Pay warehousing employees a competitive wage. Provide a good package of benefits. Both are a good start to limiting turnover and retaining the best warehouse associates and top-performing managers. But what else can be done to keep the people you need?

Quite a bit, say those who run private warehouses and distribution centers or third-party logistics (3PL) facilities.

Warehousing managers need to hire good people, for openers. But they also need a good orientation program, and up-to- date training (including cross-training) for new hires and people experienced in the job. Other important steps include use of meaningful metrics to measure performance, and recognition programs for higher productivity and jobs well done.

'By matching the right employees to the right jobs out of the gate, you significantly improve your chances of hanging on to the best employees,' maintains Mark Swenson, executive vice president, TMSi, Inc. (603-422-0777).

TMSi is a 3PL firm. Yet with roots as a firm for executive recruitment and temporary help, explains Swenson, TMSi has worked with behavioral consultants to develop ways to screen candidates for managerial slots. Prospects now fill out detailed questionnaires tailored to each supervisory position- warehouse manager, fleet dispatcher, and the like. The questionnaires measure how a candidate's personal attributes match those of the ideal candidate.

Once new hires are on the payroll, however, your job has just begun. 'Management's job is always to keep the best performers,' says Mike Flamer, vice president, the Dorfman Group (480-860-8820). That's a challenge, however, and particularly so for hourly workers. 'Typically, turnover rates at the warehouse associate level run 15% to 25% a year,' says Flamer.

One way to lose good people is by failing to orient them properly to company culture and to a specific job. Following a 'welcome aboard' from TMSi with company hats, t-shirts and sweatshirts, new hires undergo mandatory orientation for 90 days. Each gets a mentor and receives critical training. Over 90 days TMSi tracks the new hire's performance and morale in what Swenson calls 'the make or break' period.

Training needs to continue, moreover, says Swenson. 'Employee stagnation is a crime. It's unacceptable.' TMSi customizes training for each employee.

'We're very big on cross-training,' says Bruce Mantz, director of operations at 3PL Automated Distribution Systems (732-287-8900). 'When activity slows in one area we move people to where the problems are, where it's busy,' says the 3PL executive. If an associate has no experience in the new area, says Mantz, 'we put him or her with one of our best operators for training.'

Part of the responsibility for retaining employees rests with the immediate supervisor. Good people will quit when they report to a poor manager with whom they can't build a positive relationship. In the Gallup Organization management book, 'First, Break All the Rules' (Simon & Schuster) the authors M. Buckingham and C.W. Coffman argue that people join companies, but leave managers. Poor managers, that is.

Yet even good supervisors can lose good people. 'Managers, and especially short-staffed ones, may be stretched too thin. They can become so tied up in data entry and fire-fighting tasks, for example, that they aren't out on the warehouse floor often enough,' suggests consultant Fred J. Kimball, Distribution Design (800-679-3233).

When that's the case any warehouse associate has good reason to question how a supervisor can really write a performance review, maintains Kimball. In contrast, more 'face time' out on the floor 'helps create a higher level of trust and builds a better relationship,' he says.

Often, moreover, supervisors have too many people to oversee, he adds. In one DC, for example, the manager tried to supervise 116 individuals. That's far, far too many, says Kimball. Overseeing 15 to 20 associates is about right. 'Then they get the attention they deserve.'

ADS' Mantz concurs, saying the number of direct reports should be around 15, even though a 15:1 ratio may be a tough sell to upper management. At ADS, he adds, it's all about 'good, old-fashioned employee/management relations. You have to stay connected with your work force.'

Connecting also means that associates deserve to be guided by meaningful metrics that they readily understand and relate directly to their jobs, Kimball maintains. One firm 'made a big deal out of freight costs as a percentage of sales,' he recalls. Another DC reported errors to associates in parts per million. Such metrics are 'inappropriate' and meaningless to associates, he says. Instead, metrics like lines picked per hour or boxes packed per shift make far more sense.

'Metrics also should not be so rigid that they ignore the reality of swings in volumes,' Kimball says. 'Let people coast a bit on days with lower throughput requirements. Don't focus on the lower productivity for these days. It's inevitable.'

Offering incentive pay may be a way to raise productivity while you lower turnover. It's important that the metrics be the right ones for incentives to work. Realize, moreover, that incentives may not work for every company and its products or for every job position. Simple rewards may suffice. Throw a pizza party at times, says Kimball. Provide free flu shots, adds Mantz.

An incentive pay program requires engineered standards, says Mantz. At his 3PL, it's difficult to set up incentives based on standards when there are so many differences in waves of varied products flowing through the DC- shoes in one wave, towels in another, for instance. Instead, there are group and individual rewards when ADS objectives are met such as cartons received or shipped.

Competitive pay and benefits and more-running a low-turnover warehouse or DC takes effort and talent from both employee and manager.

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