Ben Green COO TrailPath Workplace Solutions
Summary
This podcast episode is an interview with Ben Green, the COO of Trail Path Workplace Solutions. The company focuses on bridging Process Excellence with People Excellence in order to optimize the workplace, particularly in the logistics and warehouse industry. They offer a technology-based subscription service called "Next Path" that measures employee performance and engagement in real-time, helping leaders to better understand and connect with their workforce. The company also provides coaching and training services to ensure businesses are effectively utilizing the technology and creating a culture of NextPath is an AI-powered platform designed to help supervisors manage and lead a diverse labor force. It provides real-time signals and visibility to issues that arise in the workplace, allowing leaders to address and solve problems in the moment. This is important because workshops and one-off initiatives can fade and do not always stick, and because leaders in the logistics and warehouse industry are often focused on managing performance rather than developing their teams. New supervisors in this industry often face challenges they were not expecting, such as being A lot of companies struggle with how to best communicate information about pay, promotions, and other HR processes to their employees. Often, managers are not adequately prepared to have these conversations and end up struggling to keep up with competing priorities. To address this, it's important for companies to set clear expectations for leadership activities and provide support for managers to actively engage with their team members. Technology solutions like Next Path can help measure and track interactions and participation in the workplace, leading to more effective communication and leadership. Sandi:Ben: Next Pathway is a company that offers a technology platform to help leaders communicate with and understand their team members better. It uses data and analysis to identify obstacles and enable leaders to have the right interactions with their team members at the right time. This approach helps to standardize operations and improve performance across the organization. Next Pathway also helps leaders identify team member career goals and facilitate conversations around career growth. It emphasizes that a one-size-fits-all approach is not effective, The podcast host interviews Ben Green from Trail Path Workplace Solutions, a company that helps organizations improve their workplace through real-time feedback and communication. The platform allows for effective interactions between team members and leaders, addressing issues and showcasing the value of employees. They discuss how this can improve the overall performance and culture of an organization. Interested individuals can follow the company on LinkedIn or contact them through their website for more information. The guest also mentions their plans for future development and participation in industry conferences. The host
Transcription
Ben Hopkins
[00.00.07]
Hey everyone,
Ben Green
[00.00.08]
thanks for tuning in to another episode at the Warehouse Underground podcast, Real Talk Warehouse DC and FC professionals of
Ben Hopkins
[00.00.16]
all levels around the globe. I'm Ben, I'm the host of the show and joining me today is Ben
Ben Green
[00.00.22]
Green. He is the chief operations officer at Trail Path Workplace Solutions bridging Process Excellence with People Excellence to optimize your workplace. Now, in the world of warehouses and DCS, as everybody knows, leadership, engagement, development of the staff, managing the labor force is a huge part of it.
Ben Hopkins
[00.00.44]
Everyone, everyone wants to know how am I going to reduce turnover? How am I going to increase throughput, how am I going to get more performance and all that? So there are always a lot of opinions about how best to go about doing this. But now there's a lot of technology that's coming on that can help with this. That was not always there before. And blending the two technology and leadership is starting to happen. And Trail pass workplace Solutions is right there in that space. So they're up and coming in the market. And I'm really excited to talk with Ben today to learn more about what they do, how they can help operations, and how they can really improve the leadership and the engagement at the floor level all across the country. So with that, I will bring him on the stage. Ben. Ben. Afternoon. Thank you very much. Yeah. Great day, by the way. Great name I
Ben Green
[00.01.37]
know.
Ben Hopkins
[00.01.38]
Thank you very much for joining the show. How are you, man?
Ben Green
[00.01.41]
I'm doing fantastic. It's nice and warm here in Cincinnati, Ohio today, which is so perfect time of year. So thanks for having us. Beautiful day to do this. Yeah,
Ben Hopkins
[00.01.50]
absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I wish I wish I could do the show outside. I wish there was a way for me to do this podcast outside. I need to, I need I need to look at that. But but you're right. So. Well cool. So I gave a little bit of a introduction to you and what you're doing today with a trail path, but can you just tell the audience a little bit about your background and the industry? First, kind of, you know, what you've worked on, how you came to be and what was your journey like to where you are today?
Ben Green
[00.02.18]
No, that's. That's fine. Thanks. Thanks again for having us on. And so specifically with me. And, and I'll kind of mention my partners too, as we've gotten into this year. Um, so like I said, is I'm CEO of Trail Path Workplace Solutions. And so what we're really trying to do is bridge people and processes together, which I'm sure we'll get inside, uh, on, you know, on crack that during this podcast today. But my background is in logistics, supply chain operations, three PL. So I spent about 20 years working for, uh, small, medium and then large three PL organizations, but inside the warehouses, um, inside of manufacturing as well. And one of those things we, we really found, and I know we'll get into this here in a few seconds. Is that what's happening on the floor? And then what's happening inside of the project rooms and the strategies of the organizations, and sometimes couldn't be further from what's how people are perceiving these things. And so, you know, organizations have been fighting this forever. And so now we have some ability to use technology to assist us in all of this. So, um, as I exited out of the logistics world, I said, there's just got to be a better way. Um, with our partners, how can we use technology to really help people grow and thrive inside the workplaces, as well as organizations continue to grow and thrive as well? It's it's an ecosystem that we're trying to accomplish. And so that's where over that 20 years of experience and and being in a little bit and consulting in the warehouse world and seeing hundreds of different operations and organizations, that's what sparked a trail path, uh, to kind of evolve and then build some technology to help assist, um, but not replace the human interaction piece of leadership and operational excellence inside of warehouses. Yeah, yeah.
