Founder Insights: From Pickers to Automation—The End of Temp Work in the Warehouse

Yesterday I was walking our warehouse floor. What I saw was exactly what every distributor manager has seen: young pickers moving slow, casual, not locked in. Low energy. No urgency.

And here’s the question: do I really want to spend my time training that? Put in incentives, chase metrics, hold their hand? Or do I just wait for the robots to show up? For me, the answer’s obvious.

The Old Model

The old model of labor is commodity picking. You hire whoever you can find, train them just enough, and then accept the churn. You also accept the mistakes: mis-picks, short loads, over-picks, all the corrections scribbled on paper. I’ve seen a single truck come back with 15–20 errors. That’s just one day, one route.

That’s the baseline managers get used to. They think that’s just “normal.”

The New Model

Automation changes the equation. With fully autonomous robots taking on the physical work, the people you hire are no longer measured by how fast they can drag a pallet jack. They’re measured by their attitude and their ability to engage with the system.

You don’t need engineers on the floor. What you need are people who are curious, willing to learn, and who see the robots as tools to make the operation better. Ambitious workers thrive here because the job is no longer about just moving cases — it’s about managing a system and improving it.

Attrition and Hiring

Here’s another truth: picking has always been temp work. People cycle in and out. With automation in place, distributors have found they simply don’t need to rehire. One group went from 120 pickers to 80 in just a few months — not because the warehouse “needed 80,” but because they let attrition do the work. As people left, there was no reason to replace them.

That’s the other side of automation: you can let headcount fall naturally as low as you want, without disruption.

And for the hires you do make? That’s when you get selective. You bring in people with the right mindset — problem-solvers, engaged employees who see themselves growing with the business.

The Shift

That’s the shift I want people to see:

Picking as temp work is going away.
Automation is becoming the new trade skill.
Attrition isn’t a risk — it’s the path to efficiency.
And the people you do hire? They’re no longer just pickers, they’re business assets.

The Point

So here’s the choice:
Do you keep hiring low-energy labor to keep up with churn? Or do you invest in automation, let attrition take care of itself, and focus on hiring the few ambitious people who actually push your business forward?

For me, the answer is clear. Robots do the heavy lifting. The people who stay are the ones worth investing in.