Samantha Taylor: Welcome to the Amigo CartCast, the podcast where we roll through the ins and outs of material handling with Amigo carts. I’m your host, Samantha Taylor, here with my co-host Scott Chappell, and we’re on a mission to find a better way for material handling.

Scott Chappell: Thank you, Samantha. Each episode will explore the innovative features, success stories and the endless possibilities that Amigo material handling carts bring to the table. Let’s roll into a world of efficiency, innovation and endless possibilities. This is the Amigo CartCast.

Samantha Taylor: Welcome to another episode of the Amigo CartCast. This one’s going to be fun and something that people can definitely relate to, not only in the material handling space, but really in any employment space. We have a guest today who is going to share in this topic, but what we’re going to talk about is employee satisfaction and retention in the workplace.

So before we move into our topic, I would like to introduce Tim Estep. Tim is our operations manager at Amigo. So Tim, why don’t you share with our audience a little bit about what you do here at Amigo and… that’s it!

Tim Estep: So I have the privilege and honor to run the production department, the manufacturing department, and the recycling center that we call ARC. I get to lead teams from the very start of a product, you know, as bare metal if you want to say, through the steel construction, all the way through production and end of life through ARC. So it’s really fun.

Samantha Taylor: You made it sound so simple.

Scott Chappell: It is too simple. That’s too simple. So, Tim, can you just share where you’ve been before, Amigo?

Tim Estep: I was a mechanic by trade. So I worked in a dealership, at a Cadillac dealership for almost ten years, and I left there to teach automotive tech. I was a dying breed of an auto shop teacher for several years. And then I left there to go to Nexteer Automotive, where I did over sixteen years with them and two overseas assignments with them to get to go around the world with my family and do some pretty amazing stuff. And I’ve been here for almost a year and a half already.

Scott Chappell: So really he’s been around the block.

Samantha Taylor: Around the world!

Scott Chappell: Around the world.

Tim Estep: 26 countries I’ve got to do.

Scott Chappell: So hearing about your experiences, it would be probably pretty easy to say that you’ve been a lot of places, you’ve seen a lot of people, you worked with a lot of employees. So I think that’s going to lead into employee retention and satisfaction, which Tim sounds like an expert in.

Samantha Taylor: He does, yes. And that’s why we brought him on.

Scott Chappell: Tim, I don’t want to throw you a curveball, but as I mean, when you explained where you’ve been and how you’ve done it, you’ve worked with a lot of people and you’ve managed a lot of people. So somebody in your position, you come in in the morning and you’ve got to make sure you have parts, you got to make sure the parts were shipped in.

If you’re waiting for a truck, you’ve got to make sure you have employees, you’ve got to make sure your employees have the right tools and all this. Where does employee satisfaction fit in all of that? Because it’s like a ladder. I guess. At what point do your employees… where do they line up in that list?

Tim Estep: So the simple answer is attitude equals output, okay? So if I’ve got… I’ve got several different production lines. I’ve got manufacturing department that’s got a bunch of individual machines with individual operators. If you’ve got somebody with a sour attitude, whatever it is, the output for that day is always lower, and output equals dollar signs. It just is. It directly feeds the profit, which feeds into profit sharing, which feeds into customer satisfaction on their side, because maybe we cause something to be late.

So again, that goes back to attitude equals output. So anything that we can do to… whether it is on our culture side or it’s our products that can make those people’s lives easier or whatever else, we’ll use my production line, for instance, if I stop the line for any reason, it’s an immediate loss. It just is both in time, frustration of employees and attitude.

And so, like, using our industrial units and stuff for our Kanban system, which if people don’t know what that is, we, you know — a systematic way to turn in empty bins or constantly provide product to the line so we can keep that flow going. You know, you interrupt that one time, we all hear about it.

