Many businesses (particularly small – medium sized businesses) make the mistake of thinking that people will just pick up what they need to know along the way. This is true to a certain extent, but would you neglect other areas of your business the same way? Would you not bother to do any marketing and just hope that your customers figured out what you did and offered all by themselves?
So what training or development activities should you do for your warehouse staff? Where do you start if you have literally nothing? The place to start is with the activities that most directly impact on your customer service. This is usually the picking, packing and despatch processes. I suggest that you write a step by step work instruction based on the what your most experienced and best operators do. This includes the physical process and any system interactions that they need in the performance of their work. The written instruction will be a guide to the operator on what to do, and for the instructor on what to teach. Starting with picking work your way through all your core activities until you have a complete set of training documentation.
You can also make this fun by making a video instruction. Sitting all new hires through half an hour or so of video showing them the basics is a great way for many people to learn. This should not be a substitute for detailed instruction and coaching by a supervisor, but it can help lighten the load somewhat, particularly if you use casual labour to manage peak workloads.
There are three stages required to cement any learning and all should be documented in a training register to record where people are at in their training program. The three steps are:
1. I have been shown what to do and received the work instruction to refer to.
2. I have done the task for the prescribed period and feel like I know what to do.
3. I have been tested or assessed to be competent by an experienced person
If you adopt this approach you put the responsibility on both the operator and the trainer to confirm their competence in performing a task. Your staff will become more productive due to reduced errors and a common set of procedures for all warehouse activities. You should see your KPIs improve as you roll out your training program.
Not only do you need a good training program in place for your warehouse operators but your supervisors and managers must also be developed to improve their management skill and understanding of warehousing and performance improvement so that they can apply these skills to improve the processes and operations within the warehouse.
Many supervisors and managers in businesses are drawn from talented and motivated storespeople but have had no formal training or broader exposure to the range of ideas and technologies available to improve the performance of their warehouse.
Recognising this need, Logistics Help are developing the Warehouse Performance Initiative (WPI) to help develop the skills of all those responsible for managing warehouses. The sign up for those who are interested in joining is available now
The aim of the WPI is to create a resource to develop superior performance in warehousing regardless of business size, resources or location. Starting with an online (and eventually offline) space providing ideas and resources drawn from wide experience of what works in improving warehouse performance. Members of the WPI will be able to join in a forum to discuss ideas and get answers to questions from other members and expert moderators.
WPI members will also get all of the Logistics Help templates and self-help resources developed over many years of consulting experience, for half the normal list price. Membership is free and .
The WPI will also encourage offline Warehouse Performance Groups where members can organize meet ups and regular meetings to help each other improve their skills and share experiences about what they are finding out how to improve their warehouse performance.
Ultimately we hope to develop some core modules for a training program for warehouse supervisors and managers which can be delivered both in workshop seminar format and online. The aim being to dramatically improve the quality of warehouse performance for small-medium businesses around the world.
The sign up page is here.
This is post is taken from an ebook that is now available as a bonus to members of the Warehouse Performance Initiative (WPI*).
The WPI is a place for learning how to improve your knowledge of warehouse operations improvement, sharing skills and ideas and helping other warehouse professionals. Joining the WPI will give you access to a growing range of free and premium content which will have a direct impact on improving your warehouse performance when you apply it to your business.
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