Warehousing: Strategies For Building A Productive Work Environment
In today’s fast-paced and competitive business landscape, the need for maximum productivity is greater than ever before. The best place to achieve results is to go where it all begins: the workplace. Having an efficient strategy is half the war won. In this article we look at Warehousing Strategies for building a productive work environment in the warehouse and beyond.
Cultivate A Culture Of Productivity
Promoting a culture of productivity is the best way to lay the foundation for your work environment to achieve an ever-improving status quo. If you remain complacent and refuse to streamline your production flow, your progress will stagger. You may discover a sharp decline in customer satisfaction, and suppliers will be less likely to trust you.
Warehouse environments have people with different beliefs, cultures, and experiences that cause them to see life through a different lens. Cultural awareness, conflict resolution, innovation, and employee recognition are essential contributors to ensuring a culture of productivity.
Understanding Organisational Cultures And Subcultures
Cultural awareness is one of the key contributors you’ll want to focus on when you spearhead productivity. It requires you to understand your organisation’s unique dynamics, strengths, weaknesses, and ways of operating.
The term work culture is an umbrella term that works well to describe your workplace. However, the truth is your workplaces can have multiple subcultures that are vastly different.
Your transportation team will hold particular knowledge that differs from your customer service desk. When you plan to implement new productivity initiatives, consider whether they will fit into the current subculture.
Team Dynamics: Building Trust With Open Communication
Creating an environment of open communication across your business is key to building trust and respect among everyone, including upper management.
When you embrace an individual’s unique qualities and give them the freedom to express themselves, they become encouraged to share fresh ideas. The right input can reduce manufacturing costs, improve delivery time, and improve sourcing.
Both supply chain employees and management should pay attention to how they communicate. Inclusive communication is an effective method to ensure everyone feels heard and valued. It’s remarkable how motivated and appreciated employees feel when they receive positive reinforcement and understand how their work directly contributes to the companies overall success.
Conflict: The Key to Driving Productivity
When you pursue productivity, you’ll encounter change and, with that, conflict. The same new idea will likely not be equally exciting for everyone at the meeting. Put out sparks that may turn into fires, and productivity will improve.
If an individual’s actions harm delivery times or logistics, try to understand their underlying reasons. In most cases, your team is not out to make your life difficult; they are more concerned with their interests.
Thinking Beyond The Norm: Innovative Approaches For Success
There are many exciting ways to boost productivity through innovation. It could involve creating something new, implementing a fresh idea, or improving an existing production flow.
Innovation opens new avenues to reduce costs, increase productivity, gain a competitive edge, and bring more value to your workplace.
Discovering these innovative solutions requires being open to critically examining your current operational processes, even if you were the one who initially designed them. For instance, LED lighting can illuminate your warehouse and make workers feel safer. This will encourage them to work harder as they’re not concerned about additional risks.
If you’d like to improve logistics but you’re having a hard time, approach your supply chain from a different perspective instead of reverting to the usual planning method.
Philosophy & Design: Plan Your Workplace
Your physical workspace design significantly impacts your supply chain, while also directly affecting employee engagement. You can plan the workspace to promote engagement and productivity by doing the following:
- Allow as much natural light as possible into your workspace. UCL (University College London) conducted a study on daylight in classrooms. They found it improves students’ mood, alertness, health, attendance, and academic achievement. The same principles will apply in the workplace.
- Incorporating colours that boost mood and make workers feel happy. Colour psychology shows that people respond to various colours in different ways, and by incorporating energising, positive colours into the workspace, productivity gets a boost.
- Incorporate comfortable seating. Employees with comfortable seating for work or when taking a break will suffer less from aches and pains and thus feel more productive.
Striking The Right Balance: Unleashing Employee Productivity
Vilakshan – XIMB Journal of Management and Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine both published a study in 2021 about employee work-life balance. They found that a better employee work-life balance improves productivity by:
- Reducing stress
- Enhancing well-being
- Increasing motivation
- Fostering creativity and innovation
Here are a few ways you can help create a balanced workplace:
- Personalise work areas – allowing everyone to add their personal touch to their workspace can make it feel more comfortable and enjoyable for them. While it is not always possible for employees to have their own work space, your warehouse could have team notice boards where employees can pin up personal photo’s, event information and news to share with the rest of the team.
- Encourage regular breaks – encouraging everyone to take breaks throughout the day can help them recharge and stay focused. Short breaks can increase workflow and prevent burnout.
- Designated break areas – having a specific area dedicated to breaks can give you a place to unwind, socialise, and take a breather. If your warehouse team are on their feet most of their working day, making a comfortable break area will help them relax and rest.
Recognition: Hard Work & Effort Should Pay
Recognising and rewarding employees who excel in their performance is a wonderful way to set a positive example. It shows them that you genuinely value and appreciate their hard work.
This approach can have a ripple effect, inspiring and motivating your entire team to strive for similar recognition. Coupling it with a reward program that acknowledges your employees’ accomplishments is most effective. You may decide on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.
Celebrate Individuality & Expression: Host Company Events
Hosting events for your entire workplace can really boost employee engagement. Socialising helps to improve collaboration between departments, like logistics and manufacturing. Attending these company events helps employees feel part of a work culture that values more than just getting work done.
Look for activities that allow outgoing team members to shine and contribute while gently encouraging quieter team members to participate.
Conclusion
Productivity requires change, and a culture of productivity is a fantastic tool for cultivating positive change. Happy employees working together will be much more productive than conflicting and disgruntled employees. Keep all lines of communication open and use company events for team members to socialise and express their individuality. It builds trust and mutual respect.
Warehouse Productivity will improve with the help of IoSCM. Invest in a professional qualification to advance your capabilities or those of your team. Call 0800 1422 522 today to find out more.