And it just takes one time a day or one time a week to almost kind of really throw a wrench in the end of things. You know, I sent a text to my team leaders yesterday at the end of the day, thanking them for a solid week because it was a great week and I put right in there, “It’s nice to sit back and just watch the team when you’re in a groove,”

and when you get little things like that that take the team out of the groove, it’s amazing the amount of output difference that we can have in a day. So keeping the employees attitudes up, however that may be is really, really key to controlling that output.

Scott Chappell: And I don’t want people to listen to this podcast and think, “Oh my gosh, all they’re talking about material handling stuff.” That is part of it because I’ve seen it here as well, just walking around the facility. But I think it had to be mentioned because in the scheme of things, you do have satisfaction. Now, maybe satisfaction in some companies is a different office chair or a different standing desk or something like that.

Tim Estep: Yeah, another thing that I, I don’t want to say “preach” to my team, but I talk a lot about with my team, and I’m sure is on your list or tied in, is what you do as a job or a career, having some kind of satisfaction and knowing what the maybe the end product is. And some of my previous careers, you know, they’re rewarding for different reasons. If I fixed a car, somebody’s got to work because of me the next day or, you know, teaching.

Working with high school students and stuff was really rewarding. But here, what we do every day positively impacts other people’s lives. And there’s not a lot of careers in the world that can say that. And whether it is on the industrial cart side or it’s on a commercial court side for the grocery store, or if it’s on the healthcare side for somebody’s individual use at home, I mean, I think 90% of the world wouldn’t want to have our product if they didn’t have to, because we’re solving that mobility, need to give them that quality of life back.

And I remind the team about that all the time. If you don’t think what you do matters. Stop for a minute. Next time you’re in a Kroger, next time you’re in a Walmart or whatever, and see somebody on one of our units, ask them. Talk to them about it. And I think that goes a long ways to on trying to keep people engaged on this is why we do what we do.

Samantha Taylor: So I have a quick survey that was polled. This is the top five reasons people say, “I love my job.”

Scott Chappell: Love your job!

Samantha Taylor: Love your job. You guys love your job?

Scott Chappell: I love my job.

Tim Estep: I do love my job.

Samantha Taylor: Okay.

Samantha Taylor: So let’s see, everyone who’s listening maybe do a mental check if this is the reason you love your job, we’re ready. Okay. We’re going to work backwards here. Number five. This one I think everyone can say, fair benefits and pay. Number four is to have flexibility and a work life balance. Number three is the company culture. Number two, open door policy. And number one, drumroll. Are you guys ready?

Scott Chappell: We’re ready.

Samantha Taylor: Is they have an Amigo material handling unit to help improve efficiencies and employee satisfaction.

Scott Chappell: Love it. I think that is number one.

Samantha Taylor: And if you don’t have one…

Scott Chappell: It should be number one to everybody.

Tim Estep: You’re missing number one in your company.

Samantha Taylor: Exactly. Exactly. That was a quick poll that I just took with the individuals in the room here. So that’s where that poll came from.

Scott Chappell: Perfect! I think that’s great. I think it’s great.

Samantha Taylor: Anyway, so, Tim, on that topic, I don’t think that anybody in our at our location would be able to speak to the broad ranges that we have been able to use our products in our facility more than you. So I know you talked a little bit about your role and what you do here, but can you just for our listeners or maybe people who don’t know how many employees, I guess, are under your umbrella?

Tim Estep: So under my team, we’re just under 60 total with the three departments. With the addition of the new building and stuff, obviously it’s allowed us to expand our production department into almost two and a half times the size of what we were before. The warehouse got to go up by 30%. And then ARC got to move in to a 50% growth, almost double what they were at.

So it’s created a lot more space, but that’s a lot more steps in a lot of people’s eyes too.

Samantha Taylor: It is. It is. And prior to our expansion — so for our listeners who haven’t heard or don’t know, Amigo just recently expanded almost 50,000 square feet which sometimes maybe to some people doesn’t feel like a lot, but when you’re walking it every day, it definitely adds the steps — so prior to I think we did a quick count on how many Amigo units were being used on a daily basis, and I think the number was around three.