Ben Hopkins
[00.04.09]
Very cool. Now, let me ask this to you. Now the the podcast is the warehouse underground and I, I have most of the following is working in warehouses in DCS and FCS. But there is some bleed over in manufacturing sometimes too. And a couple of other things. But you know, what are the ops that you are focused on? Who's your bread and butter. I mean is it is it only warehouse distribution? Do you do you branch out in other areas? Like where where are you right now and kind of who does this
Ben Green
[00.04.37]
apply to. Yeah. So so Ben great question. So the reality is is our solution really works for anywhere where there's frontline workforce. However, that being said, our background and understanding logistics in the 3D world and specifically in the warehouse distribution environment, that's super transactional in a lot of ways, which then keeps how we treat our team members. A lot of times is super transactional, just because that's the nature of the contracts, even though that's not necessarily what all organizations are espousing to be, they want to do the right thing for their people, but they don't necessarily know how. So with that is, as we have grown and evolved, um, our bread and butter is the frontline workforce of the logistics warehousing world. However, to your point is, there's that bleed over manufacturing because that's a frontline workforce. And and really think about nursing and bank tellers and retail like those are all frontline workforce that are very transactional sometimes in the roles um, and, but not necessarily how the organizations want to treat them. But that's just how it all works down through, you know, contracts set up. So, um, that's why we're excited, as you and I have gotten to know each other, um, just from the bleed over of everything is because you live in this world, and and that's our background. And so. Yeah. One of the cool things about management and leading folks and developing folks and all that is that it's universal. In a lot of cases, it it applies in the warehousing world, obviously, but any place that there is performance and metrics and and tasks that need to happen, a lot of that stuff
Ben Hopkins
[00.06.14]
applies to everything. And and so I think that's a that's a beautiful part of it. Safety is kind of that way too. Yeah. Safety kind of crosses all boundaries. So now with so I've been to your website and the website's really cool. And I guess I kind of want to clarify and really kind of clarify for the audience too, because, you know, you have a leadership background. You've you've led a lot of different people at a lot of different levels and kind of taught on that. And you have a tech solution. So next path trademark solution that people will see if they go to your website. So but is it is it just the tech solution that we are talking about here or is it more than that? Is there more that comes comes with this. Like what's the what's the consumer or what's the customer getting when they when they decide to work
Ben Green
[00.07.01]
with you? Yeah. No. So, Ben, thanks. Thanks for that question too. So the next part is, is our, you know, bread and butter product. So and we're going to dive into this about technology is how when you think about inside a warehouse, you know we know where every box is. Every widget is how many times it's been touched. We hope we have the life. Yeah. The life cycle of this. We know the trucks and the schedule that they're supposed to be coming in and. And how many picks per hour our team members are supposed to be doing. Because we can we can do that all through all these solutions. But where we really struggle inside of these warehouses is how do we have the same measurements and at the same real time about our people and how they're doing and performing from how they feel to where they have obstacles in their work to help us help them grow and thrive. So next path is our is our technology solution, um, subscription based, no contract. Right? This is about doing what's right for the people there. So if it doesn't work, we want it to work for the organizations that are using it. Um, but it is how we can start reducing other tech stacks and maybe not adding the value that we think they're going to be adding, combine them into our performance or WMS systems and really start measuring how our people are doing down to the level of. How do I feel today that what kind of projects am I do I have for I. Obstacles and ideas inside the warehouse. So this is more than just an engagement platform. It's it's a participation platform for our team members. So now we can see how they're participating inside the work. Give those signals to the leaders. It's been when you think about it, there's five different generations inside the workplace today that went five very different things. Um, so the platform and how we lead has to be unique to each team member that we have. Uh, some want to talk to us every single day and get reassurance. Others just want to make sure that the scan gun works and they're going to go home and do a good job. And for us. So how do we blend that from a leadership trait? So kind of circling back to your question there a little bit is uh, trail path. Workplace solutions are our product is next. However with that we know that just like everything else, uh, as you're using things, you want the kind of trainer mentality and the approach. So we have a trained trainer kind of coaching sessions that for some of those organizations that like it to help make sure that they're building those habits and, and leading at the level, the next part that's going to get done to. So.
