Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes on the shop floor

The Mountains2Metal shipping department has a long way to go in its reorganization.

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes is a pretty simple concept. It makes me think of job shadowing, when a student is required to find someone to shadow at work for a day and then write a report about it.

Nearly everyone reading this has heard someone complain about engineers designing products that are difficult for shop floor workers to produce. In those cases, it’s often because the engineers don’t put themselves in the shoes—the real-world job situations—of the shop workers. Sometimes, good engineers just have to get out there and get their hands dirty with the field workers to understand how their designs can simplify their co-workers’ jobs—or have the opposite effect.

The Outsider’s Perspective

At this moment, in my shop, I am putting myself in someone else’s shoes by helping to cover for a worker who is absent.

Recently, we’ve had a couple change-ups in the Mountains2Metal packing and shipping department. My sister Denee has been helping to get everything organized for more than a year now alongside another co-worker. Denee has been having some problems with her hands, and we knew she was going to be out several weeks to get them worked on. We were preparing for the worst and hoping for the best leading up to her leave. Little did we know that the other worker who had been there for a few years would leave us without notice at nearly the same time.

I could go on about that situation, but I will save that for a rainy day. We all knew she was not happy; she made a choice to leave, so the show must go on. Times like these are a good reason to get your hands dirty and see what you can do to make someone else’s job easier and more effective. I was just about as excited as I was scared to get involved with this task.

We have several new products that we’re trying to launch, and this was not the ideal situation for me or anyone else in the shop. We were all going to feel it. So I guess you have to take it in stride and make the most of it!

For the most part, I know how to do everything involved with the Mountains2Metal side of our business. I may not be the best at some aspects, but that is why I built a team around the brand. We are a small team, but I feel like we’re a good team.

Luckily, my co-worker Ashley Duran, who does our advertising and marketing, was able to work with Denee for a few days before her temporary departure from the shop. I knew it would be good for Ashley to see other sides of the business that she works with but might not know much about.

One task that Ashley was given was to update the packing procedures manual for all our products. It lists all the necessary parts and hardware and how to put them in a box properly, and we’ve released several new products in the last year that weren’t yet included in the manual. This is the type of task that’s good for an outsider, because that person will ask questions like Why do you do it that way? and What if you did it this way? It sounds so simple, but sometimes you have to move a limb to see some light through the forest.

Room for Improvement

Now, the shipping and packaging department was basically empty until we found some more help for Denee. So Ashley was on her own, putting shipping labels on boxes, and I would answer any questions she had. On a recent Friday, we had a couple large orders come in and didn’t have a whole lot of time to get them out the door. Together, as we were tackling the orders, we both had the feeling that it was quite a bit of work, and to be honest, it kinda sucked.

We started to see areas that needed to be improved and knew we needed to pull the trigger on a shipping plug-in that would help solve some packing problems. We had been keeping track of some monetary losses on certain shipping orders, and we had plenty of data to help sway the decision. Numbers don’t lie, and they can really smack you in the face when you see them come to life right in front of your eyes. We lost more than $100 on two orders just in shipping costs. It was time to upgrade.

Denee has been doing a great job getting that whole department organized to make getting orders out much easier. While she’s away, if we can find anything more to help her and her future apprentice out, we will surely do so. I hope whoever fills the role alongside her will be just as open to improvement and new ideas as she and the rest of the current team are. What I’ve learned when brainstorming any product or task in the shop is that any shared idea can open up a different path in your brain and lead to some great outcomes.

A Case for Job Shadowing

Whether you’re an engineer, a marketing specialist, a shop floor worker, or the boss, experiencing another environment in your own workplace is eye opening and kind of therapeutic. I have a few ideas running through my head to implement some job shadowing experiences in other areas of the shop. Who knows what can of worms that will open?!

Knowledge shared is often knowledge gained, especially if the dirt sticks to your hands. Now, we have several more weeks ahead of us before Denee is back to work 100%, and we are looking forward to it.