Do you know how many we have gained since then or are we feeling that three is pretty sufficient for that?

Tim Estep: No, I think the warehouse would use three all day long, every day and stuff. And then between our custodian using one full time and then we’ve gained three more that are parcel department’s using for either getting around just people or for actually going to pick up packages or something, let’s say from ARC in the morning to be able to fulfill orders, you know, and get them out and stuff as well instead of just walking and carrying items and things like in that nature.

So no, they’ve been awesome for our day to day use and seeing our own products in high use in the right ways in our own workforce every day is really cool.

Scott Chappell: So I think what’s unique to share with everybody, previous to our 50,000 square foot addition, roughly 50,000, we were about 70,000 of course, and we were using quite a few of these products in that size of a space. Now, the reason I bring it up is because our previous podcasts, we’ve talked about 250, 300, 400,000, a million square feet.

So we’ve talked about that before and it sounds like it’s so big, which it is, But I think it’s important for anybody listening to realize that it doesn’t have to be a big facility. It’s just about one, increasing in efficiency, which we’ve talked about before. And two, what we’re going to talk about today is keeping employee happy.

Tim Estep: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it’s just as easy as saving a guy a trip to the bathroom without walking, you know. In the new building, you know, we’ve got some new things that have come up that you wouldn’t think of before where people do like, “Man, the bathroom is so much further,” or people will want to naturally stay kind of in the line area for breaks or for lunchtime because to walk to the lunchroom just seems so far, you know, and stuff.

So we have offered up our material handling units and stuff like, “Hey, if you got to run, jump on it. Go.” I mean, it’s not a big deal. So it has then obviously, you know, created a fix for us on some things with just that where new larger spaces have created problems we didn’t maybe foresee or understand.

Scott Chappell: So in the smaller building and now the bigger building as well, what were the areas where there are specific areas? You said shipping, receiving and you said custodial. I mean, were there specific applications that we hear under our roof used them for?

Tim Estep: Yeah. So the warehouse uses them all day long for our Kanban system to pull product from the warehouse and then deliver directly to the production lines. We still do that today on a much bigger scale because the lines have expanded. And now we’re also using to feed the parcel department from ARC, which is now much further than it used to be.

And we even have them for if we just, you know, they got to run back to manufacturing to ask a question or check on something that’s complete opposite corners of the building or of the site, you know. So most times anybody will look for, you know, a material handling unit to get on just to save the time and the steps.

So I got really long legs. For me, it’s not a big deal, but.

Scott Chappell: Well, it’s funny. I’ve been to a lot of facilities and what’s unique is that I’ve been to facilities that are large, that the folks say, “We want our people to get our steps in,” and you kind of scratch your head and that’s okay. I get it, right? But then, like in our facility and some other facilities, I’ve had people say, we just want to make it easier for maybe a specific employee, maybe an employee that is back to work from an injury, maybe an employee that’s had a replacement, some kind of a knee or hip whatever replacement.

And they’re just trying to accommodate them. So do you can you kind of see that here as well?

Tim Estep: Absolutely. Yeah. We’ve got an employee that had had a heel spur removed, you know, toward the end of last year. And he’s still in his, you know, long term healing process. So walking for him is difficult all the time, and his job may or may not require a lot of steps per day, but he uses one of our units nonstop.

I mean, he’s on it. If he’s not packing boxes, he’s on that unit to go get his parts. And it’s, in my opinion, it allowed him to, you know, speed up his healing because he’s not on his feet all day long necessarily or putting additional steps on. At a previous employee and stuff, too, I would tell you that time is money.

And yes, you want to get your steps in, but when some of these facilities are, you know, 50, 100, 150,000 square feet and you just have to physically get a human from corner to corner, you know, if you’re willing to wait for that person to walk it, yeah, they can walk it. But a lot of times time is money and using a unit like ours to just get the person over there.

You know, it can be a huge savings for a company.

