Investing in New Equipment Means Investing in Staffing Employees Who Can Use It
October 16, 2013 | Staffing Blog
All business owners know to keep their operations running efficiently and quickly, they need the best equipment. Whether it’s a new software system for the warehouse, a new forklift or a fleet of new vehicles, these purchases are part of doing business – and they aren’t cheap.
Companies can invest thousands and even millions of dollars in system and equipment upgrades and replacements. But what they often fail to take into account is who will be operating that new forklift or who will learn the intricacies of a new automated tracking system for the warehouse.
This is particularly important if you use temporary employees for Light Industrial Staffing, whether on a regular basis or during peaks in your business cycle. Do those employees have the skills to work with the equipment you use? Do they have the capacity to quickly learn a new computer program?
We’ve recently been working with a business on a custom staffing solution that included better training on how to use a very specific forklift. We’ve seen great results just by modifying the employee training. All the fancy and expensive equipment won’t help your business one bit if the employees aren’t able to use it efficiently.
This exact point came up in a recent article posted on the Material Handling & Logistics blog. The author points out that the Price Tag of a new lift truck could be $15,000 to $50,000 but that more than 70% of the Cost is about who’s driving that truck. The author notes, “Labor drives lift trucks and their costs. That’s why you’ll never know what your lift trucks cost unless you crunch the numbers they generate.”
The same goes for calculating the costs of the temporary staffing employees you hire to drive that lift truck, a fork lift or operate any machine in your business. If you’ve invested a lot of money in your equipment, why would you cut corners on the Staffing Solution? Is it worth saving $2 an hour per employee only to pay much more in equipment repairs because the employee damaged the truck?
At Allegiance Staffing, we ensure Temporary Staffing employees have the skills you need. Our 3-day Hiring Process allows us to carefully screen applicants so only the skilled, reliable and trustworthy staffers make it to your place of business.
Don’t let yourself get taken in by the promise of a low hourly wage only to realize the temporary employee hired to drive the forklift doesn’t know how to drive it. There goes your “savings” eaten up by lost productivity.
Instead, think about why you bought this new forklift or computer system – to make your workplace more efficient. Shouldn’t that same line of thinking impact how you hire the people using the new forklift or computer system?
