What a Difference a Year Makes
Apr. 4th, 2022 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI’ve been wasting a _lot_ of time on the warehouse component of logistics — listening to The New Warehouse podcast, some other podcasts, poking around on the web. (I’m very excited about Phantom Auto specifically, and, in general, about the trend to automation and robotics in warehouses that collaborate with workers). I’ve also been trying to figure out how to ask some questions that I’ve wondered about for a really long time, but never had any way to research. (Mostly these can be summarized as: is omnichannel only aspirational, or is that actually meaningfully attainable? I harbor a strong suspicion that omnichannel presents massive problems for executive attention, and different profit margins may also be an insurmountable sticking point. HOWEVER, recently I’ve started to wonder if the real problem lies in the incompatibility of arranging DCs for onesies and twosies vs assortment lots for store stocking. And then I realized just how little inventory tracking the physical store orientation had embedded in it, so there’s a massive retrofit cost, and of course physical stores have customers continuously randomizing the inventory . . .)
Anyway. I’ve stumbled across all kinds of astonishing bullshit that is not in any way answering my questions but is … astonishing bullshit. Random statistics like: half of all warehouses are single location operations. One third of all warehouses have no automation at all. The other two thirds have highly idiosyncratic automation, and the only shared component is … telnet (yeah, I listened to that episode twice and then did more poking around).
But never mind that now! One of Amazon’s DC’s in New York successfully voted in a union. That’s amazing! I mean, people keep saying what an awful employer is. Of course, they’re hiring a bunch of people _away_ from other jobs, which does raise a whole host of questions (if Amazon is so terrible, just imagine what the previous employer must have been like!) (also, if Amazon is so terrible, why would you want to stay?). And I accidentally found an answer!
Here are two articles on the topic of warehouse employee turnover. One is from February 2021. The other is from February 2022, both from Kane Logistics.
https://www.kanelogistics.com/blog/high-warehouse-employee-turnover
In this entry, 2021, Kane says their turnover is lower than industry average but does not specify, and they pooh-pooh the idea of, you know, giving the employees a raise. They rave instead about very minor gifts to the employees. Their assessment of the cost of replacing an employee is $7K.
https://www.kanelogistics.com/blog/warehouse-labor-the-real-cost-of-warehouse-worker-turnover
A year later, their turnover number is supplied, they are _all over_ the raises (including matching pay for the people who stick around to the new hires, and committing to ongoing raises for everyone), and the assessment of the cost of replacing an employee has gone up to $8500.
In both articles, they are putting a lot of the blame for the churn, and the difficulty of hiring and retaining employees, squarely on Amazon competing for workers in the same pool.
I’m always happy to see workers get more money, and better treatment. If that means a union, good for them. If that means enough people hopping job to job until the employers figure out maybe they should pay more, well, good for them there, too.
I was _also_ interested to see that warehouse churn is identified as contributing to slower loading time for trucks. Truck drivers don’t get paid for waiting at the loading dock. The media coverage of how awful it is to be a truck driver has not yet made the leap to, oh, hey, what’s going on in the warehouse is having an impact on the truck driver’s life. I imagine that’ll start showing up in the next little bit. About the time they figure that out, maybe they will notice Amazon Freight.
Anyway. I’ve stumbled across all kinds of astonishing bullshit that is not in any way answering my questions but is … astonishing bullshit. Random statistics like: half of all warehouses are single location operations. One third of all warehouses have no automation at all. The other two thirds have highly idiosyncratic automation, and the only shared component is … telnet (yeah, I listened to that episode twice and then did more poking around).
But never mind that now! One of Amazon’s DC’s in New York successfully voted in a union. That’s amazing! I mean, people keep saying what an awful employer is. Of course, they’re hiring a bunch of people _away_ from other jobs, which does raise a whole host of questions (if Amazon is so terrible, just imagine what the previous employer must have been like!) (also, if Amazon is so terrible, why would you want to stay?). And I accidentally found an answer!
Here are two articles on the topic of warehouse employee turnover. One is from February 2021. The other is from February 2022, both from Kane Logistics.
https://www.kanelogistics.com/blog/high-warehouse-employee-turnover
In this entry, 2021, Kane says their turnover is lower than industry average but does not specify, and they pooh-pooh the idea of, you know, giving the employees a raise. They rave instead about very minor gifts to the employees. Their assessment of the cost of replacing an employee is $7K.
https://www.kanelogistics.com/blog/warehouse-labor-the-real-cost-of-warehouse-worker-turnover
A year later, their turnover number is supplied, they are _all over_ the raises (including matching pay for the people who stick around to the new hires, and committing to ongoing raises for everyone), and the assessment of the cost of replacing an employee has gone up to $8500.
In both articles, they are putting a lot of the blame for the churn, and the difficulty of hiring and retaining employees, squarely on Amazon competing for workers in the same pool.
I’m always happy to see workers get more money, and better treatment. If that means a union, good for them. If that means enough people hopping job to job until the employers figure out maybe they should pay more, well, good for them there, too.
I was _also_ interested to see that warehouse churn is identified as contributing to slower loading time for trucks. Truck drivers don’t get paid for waiting at the loading dock. The media coverage of how awful it is to be a truck driver has not yet made the leap to, oh, hey, what’s going on in the warehouse is having an impact on the truck driver’s life. I imagine that’ll start showing up in the next little bit. About the time they figure that out, maybe they will notice Amazon Freight.