Scott Chappell: Now, we’ve also had previous podcast where we talked about rightsizing your fleet and how do you see Tim, are products being used with larger equipment such as the forklifts, a pallet jacks, things like that?

Tim Estep: I mean, they fall right in line with we treat them the same way as like an industrial, you know, wheeled truck is what we call them and stuff. So, you know, we treated the same way in a warehouse. We actually even have a small training for these guys to be able to know that we don’t just put anybody on them and expect them just to go.

I mean, driving in with a trailer behind has a little bit of a difference and things. So we treat them that way. But they are right amongst the fork truck traffic or the ride on pallet jacks or the walkies and stuff and material handling and moving material is the name of the game. And if I don’t need a fork truck to do it, which is in a much larger price point, obviously, and does take more training and certification, I can do it with one of our industrial units.

It’s a lot easier. It’s a lot more cost effective. It takes up a much smaller footprint and things as well. I can get through my aisles way easier than I can with a fork truck. I don’t have to worry about, you know, honking and beeping and doing the same thing. I can get in much tighter spaces with the industrial units too.

So a lot less risk, I would say, by using those units.

Samantha Taylor: So, Tim, can you share too, because you also had talked about another use and that’s great. I think that that speaks to everything that we try to paint a picture of. But you live it every day so you see it. But you had also mentioned the, like, maintenance and cleaning janitorial cart. So can you kind of paint a picture of what that is, how that is used on a daily basis?

Tim Estep: Yeah. I mean, same thing our current custodial person does have some walking limitations as well. So I think originally the intent of adapting one of our units to her needs was more for the mobility side of it. But then we saw the major gain on, you know, mounting a garbage can, having all the cleaning supplies right there.

And we made a mobile work unit out of this for them. So not only to get them from location to location, but customization, we could do with that to meet her needs. I mean, the efficiency in her department was huge in doing that. Again, just trying to make everybody’s job simpler by what we can do to customize our units and our parts.

Samantha Taylor: I can just picture if I am in charge of janitorial, custodial, I’m at one area of the building and let’s say I forgot something that I need at the other end and I have to walk all the way to get my paper towels or my cleaning supplies or whatever it is. And I’m frustrated with myself because I forgot it and I have to walk back and still do my job.

I’m frustrated because I’m losing time. So I can imagine that having that one stop workstation, to your point, really, really makes it better.

Tim Estep: I mean, just paper towel delivery, you know, taking the soap to all the locations. I mean, it sounds simple, but as we continue to grow and you know, there’s other facilities obviously, that are much larger than us that have more bathroom units or more kitchens or whatever else too, to try to do that in your arms and just walk it to these places, whether it’s places that paper towels, cleaning supplies, whatever it may be, it’s just not it’s nowhere near as efficient and stuff.

So we can, yeah, these customized units that we’ve been able to make for ourselves have really paid huge dividends and yet I think, you know, for that same reason, I’m not sure that our custodial person would have stayed on as long, maybe if we didn’t have that option for them, too.

Samantha Taylor: So, yeah, so I just this is kind of off the wall, but I’m going to tie it together too, because one of what was it, the I don’t know, my fourth or third point of why people love their jobs is culture. And it might be the smallest thing. But when you think about a company culture and you can feel it when you walk in the building, one of it is 100% cleanliness.

And are you taking pride in where you work? And are the bathrooms clean? Is the, you know, kitchen or cafeteria area organized and clean? And that all relates back to company culture. And if you don’t have that individual that loves what they’re doing and goes to work every day for the purpose of the higher company, then you’ve got a broken piece.

Scott Chappell: So this also fits into, I don’t think even though we make the product here, I don’t think we would have ever got that far had we never tried it. I just think of the young lady Marcia that does our custodial she worked here for probably almost a year before we got that unit for her. And it’s almost like it was in front of our face, but it was almost like now she has it.

I don’t think we could take it away from her. And I don’t think we could take it away from the warehouse people at all. So once again, it’s a situation that nobody knew how much of an impact it would have until we started using it.

