Your workforce is the glue that holds every aspect of your warehousing operation together, so getting your staffing decisions right is crucial to both productivity and profitability. However, it’s one thing to know the importance of strategic warehouse staffing, and another thing to actually execute that knowledge effectively.
Strategically staffing a warehouse requires both foreknowledge of your needs and effective utilization of existing employees as well as third-party workers when necessary and available. With that in mind, the following concepts should be at the forefront of your approach to warehouse hiring and retention.
Posting Jobs Earlier rather than Later
Effective recruiting is not a one-and-done effort. In order to find and hire the best warehouse workers, your strategy needs to start long before tax forms are signed and training schedules sent out. That means analyzing previous trends and future market projections to anticipate when your need for labor will increase, establishing a recruiting pipeline for specific local areas, and posting ads at least several weeks in advance of when you expect to need a role filled.
Additionally, it is important to make sure that your advertisements for available posts are as specific and up-to-date as possible. The only thing worse than not finding a candidate for an open position is having to immediately replace a new hire because they aren’t able to perform the tasks their new job requires. For this reason, you should ensure your listings are clear and precise and set a realistic expectation for the potential new hire.
Starting the recruiting process sooner rather than later can have a lot of advantages for both you and your prospective employees. Instead of rushing to fill a gap in a shift, an early and targeted job listing gives you time to try multiple methods of soliciting applications, interview several candidates, and ensure you’re getting the best worker for a specific role rather than just the first one available.
Use Existing Assets when Seeking New Ones
Networking isn’t just for white-collar work – in a lot of situations, long-time warehouse laborers know of other dependable workers looking for new gigs and can recommend them for a role you’re looking to fill. In addition to saving time and money by skipping several steps in the recruiting process, hiring someone who’s known to at least one existing employee can decrease the time they need to adjust to their new position and maximize their work output.
Another important part of a successful warehouse staffing strategy is customizing your advertisements and hiring practices to the geographic region you’re looking to hire in. If your warehouse is one of several in the area, you may need to offer a higher starting wage or more flexible scheduling to be competitive in the labor market. Local market research and outreach can be can also help inform your staffing decisions for a particular industry or location.
Strategically Staff Your Warehouse through the Gig Economy
When you need to fill a shift as soon as possible with a worker who possesses specialized experience, gig-based services like HapiGig can provide you with dependable flex labor to meet your warehouse’s immediate staffing needs – and potentially even long-term ones as well.
Every worker in HapiGig’s pool of laborers has been thoroughly screened for dependability and high-demand skillsets, and through our platform, you can sort candidates based on their availability and hire them on a gig-by-gig basis. Whether you need to handle a surge in demand or just quickly replace a former employee, a HapiGig worker could allow you to continue day-to-day operations uninterrupted without compromising your long-term staffing strategy.