Too much work, too little time

[fulfillment]

The wife and I own a fulfillment business. I run the floor side and my wife runs the office side. We have 16 full time and 6 part time employees.

We have run into a road block as we grew faster than my kid could finish college. She is going to work full time as a supervisor.

Most of our products need some type of processing. Books need to be shrink wrapped. Cloth goods need folding and bagging. Stickers need to be counted and bagged.

We have the processing set up in the same room as the pick to light and shipping. The processing was designed to be done upstairs, but got set up down stairs so one supervisor could run it all. We're bringing in new machines and building out the processing room right now.

I have offered all my staff a bonus to work Sundays. Offered my part time employees full time jobs, but they have to work Sundays for a few months. I have not gotten many offers for Sunday and have been using temp workers, but the use of temp workers is causing tension with my staff.

How do you handle this?

We have tried to hire supervisors, but you're out of luck where I'm at unless you pay $25 an hour and even at $25 an hour they can barely handle hard questions.

We don't want to hire people to just work 1 day a week.

 

[djbaxter]

Welcome to BizWarriors, fulfillment.

I'm curious. Why NOT hire people for that one day that your regular employees don't want? That sounds like the obvious solution to me, and a position that might be attractive to people with a full time job wanting to earn some extra money, or stay-at-home parents who could use the extra income when their spouse is home, or students looking for part-time income.

 

[fulfillment]

It's cheaper to use temp help than it is to hire people to work 1 or 2 shifts a week to work basic jobs that need little to no training.

 

[djbaxter]

Well I guess that's your answer then: hire temp help.

 

[fulfillment]

Is there a good way to deal with the full time staff that's ticked off about us using temp help?

I was just told the 2 of the 3 new folders/baggers will be up and running next week. If they do run at at the speed we demoed them at we might just need to work a few more Sundays. I would be happy if they run 90% of what they are made to run at.

 

[djbaxter]

If I understand correctly, they were offered the opportunity to work an extra day first and turned it down. That would have been extra income for them. If they don't want it, I think they forfeit the right to complain when you offer the word to someone else.

That would be the response I would give to any complaints. If they want to change their minds and step up to the plate, you can still offer that money to the regulars instead.

 

[VirtualGlobalPhone]

no one ever won TIME!!!

Start making small changes to big using this as the basis. Look at the work first and build around the work time will automatically be in place.

 

[fulfillment]

Yep we post the overtime on Tuesday for people to sing up for Sunday. There are 3 people that are told by text around noon because they have asked for it.

The problem might be partly solved as of this morning. The chief complainer came to work late this morning maxing out her occurrences. My wife was standing at the door with her paperwork and she even printed it all on pink paper.

 

[djbaxter]

Interesting. So your chief complainer, who didn't want to work overtime but also didn't want you to hire a temp worker, wasn't even a model employee to start with.

Funny how often those who do the most complaining do the least work, isn't it?

 

[fulfillment]

Looking back the last one that got fired was 3 years ago. She was a good worker, but it was time. There were a few that would complain, but with getting rid of the one the others will calm down.

I was talking to my wife and she says we have 22 new products ready to add to the website as soon as we can get them processed. My daughter says she got all her classes lined up for Monday and Tuesday so she will the rest of the week with us.

On the good side the county singed off on the 2 new folders and the 3 new L sealers. He was working with my daughter and got one folder up and running and the L sealers.

He got 1 shirt folder running. It will take about 1.2 people to run putting out 160 an hour, but it dose not bag. With the 2 old fold and bagers we were putting out 180 an hour with 4.5 workers.

We got both L sealer set up and it was putting out 900 books an hour with 2.2 people. The old one was doing 500 an hour. It looks like L sealing the shirts is going to be slow at around 600 an hour. Our old L sealer could keep up with 3 shirt folders.

Even with the folder not being belt yet I'm ready to order one more shirt folder and get the old equipment up stairs where it belongs.

Sorry for the post. I see that the $60,000 I spent is going to work out. Nothing like spending money not knowing if stuff will work out for 60 to 90 days...