Tim Estep: Absolutely. I mean, just this week we moved a lot of offices as part of the building expansion and stuff, and we had to tear down some old offices, a bunch of furniture, and we had employees go grab two Dex units with trailers and loproducts/dex/ad all the excessive furniture onto the trailers, haul it back to where we kind of stored upstairs over our manufacturing department.

And other than that, they would have hand-carried all that stuff back there. And their second I said, Hey, go grab one of the Dex units with a trailer. And they’re like, “Oh, yeah!” You know?

Obviously it was going to make their task much simpler. But I think we constantly find things like that, that it’s just easier. Could we have used a fourth truck? Yeah, maybe. But that thing, it rides rough. It’s harder to take it outside because that one was easier for them to go out on an existing part of the building and kind of go outside to cut corners and things.

But yeah, using our own products and having them available to constantly find different things for it. You know, I’m shocked that we don’t use them outside kind of cleaning up parking lot stuff yet, which I mean, that’s another thing. But I mean we’ve constantly find additional uses for even our own products.

Scott Chappell: We are Amigo. And what we’ve shared is how we use these products at our facility. I don’t think it’s from the fact that we chose to use our products as much as we found the benefits that the products have given us that we tell potential customers that they will do so. With that being said, there’s a company in Tennessee that basically came to a show and they were looking to move trash bags, bags of trash.

And they supposedly, and I was at the facility, were moving up to 400 bags of trash a day. Now, I don’t think that’d be a lot of fun. I don’t think there’d be a job that I would want to have because these bags of trash have to be moved. We built a special cart for them. It’s longer, it’s wider, it’s got side rails.

So what they do is take a bag of trash and throw it in there and they can put multiple bags, maybe 50 at one time because it’s so, so big. But what was funny was I was talking to the main person, somebody like yourself, Tim, at the facility that actually pulled the trigger. And then his supervisor came in and she said, “ Oh my gosh, our employees love these.”

And think about this everybody, we’re talking about moving trash and we’re not talking about building a bridge or building a watch or doing something in a production line. So this was an example of an opportunity, an application that we’ve never heard before that they asked if we could do it. And for sure, sure enough, we did it and we delivered it.

And the follow up call was our people are very, very happy. So I think it fits totally, Samantha, into this whole theme of, you know, efficiency, employee satisfaction and also employee retention.

Samantha Taylor: I was going to say, I think you had also mentioned that the retention specifically for that job was much higher because everyone was very happy with what they… it made it easier, more efficient.

Scott Chappell: Most definitely.

Tim Estep: And correct me if I’m wrong, that was with a customized trailer, too, right?

Scott Chappell: It was a customized trailer instead of our 30 by 50, it was 46 by 60. We put special sides on it. It’s like the old Radio Flyer wagon. It was just a side that goes in and out. But the thing is, this wouldn’t have worked efficiency wise if we had no way to keep those bags in. So now they just throw the bags and we even put a drain in the bottom.

So in case there’s any moisture, they could drain it, you know, because, you know, who knows what goes in a trash bag, a half a cup of coffee, a pop, or whatever the case is, unfortunately, which is bad. But yes, yes, Tim getting back to that. It was a custom trailer that we had done.

Samantha Taylor: Well, I think that those are some fabulous stories to not only talk about how our products help improve efficiency, but also a special episode on employees satisfaction. So thank you both for sharing. That wraps up another episode of the Amigo CartCast. Please be sure to visit myamigo.com/podcast and until next time.

Scott Chappell: Keep it rolling.

Samantha Taylor: And that wraps up another episode of The Amigo CartCast. We hope you enjoy this exploration into finding a better way for material handling with Amigo carts. Be sure to subscribe as well as go to myamigo.com/podcast to see pictures and videos mentioned in today’s episode.

Scott Chappell: Thank you for tuning in and until next time, keep rolling with Amigo.

Samantha Taylor: Until next time.

Scott Chappell: Keep it rolling.

Samantha Taylor: Keep it rolling.