For most of ShipMonk, peak season means Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the December holiday rush. For our People and Culture team, peak is already here.
“When it comes to teams like ours, now is our peak,” says Connie Pashala, VP of People and Culture. “The core thing is getting warehouse associates into the building, trained and ramped early enough so that when the volume hits, we have the people.”
This year’s volume is expected to be the biggest in ShipMonk’s history. We sat down with Connie and Bo Deason, Director of HR for North American Fulfillment (who also leads supply chain engineering and safety), to talk about what it takes to get ready, and what they look for in the people who make it happen.
Connie is heading into her third peak at ShipMonk after a career in software and tech. Bo is on his second, after years in e-commerce operations at Amazon and Chewy. Both say the warehouse floor is where they feel most at home.
“There’s nothing like standing in the middle of a warehouse,” Connie says. “You hear things moving, you see people bustling, you understand the items you’re shipping are going around the world.”
Peak prep never really stops
Planning for this year’s peak started the moment last year’s ended. “We immediately started doing our lessons learned and preparing for peak this year,” Bo says.
Here’s roughly how the year unfolds:
- January: Lessons learned from last peak. Every new tool, process and leadership hire throughout the year is judged by one question: will it help us scale when volume multiplies?
- Early summer: Bo and operations leaders compare last year’s volume and headcount with this year’s forecast and start building labor plans.
- Late summer: Each site’s general manager (GM) works with their People and Culture partner on a peak preparedness document. Brandon Journey, GM in Texas, and his HR business partner Shay Phillips led the GMs through the process.
- September: GMs and People and Culture partners from every North American site flew to Kentucky for three days. They went through engagement, budgets, staffing and supplies line by line.
- Now: Hiring, training and ramping associates across every building.
“We mapped out every detail of the employee life cycle, from engagement to budget to whether we have enough staplers,” Bo says. “How are we going to get these extremely valuable associates in the door, and what does their life look like while they’re here?”
Connie puts it simply: “We never stop thinking about it. This is when we really show up for our people and our merchants.”
What’s different this year
Two things changed how the team prepared: a habit of asking “what if,” and AI.
Asking “what if.” Last year, each site planned on its own and the plans rolled up to the network. This year, the whole network sat in one room and stress-tested each other’s plans. “Every time someone thinks we have a good plan, someone else steps in and says, ‘Yeah, but what if?'” Bo says. “Good enough is never going to be good enough.”
The team has also grown its site-level People and Culture partners into more strategic roles, so they can spot problems early on behalf of their GMs.
Building with AI. “A year ago, this didn’t exist the way it does now,” Connie says. Her team has used AI to build its own internal tools, without needing to know how to code:
- An automated associate hiring process that cut hiring time by about 75%
- A custom performance management tool built for ShipMonk, instead of relying on outside software
- A tool for capturing hours changes
“We’re leveraging a lot of that to make our lives easier, so we can focus more on our people and our merchants.”
Leaders on the floor
One of ShipMonk’s five core values is People Make ShipMonk, and peak is when it matters most. Every year, company leaders spend at least seven straight days working inside a fulfillment center. This year, Connie will be in Nevada and Bo in Kentucky, picking, packing and supporting associates.
“It builds empathy and understanding for our people and our merchants,” Connie says. She still draws on what she learned picking, packing and receiving in Pennsylvania last year.
Bo saw the same thing firsthand. Working late-night shifts on an order picker in Texas, he noticed the system sometimes sent him to the front of the warehouse, then redirected him to the back for an order that was aging faster. He asked operations whether that affected associates’ rates. It did.
“Because we’re fresh eyes, we get to see process gaps that are affecting our associates,” Bo says. “We step into their story, see it through their eyes, and then go build for the future.”
For Connie, putting merchants first feels personal during peak. She’s a longtime customer of many ShipMonk merchants, and peak is when she gets to pack those same products herself. “I’m packing this right now, and a person’s going to receive it in a few days,” she says. “It connects the world in a way that really makes sense to me.”
Bo thinks about it as two customers: “There’s our external merchant, and there’s the experience of our operators and associates on the floor. I want both to be world class.”
What we look for in a peak hire
ShipMonk is hiring warehouse associates in Texas, Nevada, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Connie lays out the basics:
- Comfort working in a warehouse environment
- Able to lift at least 50 pounds
- Able to stand for a full shift, which usually runs about 10 hours
- Reliable transportation to and from the building, especially for night shifts
Beyond that, the team looks for people who want to grow. “Our volume isn’t going to end after peak,” Connie says. “Every building converts some seasonal associates to regular full-time, and we have so many stories of people who started as associates and are now managers.”
Bo points to Samantha Cox, now GM of one of our Kentucky facilities, who started her career as a temporary hourly associate. On a recent walk through the floor, he met new hires already raising their hands. Two asked to become forklift drivers, a role that pays extra, and were connected with their manager on day one. Another, fresh out of orientation and fluent in two languages, asked to become a training coordinator.
“These are the people we’re constantly looking for,” Bo says. “They want something more out of life, and ShipMonk will give them the opportunity. All you have to do is raise your hand.”
Favorite peak stories
Bo: hitting the wall, literally. Bo joined ShipMonk right before his first peak. About ten days in, after long days of labor planning, he spent his evenings running an order picker in Texas, and one night he bumped into a wall. “I went and told the GM, ‘Hey, I have hit a wall,'” he says. “He laughed. I said, ‘No, seriously, I hit one of your walls.'”
The story spread fast, and the team still jokes about it. For Bo, that’s the point. “Everyone’s going to hit their wall. When you think everything is going wrong, people here put their arms around you and say, ‘It’s okay.'”
Connie: a detour to Pennsylvania. Last year, Connie was packed and about to fly to Texas when she got a call: she was needed in Pennsylvania instead. She drove there and stayed two weeks. A few memories stuck with her:
- Meeting associates from her home state of New York, including one, since promoted, who grew up five minutes from where she lives now. They traded favorite bakeries and pizzerias.
- Spending her last day, in a snowstorm, breaking down boxes with another executive and tossing them out a snowy dock door for hours to clear space.
- The daily raffles, where training coordinators and leaders gathered teams to call out winners for attendance, productivity and more. “Some people would be in tears because they were so happy for their teammates.”
Peak in one word
We asked both leaders to sum up peak in a single word.
Bo: exhilarating. “There are so many plans and partnerships coming together. When you step back and look at all the brain power and heart power being poured into this, it’s exhilarating.”
Connie: vigor. “There’s so much energy right now. You feel it in the music playing in the buildings, in the noise, in the people. This is the largest we’ll ever be in our buildings at one time, and it should be exciting.”
Join us this peak
We’re hiring warehouse associates in Texas, Nevada, Kentucky and Pennsylvania right now. If you want to be part of the biggest peak in ShipMonk history, and maybe start a career that grows well beyond it, we’d love to meet you.
