How to Maintain a Clean Warehouse Without Sacrificing Staff Productivity
You’ve laid out plans for keeping the warehouse clean, told your staff about it, and directed them to act on it. Everything goes well during the first few days until you see a problem in their productivity: they leave out some critical parts of their job because their time is divided on cleaning.
To avoid this from happening, your plan should not only focus on the cleaning routines alone. It should also include how workers can maintain cleanliness while staying productive.
Keeping your warehouse clean can be a challenge, especially if you have a large facility and a busy staff. In this article, we’ll give you some tips on how to maintain a clean warehouse without sacrificing staff productivity.
Balanced workload and time management
Employees can already be overwhelmed with their workload, and when a new responsibility is added, they may compromise either of the two. If you’re like many warehouse managers, you’re probably feeling this pressure to keep your employees’ workload balanced and your warehouse clean. But is that necessary? You may be able to reduce your cleaning needs by taking a balanced workload approach.
First, make sure you’re making them do the right things — by working on the right tasks at the right time. This will help to keep your workload balanced and minimize the need for excessive cleaning. They may also need to be debriefed at first, then given reminders from time to time.
Second, make sure your warehouse is clean and organized from the start. This will give them an idea of how clean the warehouse should be in the first place.
Finally, make sure you’re assigning the right people to the right tasks. It would be best to assign a frontline manager in looking over this and let him direct the process. This will help to ensure that your warehouse is clean and organized from start to finish. Make sure that the frontline manager also has the cleaning checklist for reference.
Assigning the right people
When it comes to warehouse cleaning, it’s important to have a frontline manager assigned to the job. This person should be responsible for ensuring that the warehouse is clean at all times and that the work is done according to schedule. To help ensure that the frontline manager is effective and efficient, it’s important to give them a checklist, especially about cleaning. This checklist should include items like the following:
- Check that all equipment is in good condition
- Check that all areas are clean and free of debris
- Check that all materials are properly placed
- Check that all workers are following instructions
By following a checklist like this, the frontline manager will be able to ensure that the warehouse is always clean and in compliance with company standards.
Originally published at https://www.yankeesupply.com on February 13, 2023.
