Engage Your Warehouse Workforce to Boost Productivity

As we know, the innerworkings of a warehouse is can be repetitive, labor-intensive, and monotonous. It is easy for workers to lose motivation or get bored in such an environment, that’s why it is important to keep your workforce engaged. According to a Gallup State of the Global Workplace study, companies with engaged workers experience a 22% increase in profitability. So how do you engage your warehouse workforce to boost productivity? Let’s find out.

Promote teambuilding and collaboration

A warehouse is a place where the operation is carried out by people working in teams. That’s why it’s necessary to engage your workforce in team-building activities. Depending on the budget, you can initiate activities like after-work events, staff night outs, a pizza lunch for the employees, etc. Workers are happier when they like the company of their co-workers; hence this is a good practice to boost productivity. It also helps to show your warehouse team that they are valued by your organization.

Take care of their wellbeing

A warehouse is generally a physically demanding environment, with heavy lifting and physical work often making up much of the logistics worker’s day. In such a working environment, it is important to take care of your workers’ general health and wellbeing. Offering timely breaks, health and safety training, and ensuring a safe working environment with minimum risk of injury are great ways of keeping your workforce healthy. Having the right material handling equipment will also create a safe environment. This way, your employees also don’t take a lot of absent leaves.

Don’t keep monotonous work schedules

A warehouse workforce is more likely to feel engaged and motivated if each employee has the opportunity to change up the mix of daily tasks. Switch their work shifts periodically, so there is a healthy rotation among workers. Your employees can cycle between different tasks like picking, goods-receiving, dispatch, and put-away. This way, not only do your employees stay motivated and engaged, you also have a multi-skilled workforce. So when some workers get sick or demand for a specific activity hits a peak, you can easily transfer people from other areas to bridge the manpower gap.

Conduct weekly meetings

Having regular meetings fulfills a lot of purposes. Team meetings can bring to light any misunderstandings, problems, disapprovals or issues that you or your workers may have in the workplace. It makes them feel that they are heard and builds their confidence in the organization. This also helps you get important suggestions about the workplace as the warehouse staff are the ones who know directly about the strength and the weakness of your warehouse management system, creating a more engaged workforce that boosts productivity.

Provide positive feedback

It is imperative to let your workforce know when they have performed well. If you praise a team for picking orders in record time, they will be motivated to do so even further. This is a great way to motivate your warehouse staff and let them know that their achievements have not gone unnoticed. This way, you can easily engage your warehouse workforce to boost productivity.