THERE IS A HELL! - - - IT IS CALLED RETAIL THE WAREHOUSE | Page 5

THE WAREHOUSE
DISCIPLINE IS NOT A BAD THING

Sometimes you have to discipline a worker. This is so
simple it’s somewhat ridiculous to have to explain it. If a
worker knows (through training) what he is supposed to
be doing yet does not do it, what else are you going to do?
You basically have a person that you are paying to perform
a particular task, and that person has made a conscious
decision to no t do the task the way he was instructed.
Don’t feel bad for the worker being disciplined, they made
their choice. You have to realize that by not disciplining the
worker, you not only cause harm to your business, but also hurt your good employees.
There’s nothing more aggravating to a good employee that’s following the rules, than
having to work alongside a slacker taking shortcuts and breaking the rules and getting
away with it. Worse yet, this often results in your good employees having to work harder
to make up for the slacker(s).
To be honest, disciplining employees is not as uncomfortable as it sounds. I’ve learned
that if you make it very clear (through training) how the worker is to perform his job, and
what will happen if the rules are not followed, disciplining the employee is pretty
straightforward. In almost all cases, they know it’s coming, and while I wouldn’t go so far
as to say it was painless, it’s really not that big of a deal. The worker should go away
realizing that there are consequences for not following policies, but also that if they
choose to follow the rules, everything will be fine.

ACCOUNTABILITY GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP

I’ll make this simple. If a worker doesn’t do his job as instructed, he should be disciplined.
If his supervisor doesn’t discipline him, his supervisor should be disciplined. If the
supervisor’s boss doesn’t discipline the supervisor, he should be disciplined. Disciplining a
worker for not performing his job is not a choice, it is a requirement.

LET THE MACHINES DO IT?

The lack of enthusiasm towards supervision has resulted in an industry of products that
help to either monitor employees’ activities or force compliance to policies and procedures.
I have mixed feelings towards these products because some of them are very useful,
while others are just used as an excuse to avoid face-to-face supervision of employees,
and still others are a complete waste of money because they simply don’t work as
advertised.
Impact switches are an example of a device designed to help to enforce safe operation of
lift trucks. The idea is that the device reacts to impacts/jolts. These things have been
around for decades and historically were set up so that when an impact occurs, an alarm
on the truck sounds and only the supervisor has the key or code to reset the device.
Damage to racking, product, and other equipment due to lift truck accidents is common in
warehouses and can be very annoying to warehouse managers because lift truck
operators rarely own up to the incident. So with the impact switch, whenever one of your
dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™

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