Recruiting and Retaining Your Maintenance Team

Technicians capable of keeping your fleet of forklifts and other equipment running could possibly be the most important personnel of a warehouse. That’s because they make sure that forklifts are up and running, not down and under repair.

Moreover, with forklifts and other warehouse equipment becoming more sophisticated and more of a reconnaissance machine to gather data on warehouse operations, having and retaining good technicians to maintain these machines have become imperative to being a successful operation.

However, the experience of warehouse managers shows that finding and then keeping technicians is not an easy endeavor. Material handling maintenance technicians appear to be like nomads who learn the trade from one warehouse and then break away to help develop new equipment or to go off and start their own business.

The successful supply chain businesses are those that have created a foolproof way of identifying and recruiting good technicians and then figuring out ways to keep them.

The successful companies have learned the trick of successful recruiting, training, and retention.

For example, companies have discovered that there are three different areas to target to recruit good technicians. They include military technicians who are now leaving the Armed Forces and looking for civilian employment. Companies have taken advantage of ways to promote a word of mouth campaign that reaches military technicians whose service time is coming to an end. Some may be fortunate enough to have ex-servicemen on their payroll who still have connections to that reservoir of military technicians.

Another source of possible technician hires are those who may be getting laid off due to adverse economic issues being experienced by their employers.

A third source is the students who are graduating from technical schools. By building a relationship with local tech schools, a company-seeking technicians can influence a school’s curriculum to better prepare students for specific tech jobs they need filled. Companies have been known to arrange field trips of tech school students to their facilities and sending personnel into classrooms to give presentations as part of a recruitment program.

Once the technician has been recruited, then companies must have a reliable training program to make sure they are well verse in the way the company does business. Such a program will make certain that recruits have the knowledge necessary to deal with the new equipment the company uses and prepare them for the new technologies coming.

It is not unusual for a company to have a 12 to 16 week training program that consists of classroom and hands-on work. For example, the program can include training in hydraulics. Although they have probably studied hydraulics in the tech schools they attended, the new recruits may need assistance on how to apply what they know to real world circumstances. Such study can include classroom discussion as well as hands-on work in the field under strict supervision. The supervision can then be gradually withdrawn as the recruit shows he can be self-sufficient.

Next, the successful company has to be serious about developing a program that encourages good technicians to stay with the company. Such tactics as giving raises in salary based on merit reviews has proven to work. Another tactic that has worked is to recognize successful technicians and award them for their work. Awards can include bonuses and even paid overnight trips with their spouse. Such programs cultivate loyalty and can help to encourage good technicians to stay with a company.