Ben Hopkins
[00.09.34]
Yeah. And then sometimes it seems like if you go to a big trade show, if you go to the Pro mart or the Moto X or those type things, there is so much technology in there. They're they're everywhere. They're everywhere. And there's software that can do everything and all kinds of stuff. But it's almost always on the warehouse management side, you know, labor management. Like there's there's not quite as much for this area. You know, pure management and leading. Oh that that's over in the corner. And the far back of, of modes is where that stuff is. The main trade show is on all the companies. But it's crazy, though, because the biggest headache that a lot of leaders or supervisors will say they have is ultimately with exactly what you said, just managing and leading this diverse labor force of all walks of life, all demographics, all ages and that that's challenging. And it's not always cookie cutter. It's not always easy to learn. So it's very cool that you guys are right in that space, offering a tool, you know, to help people do that. I really like
Ben Green
[00.10.44]
that. No thanks though. And as you get into this. Right. So you think about it today, everything's very siloed, especially in this world. We have our HR business partner that's going to run an engagement survey that, you know, some the level of engagement. And that is going to be a suspect at best because either team members are just going to go click the button to make the boss look good if they like their boss, or click the button to make the boss battle if they don't like their boss. And then that goes to the HR business partner. And I'm generalizing this obviously, as I'm sure some organizations do a good job, it takes a month to go through all the data, and then it gets thrown back over the fence to the leader to go fix. Um, or the leadership team to go fix without any actual practical solutions about what they should be going to do and and what the problems on the day to day basis that the team members are actually facing. So when you think about what we're trying to do with the next part is how do you get real time signals that in the moment, as a leader, well, I've got to make sure 40 trucks go out the door in the next hour, and I can't find a part inside the warehouse right now. And all of a sudden you have an issue inside work. How do you get real time visibility to that? So I can go lead at the right moment with the right interaction with the right individual. And so that's where the next path is there to help us assist with, um, it's not there to replace leadership activities because leadership activities at the end of the day are interpersonal skills that we know to make sure that we're having. I'm not going to stay because of a chat bot at an organization, but a good leader and a leader that's helping remove obstacles or help me facilitate removing obstacles inside the work. Help me grow at the pace that I want to grow and engage at the engagement that I want to have. That's the place that I'm going to go stay.
Ben Hopkins
[00.12.34]
Yeah. I mean, no, no, no technology is ever going to fully replace leading on the floor in this industry. I don't I think we are never going to get there. That's just that's just my prediction. And so any tool that can supplement that is is welcome. But I don't think it's ever going to be seen as a full replacement. I mean people are
Ben Green
[00.12.54]
absolutely. Yeah. Technology the the HR chatbots and stuff that are being, you know, the turn in the tickets and things like that. Those are actually a lot of times lead to a lot of frustration because now you're waiting. All right. Um, so it's I want to talk to my leader. At the time, it's appropriate to talk to my leader. Um, and at the end of the day, when a corporate initiative comes down, the first person you go talk to after your buddy is your frontline supervisor about it, because at one point, it was your buddy, uh, or she was your buddy. And so you they have to know how what signals. They have to make sure that we're consistent in communication, talking to our people, and then undercover, uncovering where those obstacles exist inside the workplace. Yeah,
Ben Hopkins
[00.13.39]
absolutely. I mean, so, like, I, I, uh, like I said earlier, I visit your website, I put the, I put the website link up on the scroll down there and on there, one of the quotes that is there that, that I really like is this. And it is workshops end and one off initiatives fade. But because most improvement efforts happen outside the work, they don't stick. So tell me a little bit about what what you mean by that. I mean what's the sort of the takeaway from, from that quote and how it applies to what you do?
Ben Green
[00.14.17]
Yeah. Um, and the reason we, I, I personally love this quote so much because it's, it's been my life at certain times. I've gone to really good leadership seminars are really good continuous improvement seminars or workshops. And at the end of the day, when I come back to my job after I learned all this stuff is I get back to my, my job. And the first thing is three people called off or four people, you know, truck is late and doesn't show up. And so while you have some nuggets about how to handle those things in situations, it throws you for a loop, changes your priorities, and then all of a sudden you forget about the four other leadership activities you should have been doing in that day. And because we got to handle those. So next that, you know, hour is around, hey, if I only have time to take care of one of these leadership activities, this is the most important because the especially in the logistics and warehouse world were measured on performance or contracts are measured on performance more than anywhere else. And so the role of the leader. Is especially difficult because you're managing the performance of the warehouse while you're trying to lead people. And and at the end of the day, we're always going to default to taking care of getting that truck out on the road because there's contractual, you know, there's going to be some contractual advantages or disadvantages if we don't get that truck moving by loading the parts on the truck or picking the sequencing as it gets in there.
Ben Hopkins
[00.15.45]
And so
Ben Green
[00.15.46]
this is where next path comes in, is it's just the consistency personal trainer tool that's going to say here's what's next in line for you. This is becoming urgent. It's going to send signals to get help between you and your peers. So that way we can help each other from an ecosystem of creating an environment for our team members to grow and thrive. And you've heard me say that a few times, but that's where if if people are growing and thriving, they're more likely to stay inside your organization and somebody that's constantly surviving every single day.
