Anyone who works in a warehouse knows that many complicated things have to come together just perfectly if everything is going to run smoothly.
One of the most essential parts of warehouse management is staffing. Without the right people in the right jobs, your warehouse runs the risk of grinding to a halt. You have to be proactive in warehouse hiring because passively waiting for great candidates to walk through your doors is never going to be a successful strategy.
Liberty Staffing Services can help you find the right people for open positions at your warehouse. Reach out to us today to learn more.
Here are some benefits of being proactive with hiring in your warehouse.
Prepare for Fluctuating Demand
Warehouses often experience seasonal fluctuations in demand. The good news about these staffing cycles is that they are usually quite predictable. You should be able to look back at staffing and inventory data from previous years to anticipate when you will need more employees throughout the year.
Reduce Burnout and High Rates of Turnover
When you are proactive in your hiring, you can reduce burnout and high turnover rates, which cost you a lot of money.
Proactive hiring means that you avoid understaffing, which is one of the major contributors to burnout. You can prevent your current employees from feeling overworked and undervalued by making sure that they are not responsible for the work that would be done by people in unfilled positions.
Maintain Productivity and Efficiency
Everything runs more smoothly when you have the right number of skilled employees in your warehouse. Operating at an efficient staffing level minimizes delays, errors, and bottlenecks. To have a productive warehouse, you need to have a fully staffed one first.
Provide Adequate Training
We’ve written before about the importance of developing a good system for onboarding and training. Proactive hiring managers don’t expect that every new employee will have all of the experiences and knowledge necessary to be perfect at their jobs on day one. Rather, these smart managers will hire competent candidates who have a lot of potential–even if they need some on-the-job training.
Adapt to Business Growth
When your business grows, so do your staffing needs. You have to plan for it. It’s a scary place to see a sudden leap in orders and inventory without the staff necessary to handle the workload.
Anticipate all of the ways that your staffing needs will change as your warehouse grows. This will allow you to effectively scale your workforce to meet the changing demand.
Enhance Workplace Safety
Workplace safety goes hand-in-hand with staffing because having an appropriate number of employees reduces the risk of accidents and injuries on the job. These accidents are often caused by overworked or fatigued staff members, especially those trying to handle excessive workloads.
Protect your employees’ safety by avoiding periods of understaffing.
Maintain Compliance with Labour Laws
You need to have enough personnel to comply with labour laws, safety regulations, and industry standards. For jobs that require specific training or credentials, take the time to find employees that meet those.
Offer Competitive Wages and Benefits
Do you want to have a well-functioning workplace? Of course you do–that’s a given. Unfortunately, too many employers want to hire great workers without offering the kind of pay and benefits that great workers are looking for.
When you offer competitive wages and great benefits, you become the kind of place where people want to work. In addition to recruiting great new employees today, this kind of proactive hiring will help you get phenomenal results down the road too.
Foster a Positive Workplace Culture
Wages aren’t the only way to build a workplace full of satisfied employees. You also need to focus on things like positive leadership, opportunities for advancement, effective responses to employee concerns, a supportive HR environment, and incentives for great work.
Foster a positive workplace culture by paying attention to what your employees are asking for. Listen to them and make your warehouse is a great place to work by creating a people-first environment.
Like providing competitive wages, this intentional and proactive staffing decision will help you attract great employees now and in the future.
Work with a Staffing Agency
Without a doubt, one of the best ways to be proactive when it comes to staffing is to work with a staffing agency.
Not only do staffing agencies do the hard work of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding day in and day out, but they also have deep connections within the community. This allows them to find candidates you had no idea were searching for a new position.
Staffing agencies can help you find temporary workers and permanent employees, which means you can get all the people you need to fully staff your warehouse.
Liberty Staffing: Specializing in Warehouse Staffing in Southern Ontario
At Liberty Staffing Services, we are proud to staff numerous warehouses in Southern Ontario with great employees.
You can trust us to find hardworking and experienced employees for your open roles–even hard-to-fill positions. We also know how to identify talent in employees who are new to the warehousing inventory but are eager to learn.
Reach out to us to learn about how working with our experienced team of staffing professionals can make all the difference in your day-to-day warehouse operations. The best way to be proactive with hiring in your warehouse is to work with Liberty Staffing Services!
