WORK
The Heart of Your Company: Five ways to treat your distribution center like it matters.
I've been in a lot of distribution centers lately. My work is nearly exclusively with distributors and manufacturers, so it's part of the job. A part of the job I love.
And I've noticed a pattern.
The companies that are thriving treat their DC like the heart of the business. The companies that are struggling treat it like an afterthought.
Today I want to talk about why that matters, and what the difference looks like in practice.
The question most leaders don't ask:
Your sales team gets the kickoff. Your branch managers get the strategy update. Your Distribution Center gets… what?
For too many companies, the honest answer is: not much.
That's the gap I get hired to close. The leaders I work with who get it right already know their Distribution Center is the heart of the business. They call me to help tighten a few things, so what they believe shows up in what their people feel.
Here's where they focus, and where you can start.
1. Show up.
The single biggest difference between a DC team that feels valued and one that doesn't usually isn't pay or programs. It's presence.
Walk the floor. Know names. Ask what's working and what's not, then actually do something with the answers. Your DC team knows the leaders who show up and the ones who don't. They're paying attention constantly. They notice who came by when the new equipment arrived. They notice who didn't come by when someone got injured.
Be the leader who shows up.
2. Focus on career development.
In a lot of companies, the DC is the highest-turnover department and the one with the least career development investment. The math doesn't work, and the people in those roles know it.
DC jobs should have a real career path, real pay, and real growth. If your top performers can't see a future past the loading dock, they may find one somewhere else. The companies that retain their best DC talent treat those roles as a starting point, not a stopping point.
3. Include them in the conversation.
Strategy information. All-hands meetings. Customer wins. Company news. If it goes to branch managers, it goes to the DC.
But include them on their terms. If your team in the DC doesn't read email, sending a 600-word strategy memo isn't communication. It's a checkbox. Print it. Read it aloud at the start of a shift. Put it on the break room wall. Get it to the floor in a way that respects where they actually work.
They are not the people you talk about. They are the people you talk with.
4. Invest in their tools and their safety like you mean it.
New software for sales? Great. New scanners, lift equipment, and ergonomic upgrades for the DC? Same priority.
Watch what gets prioritized during budget season. If sales and office teams get the new tech and the DC keeps waiting, your team is reading that signal correctly.
The same is true for safety. When someone on the floor flags a hazard, what happens next is your safety culture. Not the posters. Not the binders. What you fix, and how fast.
5. Recognize them as the customer experience.
Because they are.
The branch ships the order. The DC made it possible. When the customer gets the right thing, on time, in good condition — that's your DC team. The "customer experience" doesn't start at the branch. It starts the second your DC team begins picking and packing.
Tell them. Tell your customers. Tell everyone. And don't save recognition for the annual kickoff. Make it a habit!
What it looked like at The Granite Group
When I was CPO of The Granite Group, we called our DC the heart of the company. One DC, now 80 branches, six states.
We meant it, and the team there knew we meant it.
That meant including the DC team in every all-hands. It meant senior leaders walking the floor regularly. Not for a tour, but to be there. It meant investing in technology and ergonomics with the same energy we put into branch tools and sales platforms. It meant career paths that started in the DC and moved into branch leadership, operations, even corporate roles.
It was how we ran the company.
And it showed up in the things you'd hope: lower turnover, stronger engagement, customers who got the right product on time. Companies that treat their DC as the heart of the business get heart-of-the-business results.
Companies that treat it as an afterthought get afterthought results.
One more thing
Your DC is your people. Treat them like the center of your company. Because they are.
If this is a piece of your business you've been meaning to look at more carefully, I'm happy to chat and give you a few more tipsf. It's the work I love most.
Until next week...... go visit your DC!
COMMUNITY
Early in the COVID years, I spent a lot more time on LinkedIn than I did now. It was (and is still) a great way to learn, to grow, and to connect with others.
One of the people I met is Daniel "Dan from HR" Space. We've never met in person, never actually met over zoom. But we've quietly supported each other's posts and projects through LinkedIn, emails, and more.
He consistently puts out excellent, helpful content, particularly around compensation and the complexities of the HRBP role.
And now, he has some courses and a webinar coming up that you might want to check out! The webinar is free, the courses are paid, and well worth it.
And if you aren't following him on LinkedIn, please do!
COFFEE
We did not have a lot of luck with coffee places in Portugal. I think we went to about 15 places. Really cute places, but not much that really hit for us. One we really liked, and one we absolutely loved.
Maybe the coffee was great, but we drink only espresso, only iced, and only with a little cream, and Europe isn't big on half and half!
Anyway, there were Starbucks, and that of course was the same. AND, they had these adorable little mugs, which my son got me for Mother's Day to add to my collection. (Tiny Starbucks mugs from around the world are, I think, the only thing I collect.) Look closely and you can also see a Switzerland mug from my friend Minola Jac. A wonderful surprise gift that arrived in the mail one day last year.
See you next week!
Speaking of next week, I'm going to be speaking at two wildly different events, one in-person and one virtual. And I couldn't be happier!
If you are going to be in Indianapolis for the National Association of Hose Distributors Annual Meeting, you can catch my keynote Monday morning, followed by a workshop for emerging leaders in the afternoon.
And if you are in the HR and People space, you can catch me virtually speaking at Launch HR Summit on Thursday. This is the first collaboration between Fractional People People and Hacking HR, and hopefully not the last! And, it's free!
More info here:
And finally...... DisruptHR NH 3.0 is almost here after a seven year hiatus! I snatched up the rights to it a couple of years ago, but it would not have gotten off the ground without the help of my partner Ryan Rourke at One Digital. He's done an incredible amount of work to make sure this event is amazing. And it will be.
We have done only light promotion and we've sold half the tickets. We expect to sell out shortly, once we announce the speakers later this week. If you can make it on June 3, you'll see some great speakers, some of whom are speaking for the first time, have some cocktails or mocktails from our friends at Vintage Cocktails, hear some great music and of course, enjoy the catering from the cult favorite Deadproof Pizza. Tickets are just $25 and all proceeds go to local charities.
