and you may not end up making the right hiring decisions. You may think this is the most cost-effective way to fill empty positions, but when you’re not hiring the right employees, you could end up seeing workplace injuries or a lack of productivity that will cost you more in the end.
Use Your Current Staff
When you have big orders to fill but they don’t require you to hire permanent employees, you may think it’s OK to use your current staff to take over the extra work. Filling the positions with your office workers will not only require you to pay overtime, but you’ll also lower morale by overworking them and making them perform work that they didn’t sign up for. You may lose great personnel.
Use a Staffing Agency
Using a staffing agency to fill empty positions at your warehouse is a convenient, inexpensive, and effective option that you should seriously consider. Whether you’re looking to hire temporary or permanent workers for part-time or full-time work, a staffing agency can work with you to find the right workers for the jobs so you can have a high-performing workforce.
You can find a staffing agency that specifically works to fill positions in industrial environments. A staffing firm that focuses on hiring warehouse workers knows how to reach your target audience while recruiting and knows how to evaluate the applicable skills that are required for this unique type of work, such as equipment operation, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and workplace inspections. A staffing firm will also ensure that the workers receive health and safety orientation before getting on the job site so they know all of the warehouse safety precautions and requirements ahead of time.
When you partner up with a staffing firm, you get a team of recruiting and hiring experts on your side who have a pool of qualified and experienced workers ready to work in your warehouse whenever needed.
Choose Wisely
When you’re looking to fill empty positions in your warehouse, you could try hiring workers on your own, but you could end up with inexperienced and unqualified employees, plus you’ll waste your valuable time and a lot of money on the process. You can use your current staff to handle the extra workload, but this is risky. Instead, partner up with a staffing agency that specializes in hiring warehouse workers and you’ll see greater results.
