How to Motivate Your Warehouse Staff

Do you feel as though your warehouse staff aren’t working as hard as they could be? Maybe you can sense that morale is low, and want to find ways to encourage your staff so they can stay passionate about their role. Either way, there are ways for you to turn things around if you simply take the time to connect with your team.

Offer a Financial Incentive

One of the first things you need to do is offer your team financial incentives. You need to offer competitive compensation and you also need to make them feel as though you appreciate them. Studies have found time and time again that over 60% of warehouse staff agree that labor recruitment can be a challenge. Higher wages are great if you want to attract more qualified workers. Gainsharing is a strategy that pairs compensation with a higher productive output. You can configure this in a lot of different ways, but as a general rule, you will give your team compensation based on the hard work they are putting in.
Foster Ownership

Employee retention is challenging if you work in an industry where employee demand is high. Compensation is a key component when it comes to motivation, but believe it or not, it’s not the sole driver of morale. Workers also see status, pride, and respect as being main motivators. They want to be treated as professionals, and if you can do this, you will soon see that your team ends up being more engaged as a result. Keep your facilities clean, and make sure that your warehouse workers have positive interactions with people who work above them. Making sure that their working space is kept updated is also important. If your space is looking a little worse for the wear then you can hire industrial painting services to help you with that.

Provide a Path Forward

Nobody dreams of doing a monotonous task every day until they retire. Employees crave self-improvement. They want to be able to move up the ladder and they also want to avoid feeling as though their career is stagnant. That is why you need to tell your employees what opportunities you have, going forward. If your team doesn't have a clear promotional path then this won’t help them to stay motivated. Employees have to be able to see advancement paths and they also need to be able to see where they stand. Use KPIs and help your team to aim for clear and quantitative targets. This is the best way for you to give them the support they are looking for.

Cohesive Teams

Human resources have noted for years that employee engagement scores relate directly to the managerial approach. Employees often find it difficult to leave a company if they feel as though they are working with friends and not colleagues. That doesn’t mean that you have to get your team off to exotic locations, but it does mean that you need to give them opportunities to bond over pizza or to establish positive relationships outside of the working environment. If you can do this, you are bound to see an improvement.