6 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Janitorial Team for Material Handling

Material handling is a fundamental function for many industries. Without efficient material handling systems and workers, businesses would lack the ability to send and receive important supplies, allocate resources optimally, properly plan production schedules, manage inventory, and more. Businesses that cannot handle all of these duties in-house must seek experienced, well-trained, well-equipped material handling specialists. Certain janitorial companies include material handling as part of their service offerings. Before hiring just any company, though, you must ensure that they meet and/or exceed several key requirements. Here are six questions to ask when hiring a janitorial team for material handling.
  1. Is Your Team Well-Trained?
When hiring any individual or team, experience and training are among the first and most important factors to consider. Partnering up with a material handling team is no exception. As a whole, material handling requires a great deal of physical and mental fortitude, both of which are refined by proper training and experience. The team you hire should be familiar with all relevant equipment and systems, deeply understand the principles of material handling, be able to handle the physical aspects of the job, and more. If some team members lack certain training, they should be able to receive the required instruction when necessary.
  1. What is the Average Weight Your Team Can Carry on an Individual Basis?
Though physicality is only one of many aspects of material handling, physical fitness is a requirement for the job. Generally speaking, handlers will be tasked with carrying and lifting objects that weigh between 25 and 70 lbs. on a regular basis, which requires significant stamina, strength, and overall health. Those who struggle to meet these requirements may be suited for other parts of material handling (i.e. planning, equipment operation, etc.), but your team must feature an adequate number of members who can meet or surpass these standards.
  1. What Equipment is Your Team Trained and Certified to Use?
Various vehicles and pieces of equipment are staples in the realm of material handling and trash removal, such as forklifts, pallet jacks, pallet trucks, and trolleys. These resources increase efficiency and output of material handling processes, allowing workers to move greater amounts and weights more safely and in less time. So, before hiring hauling services, make sure their team is well-versed in properly operating all relevant equipment, and officially certified in the necessary areas.
  1. Does Your Team Have Adequate Computer/Systems Experience?
As mentioned earlier, material handling is in large part a logical, analytical, strategic field. Beyond merely lifting and transporting objects, proper material handling is about optimizing all processes for space, safety, and environmental impact. To aid in this systemization, material handling teams must utilize computers and specialized software that makes predictive analysis based on inputted data and algorithms. If the team you’re considering lacks these skills or experience, your material handling processes will lack efficiency and possibly harm your operation.
  1. Do You Have any Specializations?
Though most industries require material handling, each industry and facility deals with unique materials that sometimes require special knowledge to properly transport or dispose of. For instance, most medical facilities receive, send, and manage sensitive materials such as needles and medicine. The material handlers you hire must be already certified to deal with these particular products or be able to learn the necessary handling methods. If they have previous specializations not relevant to your industry, this at least displays an aptitude for taking on specific responsibilities and challenges.
  1. What are Your Safety Protocols?
The janitorial services you hire for material handling must make safety a priority, both for the well-being of all personnel (theirs and yours) and for liability reasons. Warehouses and industrial facilities feature several hazards, and the job of material handling is potentially hazardous in its own right. As such, your team must be aware of all necessary safety procedures and precautions as well as have access to/an understanding of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Material handling is a multi-faceted and important field of work. Make sure you hire the best janitorial services with the proper qualifications for the job. At The Budd Group, we identify, background check, hire, and train full- and part-time employees in a variety of production areas, such as assembly workers, forklift operators, inspectors, material handlers, and more. To learn more about our material handling offerings and everything else we can do for your facility, give us a call today at 800-221-8158!

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