Managing the day-to-day operations of a warehouse can be a grueling and sometimes thankless job, but it can also be rewarding if you know what you’re doing. However, knowing what you’re doing takes hard work, dedication, and the ability to turn every moment at work into a learning experience.
Just as there’s a huge difference between a bad manager and a good manager, there’s also a significant difference in what makes a manager good and what makes them great. Following some of these tips to becoming a better warehouse manager could help facilitate the success of your workers and the prosperity of your operations.
Learn Everything There is to Know about Your Business
If you want to effectively manage what goes on in your warehouse and maximize efficiency, you first have to know what all those processes are, how each stage works, and what specific products are involved. Knowing what items you ship and exactly where they’re located in your warehouse can help you make adjustments to the process to account for larger trends in supply and demand.
Implementing proactive measures in anticipation of business trends can lead to massive improvements in pick times and a reduction in work stoppages. Even if you don’t know the answer to a worker’s question off the top of your head, being dedicated to finding out can ensure problems are solved quickly and that your workers trust you know the best course of action.
Set Reachable Goals and Communicate Them Clearly
Is there another company in your industry that has fantastic rates of productivity, or a fellow manager whose approach to their job you admire? If so, take what they do and adapt it your warehouse operations. There’s no such thing as plagiarism of management techniques and best practices, so identify a model to aspire to and establish metrics based on that model for your employees to work toward.
Clear communication is the most critical aspect of achieving productivity goals – after all, your workers can’t improve their performance if they don’t know how their performance is being measured in the first place. Additionally, goals and quotas that are set too high can effectively demotivate your staff, so talk with your employees about your expectations and try to find a mutual agreement on what they can reasonably accomplish.
Engage with Employees in Good Faith
While certain techniques and tricks of the trade can help make warehouse management simpler and less work-intensive, the defining trait of a great warehouse manager is simply how well they work with the team they manage. In other words, the better your relationship is with your employees, the more likely they are to listen to your feedback on how to improve their performance, and the more productive your business will ultimately be.
Warehouse management should always be a two-way street. As much as your employees depend on you for direction, you should depend on them for input on how to improve warehouse operations. For more tips on becoming a better warehouse manager, register as a HapiEmployer today.