Ben Hopkins
[00.16.16]
Yeah, absolutely. And and I think it's, uh,
Ben Green
[00.16.20]
it's a little bit of a trick for, for some supervisors out there where they think, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm so busy. There's so much stuff going on that I neglect developing my team. I neglect developing my labor force because I have to solve all these problems. Well, if you
Ben Hopkins
[00.16.38]
didn't neglect your team, if you developed your labor force, you probably wouldn't have all of those problems to solve. So it sort of becomes this like vicious cycle where you can't break out of out of this cycle. And that's the that's the solution, I think. And in the facilities
Ben Green
[00.16.53]
that I've been were
Ben Hopkins
[00.16.55]
where everybody is engaged and developed. I mean, sometimes the supervisors don't really have to do much of anything. I mean, you look at them, what are you doing? They're like, you know, I mean, so that's the kind of the garden spot where where you want to get at. And it comes with work. It takes a lot of work. But, you know, any tools that can help are really welcome to get in that. Because you're right. You've got all these different priorities you got to meet. It's not just pure leadership. I mean you have metrics that you have to get
Ben Green
[00.17.20]
to. And then you made a comment earlier just early on in the podcast around safety. And if you think back and inside of logistics and the logistics warehouse manufacturing environment back in the 70s and 80s about the injuries that happened and, you know, people aren't even coming home safe. And and then that's when organizations, you know, OSHA comes around and people start focusing on safety inside the warehouses now. And you can see we've got injuries. You know, organizations are going five years without injuries and longer now because you put the effort to it. And we did that in little incremental things. We started saying, how do we have an eye for safety here and there? That's all we're trying to do here is not create leaderships through a mass initiative. It's how do we create an eye and behaviors for leadership. And that's what's going to help our team members stay. So we've already proven out the concept with safety. We put little efforts to it. We we can absolutely eliminate injuries inside the workplace. So we can absolutely put that same effort inside of it with our people to help them grow and thrive and help our leaders actually lead, um, especially our frontline leaders, which I know will come up here in a few minutes that they necessarily even asked to leave. They got promoted because they were the next senior person in line. So, um, so how do we really help them out at this point? Yep, yep. So I'm very
Ben Hopkins
[00.18.44]
cool and, uh, fantastic solution. And I love everything that is going on there. Now let's transition the show a little bit. So come inside the four walls of a facility, inside the four walls of a warehouse, distribution center, fulfillment center. You're on the floor. We have new supervisors in there. And quite often new supervisors in that world will face challenges. I mean, they will face headwinds in those roles. And a lot of the times they're not ready for it. They didn't anticipate it or they didn't expect it. So what are some things that new
Ben Green
[00.19.23]
supes.
Ben Hopkins
[00.19.24]
Tackle that they had no idea was coming their way. That surprised them when they really peeled back the curtain in that new job. Yeah. So no great question. So actually, in a lot of ways, they realized that they're now going to manage time cards and some of the stuff that they've seen the person before them. But what they don't realize that they're going to have to face is every time the organizational initiative kicks off or a, you know, a lean initiative that moves people around, kicks off, they're the ones that has to be the face of the organization inside of that. The the email can come from whoever, but the team members are looking for them for that. Those leadership activities and how they how prepared are they to have those conversations inside of organizations themselves. So, um, next, that in a lot of ways allows those two signals, those operational obstacles that we see that organizations can then say, okay, hey, here's these are the things we need to make sure we're doing for our frontline supervisors as they're getting ready to talk to people. We had a really cool, um, uh, some feedback in one of our sites that we were working with at one point in time around, um, people didn't think their pay was fair, um, competitive or fair inside, inside the organization itself. Uh, the organization, again, we work with tons of great organizations that are trying to do the right thing. And so they're willing to be initially, you know, innovative and try something different. And so this organization was already doing, uh, high frequency pay increases. They showcased how they aligned everybody's to the they, they, they had full staff almost doing external evaluations, internal evaluations, uh, help their people. But how it was being communicated from the frontline supervisors wasn't making it to the team members. And so
Ben Green
[00.21.10]
finally, a frontline supervisor raised his hand and said, I don't know how to talk about, hey, um, to the organization. And so we were able to, you know, with the, the visibility instead of next that that flagged an organizational obstacle. But then we started working on in part of the or the orientation of a leader now is how do we have these conversations, making sure you understand the process. Because in the absence of not knowing these things, knowing that the person that complained about their pain was probably your friend, there still is your friend, your peer. Two days ago, did you say, yeah, I agree, I don't think the organization pays fairly. Um, and so with that, we actually did some the surveying just to check on this problem. So obviously that we sustained it. And the, the rate of results of how team members felt about their pay increase, 15%. And, and they didn't change anything other than communication inside of that. And all that came from somebody raising their hand about an obstacle, about talking, about cutting. So. Yeah. Um, so I.
