The Little Things

Watching the last couple of nights of Olympic Swimming, one of the key phrases that Rowdy Gaines keeps coming back to is that each US swimmer needs to make sure they do each of “the little things” absolutely correct to ensure their chances of medaling. This was really reinforced during the Men’s 200 Freestyle finals in which Ryan Lochte took 4th. Gaines said that Lochte did all of the little things, with the exception of the final "little thing" - swimming through his last stroke at the finish, which probably lost him a visit to the medal podium.

It got me thinking of two recent onsite visits to facilities to observe and measure job tasks for the purpose of creating customized job descriptions. At each site, there was a good lesson to be learned about doing “the little things”.

At the first site, “the little things” lesson came from a discussion in the site supervisor’s office before we even went out into the railyard. At this facility, the employees are responsible for moving the cargo containers that travel by train and truck to deliver consumer goods around the country. It’s a fairly straightforward job for most of the employees who either move trailers around the yard to be loaded/unloaded from the train cars or to be picked up by the truck drivers who will drive them to their next destination or by lift equipment operators who handle the cranes used to move the cargo containers between the rail cars and the trailers. While it’s fairly straightforward, when this facility hires new employees, the site manager sits with each of them while they watch all of the required safety videos, sits with them while they take the appropriate quizzes, and then works hand in hand with them until they are cleared for use of the equipment. Keep in mind that while he does this, the mountain of routine paperwork continues to grow on his desk. Why does he sit with them as they watch the videos? Because it helps to reinforce the fact that safety is his primary concern when it comes to his employees getting their job completed, everyday – no matter the job load or weather conditions. And he has been extremely successful with this. The number of man hours and cargo containers moved between injuries is amazing – it makes the megamillions prize look small. But, that’s because they put a priority on those little things from "day one, minute one" of each employee’s time with them.

At the second site, we had been watching warehouse employees start a long shift of loading pallets with different cases of beer to be sent out to liquor stores as well as some superstore warehouses that have liquor licenses. I watched one of the employees ask for his co-worker to use one of the forklifts to lift one of the pallets from which they were picking. Using the forklift brought the task from floor height to waist height – smart from an ergonomic perspective and from a musculoskeletal injury prevention perspective (and something that we try to reinforce when we do back safety and material handling lectures). During a few minutes of downtime, I asked him about using the forklift to lift the pallet. He responded that he does that because he’s had previous surgery to a knee and a previous rotator cuff repair in one of his shoulders and if he doesn’t do that, he’ll feel it by the end of each shift. His goal is not to just survive each work shift, but to be able to enjoy his everyday life. He said that he’s learned the little things that allow him to be as efficient in the last hour of a shift as he is during his first.

Our jobs, whether as an Olympic athlete or as an “industrial athlete” are made up of those “little things” that determine whether we make the medal stand or make it from shift to shift without injury. Make sure that those “little things” become a daily attention item. Give us a call at (732) 741-5085 and we can help you to identify those "little things" that can help you and your employees perform better.