How to Improve Employee Retention in Warehouses

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By Lorna Faires

Topics: Employee Retention

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How-to-Improve-Employee-Retention-in-WarehousesWe hear a lot about the challenges of finding new employees, but far too often, retention gets left out of the conversation.

Retaining employees is an essential piece of the warehouse staffing puzzle! 

At Liberty Staffing, we help businesses find great new team members, but we also know what employees are looking for and what makes them want to stick around. Find out how we can help you build a reliable, consistent team by contacting us today

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Here are some great strategies for improving employee retention in your warehouse. 

Make Onboarding Personal

Onboarding new employees may feel repetitive to those who have to repeat instructions, information, and policies every time a new person joins the company. But to the new employee, this is all brand new information!

If a new employee is greeted by a cold, mechanical onboarding process, it can feel discouraging. It also sets up a negative impression right away, leaving the new hire to think, “I’m just a cog in a machine here. I’m replaceable.”

What can you do to make the onboarding process more personal? Think about ways you can communicate better messages to your new hires. Messages like, “We are happy you’re here!” And, “You matter to us!” And, “We respect you as an individual.” 

These messages go a long way to helping new employees feel included and valued.

Increase Your Workplace Flexibility Policies

Today’s warehouse staffers are looking for more flexibility than ever before. Warehouses can provide that flexibility to employees through a number of strategies, including new approaches to scheduling, time off, and even remote work when possible. This may look like allowing people to easily change their schedules, find an unconventional schedule that works for them, or adjust their schedule when something comes up unexpectedly. 

Creating more flexibility where you can helps keep your employees happier and more satisfied with their work. Satisfied employees stick around longer!

Empower Your Employees

You’ve hired a great team of people, so let them be great! Trust your managers to make management decisions. Encourage entry-level employees to make decisions that are appropriate to their positions. Create a mentoring program so that experienced employees can help train and support new ones. 

Give people opportunities to build a community at work. Make the break room hospitable and welcoming, and offer consistent feedback to your team on what they’re doing well. Celebrate accomplishments!

Empowering your employees is about making sure that people have what they need to feel good about the work they are doing. It helps people want to stay with you and keep doing good work. 

Pay a Competitive Wage

This one is pretty straightforward: if you want people to stick around, pay them well enough to stick around!

While not every company can offer the highest wage in the industry, employers should do everything they can to provide competitive wages to their employees. If you notice that everyone else in your area is paying more than you, or offering better benefits, it may be causing some of your retention problems! 

Being underpaid makes people start looking elsewhere, especially if a job is stressful or they feel underappreciated in the workplace. 

Use Temporary Workers as a Way to “Test Run” Your Team

Successful warehouse managers know the importance of temporary workers! Not only do temp workers help you fill staffing gaps quickly, but it’s also a great strategy to find out if someone is a good fit before offering them a permanent position with your warehouse.

When you hire a temporary worker, you have an agreement about how long the employment contract will last. Leaving at the end of that period is built into the system, so you’re not affected negatively like you are when full time, permanent staffers leave. 

However, you can always extend that contract or hire someone full time if it turns out that they were a particularly great team member. 

This strategy allows you to say goodbye to less productive employees and retain only the best ones! 

Find Great Staff Who Will Stick Around! Work With Liberty Staffing

At Liberty Staffing, we work with numerous warehousing companies and industrial employers. We help our clients find great employees–and keep them! 

We guide businesses that need help with finding new people to join their teams. And we help businesses who need to figure out how to keep their employees around longer because retention improves operations and increases profits. 

Reach out to Liberty Staffing today to learn how we can alleviate your staffing headaches and make your warehouse run more efficiently! 

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Lorna Faires

I have over 15 years of experience in the staffing industry, in a management role. I possess a strong background in recruitment, screening, and connecting candidates with the right employment opportunities. I love all animals, but especially my 3 dogs. Hiking and canoeing are my passions, and getting out into nature and being unplugged is my favourite way to spend my vacations.

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