Robert Julian

I have been a warehouse supervisor twice before, once doing goods, all the stocktaking, and assisting in inventory issues for a large food factory employing 300 plus people. Also in this job, I did the dispatch every Sunday when the Manager was off, working with the production and packing departments. My other Supervisor role was on the back door of a large retail goods and furniture store. I also briefly worked in a warehouse, creating picks for a team of twenty pickers. I have therefore done a variety of warehouse tasks and responsibilities, and worked with diverse demands and working relationships.

When on shift, I am the main point of contact for the site and have to work closely with head office in Bristol and our customers, mainly through email. We have no manager or admin at our depot, so I / we have to do it all. I have two forklift drivers in my team. On my shift, most of our work is tipping multi-drop vehicles and getting the right jobs labelled and loaded onto the right night trunks. As in other warehouses, there are regular issues and discrepancies which arise to sort out and communicate. Accuracy is important, as the freight gets delivered across Europe, and customers revise quantities and make mistakes.

We currently have ten HGV multi-drop drivers on days, and now only two trunk drivers on nights. The drivers do not officially report to me, but to a Transport Coordinator and Transport Manager in head office, but I do end up giving instructions, dealing with issues, and promoting company practice a lot of the time, just through being the representative of the company they see when back at the depot. I often have to sort out getting vehicles delivered and collected from the garages the company uses.

Other aspects of the job include various admin tasks usual with HGV drivers, including their tacho discrepancies, communicating and updating the maintenance and defects relating to the HGVs, and doing the briefings and debriefings for new agency drivers. Also, I have become competent at shunting class I and class II vehicles and trailers, and am used to doing basic maintenance such as bulbs, top-ups and checking tyres.