Ben Hopkins
[00.22.11]
I think that that what you just mentioned there, I think is probably very common in the industry. And that is we have this great policy. We have this great thing that we're doing. Corporate
Ben Green
[00.22.24]
loves it. Yeah.
Ben Hopkins
[00.22.26]
But when we get our engagement survey results back from the hourly labor force, we're not we're not seeing that. Well, what's the gap? The gap is the bridge. The communication is just not happening because the like you said, that supervisor is not prepared. They're not. They don't have that language to explain that very well. So I bet I bet you that that is a very common problem with lots of different companies out there, some not so much because they have it on lockdown and they have ways to do that. But I'd be willing to bet that there is a decent amount that that see that gap happen. And they're like, what happened with just, you know, what what are we doing? Well, that's why that's where it was done in the abyss.
Ben Green
[00.23.06]
And and to that too, is how people receive communication. So I mean, you can have the HR business partner show up at the site and do it, you know, explain everything. And they do that once a year maybe, or whatever the cadence is. And maybe you're not one that listens well in a in a large environment, you have to digest and ask questions. Well, you're going to go ask questions to the leader. And if he doesn't, he or she doesn't know that at that point in time, then your questions aren't going to be answered. And you do think it's unfair. So it's not that organizations aren't trying to communicate, it's that people receive communication different. And in today's environment we have to meet meet our team members where they are on how they perceive things. And, you know, I talk about like social and community stuff inside the organization all the time. When I was 20 and the company was offering free food and dinners, you know, I'm all in, right? Save me money. I'm single. All those things. I'm a completely different phase of life now. A company offers an extra dinner. I'm like, man, I need to go home and take kids to soccer practice and baseball and things like that. So they're not as important to me as they used to be. And we have to realize that, you know, in today's world, everyone's living in different environments themselves. And so we need to make sure that that we're supportive of all things that they're doing, as well as making sure that they're participating and productive inside the work environment as well. So
Ben Hopkins
[00.24.24]
yeah, I really love that. I mean, you control in the narrative, you ensure the communication goes through, like how you want in a way that it's going to be received, like how you want, or at least increase the odds, increase the likelihood that it will. I think that that's really good. So now let me ask this question to you, Ben.
Ben Green
[00.24.43]
Did I mean,
Ben Hopkins
[00.24.44]
where do you think companies mess up? I mean, where do they set managers up or set supervisors up to struggle? I mean, can you talk to some of the bad examples that you've seen out there of that? And, you know, maybe some of the good ones too, of what it was like?
Ben Green
[00.25.00]
Well, I, I'm really fortunate that I get to talk to a lot of organizations with good examples, um, or where people have learned, uh, from that. So companies a lot of times set up our leaders to, to struggle because at the end of the day, we just got competing priorities inside the organization. We have too many initiatives. We have too many contractual, uh, you know, settings. We need to make sure to make sure the company is profitable and growing. And we that's why the company is in business and how we help people. And so leadership gets prioritized last when it gets prioritized in asylum. Then.
Ben Hopkins
[00.25.34]
And so operations is always going to run King inside of this. And so you're never as a leader. You're really rarely ever, you know, measured on your leadership activities. And you actually in a lot of ways because they're subjective. You can't measure leadership activities. And that's that's part of why we build next path is we can start understanding how the leadership activities are performing inside of the organization. So now you, as a leader and even as a team member can say how I've here's how I participated in the work, here's how I've had interactions with team members and seeing how they've grown or how my turnover reduction has, has stayed the same through interactions. So not just pure luck, um, interactions and participation, obstacles and ideas that you've been able to help implement. So we can start measuring all of those interactions and activities and participation inside the workplace to really help managers set up to be successful, whereas today it's subjective. Um, yeah. So it's how do I think how I think it's going? Um, but where I've really seen some good examples inside of this is that we actually recently had one of our organizations there. One of their customer service managers was just named their leader of the year. Um, and they're, they're using next to that. And as she got up to talk about how she became leader of the year. She talked about all the realizations that she she thought she was doing all of this stuff for her team members. And then once they started participating, she realized she had to respond. Um, so when I was there doing these participations, so she's like, I was able now with all the signals coming at me and prioritizing, I was able to respond to my team members and it helped me accountable to that. Addressing or responding to team members to help them grow or just talk to them if it was something they just wanted to talk about, or help them improve an idea inside the work. So she's like it. Help me build, uh, basically leader standard work around my day while I'm also doing my operations inside of that. Um, and she's like, I'm far from perfect. One of her best examples was, is she was rushing through. They made some changes inside of her office and they didn't her team didn't like it. And so they let her know about it. And she goes with next bath. I was able to see the signals right away that they didn't
Ben Green
[00.27.52]
like it. And then it caused me to pause, stop and go talk to them all about what was going on. And then they all understood. And she said, you know, a few people don't love it, but they understood why we as a business had to go do that, and they're fine with it. And other people were just like, great, that's going to help me out, help me grow at the pace that I want to grow inside of an organization. So when we talk about how companies set managers up. You can't just throw them in and say, you're a leader, and now you've got your compliance training and your leadership course that's inside an HR, LMS. That's, you know, you can learn some nuggets from all that stuff, but that doesn't help you turn that back into daily activities as a leader for your team members. Um, and that'll help them participate and help improve the work. Well, I know we're talking a lot about leaders and people, but this all goes into process excellence inside of organizations, too. And so, um, one of the my favorite things is, you know, after the pizza party, if your scanner doesn't work, you still may leave the organization. The pizza was good, but I get my job done. I'm gonna go somewhere where I can. Right. So, yeah, you know, I mean, it reminds me of it. I think we talked a little bit about this when we were chatting before the show. It reminds me of, like, a fitness app that I use. And, uh, you think before you, you start using that, you think I'm good, you know, I'm in good shape, I'm lifting, I'm regular. And then you you start hooking up the fitness app, and it sends you all these alerts like, you know, you're you're too sedentary or
Ben Hopkins
[00.29.17]
you're your heart rate's barely into the warm up phase. Yeah. And this whole thing. And you go, man, I thought I thought I was killing it. I guess I'm not. So I now had to raise my game a little bit. So to meet the reality, it's it's sort of similar to that I think I'm losing. Good. But once I got this information back from them, I need to make a course correction.
