The word discipline rarely conjures up a positive emotion. And yet, it is discipline that makes your warehouse operation a pleasant working environment!
Consider the opposite of discipline, chaos. Chaos is what leads most employees to quit, managers to give up, owners to shut down. Regardless of what you may have heard, discipline is what keeps people on the job and eager to come to work.
Let’s deal with a small element of your warehouse operation: inspection and repair. It’s one of the easiest to rationalize away. “We rarely have problems with that group.” “It’s so hard to repack, we just leave it in the box unopened.” “Upholstery almost never has problems.” We could go on and on. These excuses for not opening, inspecting and deluxing the product is due to sloth, plain and simple.
Here’s a more in-depth examination of some of the excuses you may hear on a regular basis when you take a closer look at your warehouse operations.
“But there’s not enough time to open it all!” Deal with your inefficiencies and the time will come. Timewasters like walking around looking for products and supplies. If your store has poor process management skills and a lack of standard operating procedures, this can curtail your ability to move minutes around to where they’re really needed.
“We don’t have enough space to open everything up!” You probably do—it just has to be found, usually in process evaluation. If you truly don’t…are you in the right building for your volume? Or is it that your warehouse area is not properly organized and there are cluttered piles taking up valuable space?
“These guys are going to throw a fit if we open everything!” As opposed to the customer who handed you their money? Seriously? Being held hostage by your employees at the sake of your customers means you might want to revisit your management choices.
It is the discipline of your management team to make sure that everything, everything, gets looked at with a critical eye, piece after piece and day after day. No exceptions. It is the discipline of your technicians to take the time to correct all that is defective about a piece of furniture. It is the discipline of your inspection process to ensure that the repairs are presentable and not objectionable. When we rationalize away the reality that furniture is not perfect, and that shippers do damage product, and that your staff does mishandle product in the warehouse, then we really do our customers a disservice. Stack up enough dissatisfied customers and eventually, you promote yourself to…customer.
If this sounds all too familiar, we are here to help! Our team of experts can help you establish management procedures and processes to get your warehouse in tip top shape fast. Contact us for details and to schedule a consultation at 404-432-2137 or schedule an appointment online.
