OnTrac in the South Carolina/Charlotte area is very poorly managed. As a result of this poor management, the warehouse is never adequately staffed (low-tech, skeleton-crew staffing may actually be a key element of OnTrac’s corporate strategy); staff that is available is poorly utilized; and workflows are chaotic, day in and day out. Everything is ad hoc and fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants. There never seems to be any idea, among management and supervisors, of how the inbound load is distributed among the outbound destinations. Hence, there is no idea, at the beginning of each shift, of how much staff is needed, the number of ramps and/or trailers needed to accommodate busy destinations, and, most important and relevant to package handlers, where and how that staff should be allocated. There is no effort, or perhaps no insight, on behalf of the supervisors and management to resolve obvious flaws in their workflow and logistical system design. It is unclear if they even acknowledge the existence of any problems. The approach, seems to be, to simply have staff running around, like headless chickens, trying to put out fires - a telltale sign of ineffective management and poor workflow design. The end result is that the low-level, frontline staff, like package handlers, are overworked to their physical limits. I cannot imagine the average tenure of frontline employees exceeding six weeks. I imagine employee turnover is a persistent problem, though that may be characteristic of the entire industry. I would not recommend anyone to work themselves to exhaustion or to risk injury for no benefits whatsoever and for a few pennies more per hour than fast food service workers make. It is best to look for employment elsewhere, if it is available.