Ben Green
[00.29.37]
It's very similar to that. It's right here. Here's what I need to do and how I'm doing. And oh, by the way, you know, Ben, you're you're a fantastic leader. How do we scale that to the other leaders inside the station? Right. So, like, it's about taking the good stuff and and applying it across the organization as well. Because what's working we want to scale. And today they're like, oh, Ben's a great leader, uh, inside the organization because there's people always get promoted. Um, but it's like, well, how do we have ten Ben's across the organization, what's what's been doing? And now we have a way to measure all. Well, here's the activities and here's the behaviors that Ben's doing. And we have that situation the other day and just about a participation between first and second shift on, on one of our sites. And, and the first shift leader was like, well, here's how I because of this, here's how I've now set up my day. And we said, well, can we go apply that to second shift? Right. Like talk to the second shift leader. And so they met last week and connected on here's how they're setting up day. So now we're standardizing operations between shifts because of it. So now we're getting the same performance and participation of our team members. Um behind. Yeah. And so. I know we're simplifying this all into communication, but what next path is doing is identifying that obstacle and allowing us could have the right interaction at the right time versus going and checking in on. Uh, you know, I don't want to go check in on Susie just because her and I are friends and I talk to her all the time, I need to make sure I'm talking to everybody at the place that they want to be talked to. Um, and you kind of mentioned about walks of life, uh, earlier, too, and, and you think about the demographics of the different types of, and different backgrounds that people come from and their, their heritage is some people are going to walk into an open door environment. You can say you have an open door all day, but some people are going to walk by it and see that you're on the phone or in an email and busy and not stop and interrupt you because they respect you as a leader. Being busy. So how how do we set up diverse ways of sending signals and connecting? So that way that team member still has a voice to just because they're not as loud as somebody else. You know, I've got no problem walking into an office and talking to somebody. Um, but that's not everybody. And their voice is just as important. And so we want to make sure that they feel comfortable in how they how they reach out as well. So yeah, I think and sometimes if you leave people to their own devices, they will gravitate towards whatever their comfort zone is. And you mentioned that earlier, I, I sort of only go talk with my friends or my buddies and that gets the favoritism word growing amongst the labor force. Anybody who's led operations knows that. And so back to the fitness analogy. If I'd like I don't I don't necessarily like to work apps. Right. Like just it's not. But I know that I have to do that as part of being healthy and fit and everything. But if I was left to my own devices, I would never I would never do them. But I've got the fitness app and it's always reminding me that I suck on abs and I need to do more abs, so I do them right in the in the end, it makes me better, uh, well-rounded person. But I think you could sometimes see that similar thing with young supervisors or new supervisors is. They're
Ben Hopkins
[00.32.53]
not always going to have the difficult conversation. They're not always going to go to these people over here because they just feel comfortable where they are, and that doesn't mean they're a bad person. I think it's just human nature. I think in general, that people need to be aware of and go, oh, guess what? There's a tool and a technology that can fight against this a little bit to protect you from yourself and also protect the the labor force that we have out
Ben Green
[00.33.16]
there. And that's right. So next path, next path is helping. You know, eventually doing abs is going to get easier for you, right? When you think about it,
Ben Hopkins
[00.33.25]
it's all about that. I keep telling myself,
Ben Green
[00.33.27]
yeah. So as you start talking to the team members about things that they want to talk about, you're going to it's going to be easier to talk about them all the time. And when the obstacles inside the work and the and where they have ideas to improve the work come up. It's going to be a whole lot easier to have those conversations and help improve performance for the organization. Remove the obstacles that help gain efficiency. The organization help them set up for a career path. The most common thing I find out when we get on some of these coaching calls. Is some some leader or an HR business partner at the site would be like, I had no idea that person wanted to be a leader inside the organization. Yeah, because they're one of the more quieter people. They come in, they do their job. They have, you know, they they network and socialize with their their little group, but they're not necessarily in the bigger group. And so you had no idea. And they're like, they'd make a great leader. We didn't know that's what they wanted. We thought they were fine unloading trucks. And you're like, no, they actually want more in their career growth. And so how do we make decisions as leaders based on profiles. And then to that is having the hard conversations. A lot of times the hard conversations are hard because we don't know how to start them. And that's where next, Beth can apply all that leadership training and coaching that you've been to is, how do we take all that information that we have about somebody, know it's the right time to have the interaction and say, here's how you go start it. So go have the conversation. And, you know, based on your your performance and the way you like to, to lead as well. So that's where next, Beth really fits in to help help our leaders get started in those interactions. Yeah. Now let's talk about
Ben Hopkins
[00.35.01]
habits. The word habits. And there's a famous quote out there that I don't know who said it, but it is that
Ben Green
[00.35.08]
people don't
Ben Hopkins
[00.35.09]
determine their success. They don't determine their outcome. They determine their habits. And those habits ultimately lead to what their outcome will be, success or not, or certainly increase their likelihood of success. So what are the daily habits that you see at the floor level with managers and supervisors that make the biggest difference for both themselves and also the folks that they lead?
