Even in a down economy, a good warehouse worker can be hard to find.

Although today's high unemployment rates mean that it's easier to find candidates than it was a few years ago, the problem is not quantity—it's quality. "It's pretty easy these days to hire people, but it is always difficult to hire qualified people," says Robert Murray, president of REM Associates, an operations management consulting firm in Princeton, N.J.

"Warehouse workers are more plentiful than they were a couple of years ago because of the economy," agrees Prof. Dale Rogers of the Center for Logistics Management at the University of Nevada, Reno. "However, there is more pressure on companies to hire people who are promotable, and it is more difficult to find people with these qualifications."

What's making it so tough to find the right people to staff warehouses and distribution centers? And how can managers ensure they have the best employees for the warehouse jobs they need to fill? We asked several industry experts for their views and recommendations. Here's what they had to say.

The first step in finding applicants who have the capabilities you need is to clearly define exactly what those capabilities are. "To get qualified people," says Murray, "you first have to define what you mean by qualified, then create a system to identify those qualifications in applications."

The way companies define those qualifications has changed in recent years. In the past, employers would scrutinize would-be warehouse workers for little more than their ability to lift a box. Today, companies are looking for other types of capabilities and characteristics in potential employees, says Thomas Speh, associate dean for academic affairs at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and former director of the school's Warehousing Research Center.

First, he says, companies want applicants who can pass literacy and drug tests. Second, they are looking for people who can work in teams and understand their roles in relation to the whole supply chain. And third, warehouses want to find workers who are able to utilize today's new equipment and technology.

Defining "qualified" also includes deciding how strictly to adhere to established employment criteria. You may, for example, be willing to hire someone who meets most but not all of those criteria because he or she possesses some intangible quality, such as the right "chemistry" that matches your work culture. Or you may assign higher priorities to some capabilities than to others.

Along with qualifications, warehouse managers need to consider performance levels. Experts disagree on whether it's better to hire average performers or hold out for the best candidates possible. Chad Autry, a professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., weighs in on the side of hiring average performers. "You need to create a match between the life goals of current candidates and the warehouse environment," he suggests. "Some people are content to work in a warehouse forever, and these are the people you should be targeting."

In Autry's view, companies should avoid hiring people who are overqualified for warehouse jobs. "When the economy rebounds in the next year or so, these are the people who will be the first to leave," he points out. "You can always 'train up' people who are underqualified, but you can't keep overqualified people when something better comes along."

Rogers, for one, strongly disagrees. "I think you're always better off hiring bright employees, even if you don't keep them around forever," he says. "You should never hire less than the best you're able to find, because a smarter workforce leads to a smarter company."

Regardless of which approach you take, the typical employment period for the average warehouse worker probably is five or six years, says Jim Owens, director of human resources for contract warehouse operator Lanter Logistics in Madison, Ill. And although everyone wants to keep personnel turnover to a minimum, having a warehouse worker in the same job for 20 years shouldn't necessarily be the goal, he suggests.

Instead, there's more value in having employees develop experience and learn all there is to know about a job in those five or six years. "After that, you want to make sure they are being promoted to positions with more responsibility," Owens says.

Whether you're planning to hire average performers who'll stay with you for a while or attract the best and the brightest who are looking to move up the career ladder, you'll need to create what Rogers calls a recruiting "pipeline" to bring in the people you need.

Construction of a recruiting pipeline begins with proactively forecasting your labor needs. "Just as companies forecast demand for products, they should forecast demand for employees, taking turnover into account," says Autry. He also advocates implementing what he calls a "perpetual replacement system" that is somewhat akin to a Just in Time system in manufacturing. "You should always have someone almost hired, someone else almost trained, and so on," he suggests.

To ensure a steady flow of job candidates, it's helpful to create a high profile for the warehouse in the community. Owens notes that his company has developed a regular advertising campaign that it runs in local newspapers as well as on the Internet. Those ads typically generate a large number of applicants. In addition to advertising, his company also attends job fairs and visits local schools. Human resources managers even watch the news to see when and where people are being laid off, since those people may be interested in applying for jobs at Lanter, he adds.

Although many people think of warehouse jobs as being simple physical tasks that anyone can do, they often are more complex—and that affects how warehouses screen potential employees. And with reliability and security being such high priorities today, it's important to thoroughly screen all applicants. Lanter, for example, requires interviews with human resources and operations, written tests, prior employment reference checks, police background checks, medical examinations, drug screens, and physical agility tests.

Having a large pool of applicants pays off at this point, because those tests frequently eliminate a high percentage of candidates. "In some parts of the country, we have to talk to about five people in order to ultimately select one," Owens reports. "In some other locations, the ratio may be as high as [one in] seven people." That's not unusual; Miami University's Speh tells of one warehouse manager who interviewed and tested more than 200 applicants, only to find that just nine people passed both the drug and literacy tests.

In addition to having an effective program for recruiting, screening, and hiring, it's important to retain valued employees. "If you have high turnover, you end up having to spend time and resources locating, screening, hiring, and training replacements," says consultant Robert Murray. To retain good people, he recommends that warehouse managers make it a practice to spend time with their employees to listen to their concerns and find out what will keep them interested in and committed to the business. "In other words, while you need to offer competitive wages, a lot of people leave for reasons other than wages," he observes.

With the economic outlook so uncertain, it's hard to predict what the labor picture will be in the next couple of years. Autry believes the number of warehouse job applicants will increase. He cites three reasons: a growing pool of immigrants, most of whom are blue-collar workers; the need for many retired baby boomers to return to the workforce due to financial uncertainty; and a decline in the number of workers required in warehouses due to the increasing sophistication of warehouse management systems.

Likewise, Murray expects no shortage of applicants in the future, especially as more companies reduce their staffing needs. "With the emphasis on technology that is directed at cost improvement, this will probably mean a reduction in labor needs, since labor represents the largest cost in a warehouse," he says.

Even if technology does reduce labor requirements, some worry that there still may not be enough qualified applicants to staff distribution centers in the future. Owens, for one, thinks the candidate pool will shrink. As the population ages, fewer people will want to do warehouse work, he believes. In addition, the population is not increasing as rapidly as it used to. And finally, he says, warehouse work's lack of "glamour" may be a turn-off to young people today. "All of these factors will make it more difficult to recruit good people," he says.

No matter what happens though, there's one thing every warehouse manager can do to improve the chances of hiring success. "One way to hire the right people and keep turnover low is to provide applicants with a realistic job preview of what they can expect," Autry recommends. "Don't promise a rosy picture of the work if it isn't so. It does no good to glamorize or hype the position."

William Atkinson is a freelance writer who specializes in ergonomics and human resources issues.