Ben Green
[00.35.35]
Yeah. Uh, so the first, first thing and foremost is that the one size fits all approach isn't the best habit to have. Um, yeah. Some some people don't want to talk to their leader every week because that's not where they are in their career. Some people want to talk to you. You know, especially when you're new, may want to talk to you, talk to you more. Some people are going to want to talk about coaching, opportunities to grow or performance opportunities. Some people just want to talk to you about their your your therapist. In some ways, as a leader, right? You're there to be empathetic to what's going on. Um, and you can say, leave that stuff at home as much as you want to say that. But if you want that team member to stay, that's what they're looking for from their leadership right now. So you are, you know, at some level as a therapist and helping people in some of those things. So you can just be an ear for empathy. And so where we where we find the best habits that make the difference are the leaders that start their day understanding what their priorities are around leading their team as while they're prioritizing the work they have for the day. So that way when you know they may only get 80% of their leadership activities done for the day that they they need to go ahead on because the work is, like I said, gonna always take over. But then we know the 20% we didn't get. We can finish our day off with some of those conversations. Hey, Ben, I know you wanted an interaction today. Sorry we got things got out of hand. I'll catch you tomorrow. First thing tomorrow we'll get together. So then just that little follow up helps you maintain trust within the organization. And the leader that, hey, they know I'm important. They know they want to hear from me. Most of us are rational human beings. If you come in with that mindset that, you know, all those headaches that we have as leaders really come from 5% of the workforce. So, you know, of 95% of our team members want to show up. They want to do a good job. They want to make sure that the that the leader looks well and that they're hitting their numbers, and they take pride in their work. When you do that, our team members are going to be very receptive that, hey, today got really busy. I'll catch you tomorrow. Right now, if I pass seven days off, like that's going to be a problem. But they don't next days, fine. Most things aren't super urgent. Um, yeah. So where where I've seen the daily habits make the biggest difference is just leaders prioritizing their taking their leader path, taking their leader priorities, and making sure that they commit to them and seeing the success to that. And that's where we're seeing I mean, we've seen, you know, 20, 25% turnover reduction in some sites that have never had any leadership behaviors before. Um, right. Um, so that's where just having those daily habits and putting it around our team members and making sure that they have their voice is where we see our biggest difference for our team members.
Ben Hopkins
[00.38.17]
Yeah. And I think
Ben Green
[00.38.18]
you need to be intentional about it. You need to be intentional about these priorities and have a mechanism to help you follow through on that intentionality. Otherwise, and this is very common in this industry. People just get swallowed by the work. They get swallowed by the fire drills or the shipping orders. And and they they had some time available if they were being honest with themselves. But the excuses I just had to ship orders. Well, you really didn't. You just it's just that you weren't intentional about it and you didn't make it happen. You didn't make it a priority because there are amazing ops leaders out there who are intentional about it, who do
Ben Hopkins
[00.38.59]
find a way to do both. They're doing it right. So it's it's it's an excuse sometimes that falls on deaf ears with senior leaders because they know of person X, they know of a name of someone who figures it all out and makes it happen. So it sounds like you, you know, you're right
Ben Green
[00.39.16]
there. And then that's what we tell people all the time is like, if you're a leader. This isn't one additional thing. This is a big piece of your job. So what you're doing your safety walk in the morning. Perfect time to know. Hey, when I go down the aisle seven, James is going to be there. I'm going to get my inner I'm going to catch my interaction because I know James wants to talk to me today so we can fit all this in at the same time. We're doing it. We're just not doing it intentionally. We're doing drive by interactions. Now, I know when I stop and talk to an employee, I know exactly what to talk to him about. That's actually important to that person versus something that's hey, how's it going? It's hot outside. Hey. Yeah, I'm going to be a forklift. Operator. I want to let you know that we've got. Your performance has been good. We've got you on the next list for you to help get training. And, you know, get the certification on the forklift. So that'll make you a nice quality candidate when you need to do a forklift driver. Just think how different that that drive by interaction is versus an intentional one where you know what somebody wants to talk about. Um, and then that opens the door for the team member to say something back about. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Hoping and doing the next couple of months. We can set some goals around those things. Uh, and then it's all at your fingertips, um, for you to have that interaction.
Ben Hopkins
[00.40.35]
Yep. And the employee will know. They will know that you are just giving them lip service and they will know when you're being very intentional. They may not say it
Ben Green
[00.40.45]
out to you. They may not respond to you because they're uncomfortable with that situation. But to the young supervisors and the new managers, folks know when they're being placated and when they're really being heard. And this is the system that ensures that they're really heard. Right. And they're really trying to do to develop. Yeah, I really like feedback and feedback in real time. And and you you call that out. We've all been there. We're the drive by and they don't really care, right. The leader walks by and doesn't actually care. And you're trying to tell them something. Well now here's the way to actually tell them. Tell them those things. And and then oh, by the way, as an organization team member has a process error. The Wi-Fi is not working in the back corner. Or, hey, you know, if we change smiles around, we'd increase efficiency. We can now see if our leaders are addressing these things. Right. And I think I will see our team members that are actually leading it. So it's not it. We're talking about a ton of interactions, but really we're talking about how we respond and address and help our team members improve and showcase the value that they add to our organizations as well. So it's why it's very centric around leadership. Leadership is the right interaction at the right time about the right and the right topic, which a lot of times is about the work for our team. Yeah. Um, so we we don't want to. That's one of the things that kind of separates us. Um, at Trail path. This isn't an HR platform. This is a work platform for for our team members and our leaders to help grow. So. Yeah.
Ben Hopkins
[00.42.13]
Awesome. Ben. Well, so where can people find out more about you? I'll put up the. I'll put your website up here on the screen. Um, you know, are you you know, I follow you on LinkedIn. And how are you? What do you guys got on the horizon for this year and maybe next year or two?
Ben Green
[00.42.27]
Yeah. No. Absolutely. So, uh, path workplace solutions, um, we're on LinkedIn so you can hit a follow there. Find me on there as well or trail at AWS comm. You can find out more about next path and how how we're operating. So we are definitely as we get out into the next year, we're continuing to develop, uh, the next path platform and develop the content and features inside of it, um, from a workplace, um, perspective. And so we're going to be out getting into a lot of the conferences you talked about, uh, next year just to get on the show and share what we are up to, um, with everybody. So we definitely wanted to connect with you and, and your followers today, uh, knowing that that's the same people we're talking to. And it's a tough but fun industry to be in. Uh, for those of you, for those of us that find this fun. So. Yeah. So that's why we're here to help.
Ben Hopkins
[00.43.18]
Awesome. Well, Ben, man, I really appreciate you appearing on the podcast and it was a great chatting with you and discussion. And I think you and Trail Path is really doing some cool things, and I wish you nothing but the best. And good luck to you in the future. And don't be a stranger. Come back any time. Always be a friend of the show.
Ben Green
[00.43.37]
Absolutely, Dan, and thanks for having us. We're super humbled to be on your podcast and get to talk to, you know, all of your listeners today. So thank you very, very much.
Ben Hopkins
[00.43.46]
You got it, man. I'll see you on the LinkedIn streets as they say, Ben.
Ben Green
[00.43.49]
Absolutely. Thanks, Ben. You too. You got
Ben Hopkins
[00.43.52]
it, man. Take care. Bye bye.
Ben Green
[00.43.55]
All
Ben Hopkins
[00.43.55]
right. Ben Green, fantastic guests from Trail Path Workplace Solutions. Check them out today. Doing some very cool stuff that can help your managers. It can help your supervisors. It can help your leads be better at what they do. Help your labor force be better at what they do. Help your performance metrics grow to all sorts of good things from that. So check them out today. Really appreciate him here on the podcast. As the Warehouse Underground goes, please sign up for the community. We have almost 350 people who signed up for that community. In there. We have message boards, networking information, share knowledge, and we've done some live events in there in the past, and we have some coming down the pipe in the future. So check that out at the warehouse underground comm all free, and also check out the other show that I do with my co-host Jordan. It's called the Tiger Team Show. It's not like the show at all. It's all about life in warehouses, decks and FX everywhere. But we have a lot of wit and humor and sarcasm to go along with it. So if you work in that field, if you understand that culture, you will understand the comedy that is in that show. I guarantee it, so check it out today, the Tiger Team show from the Warehouse underground. As this podcast goes, I will see everyone next week for another episode. Thank you for listening. Bye bye.
