July 2023

It’s crucial to take precautions against the summer heat. With that in mind, below you will find a few essential tips to beat the summer sizzle and make sure you stay safe all season.

Hydration, Hydration, Hydration

One of the most vital aspects of staying safe in the summer heat is hydration. The high temperatures can lead to increased sweating, and this depletes the body of essential fluids. Make it a habit to drink plenty of water throughout the day even if you don’t feel thirsty. Adding sea salt or electrolytes to your water is a great way to ensure you stay hydrated!

Wear Weather-Appropriate Clothing

Choose breathable clothing during the summer months to keep your body cool and protected. Try to wear lightweight, loose-fitting, and light-colored clothes that allow air to circulate freely and aid in sweat evaporation.

Seek Shade & Time Your Activities

Whenever possible, plan outdoor activities for earlier in the morning or late afternoon. This is when temperatures tend to be milder. If you need to be outside during peak hours, try to find shaded areas to take breaks and cool off. Shade can reduce the risk of heat-related illnesses.

Some Cooling Techniques

One of the best ways to cool down is using a spray bottle filled with water to mist your face and body. Placing a damp cloth on your forehead, or the back of your neck, can provide instant relief from the heat.

Know the Signs of Heat-Related Illnesses

Being aware of the symptoms of heat-related illnesses can be lifesaving. Symptoms of heat exhaustion include heavy sweating, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, headache, and muscle cramps. Heatstroke, a medical emergency, is characterized by a high body temperature, confusion, rapid pulse, and unconsciousness. If you or someone else experiences these symptoms, seek help immediately.

Prioritize your safety when the temperatures are sizzling! Stay hydrated, dress appropriately, and seek shade when needed. Minimizing the risks associated with the heat will ensure safety.

Embrace the warmth responsibly!

Tips To Stay Safe

If you ask someone whether they’ve watched Ted Lasso or if they liked it, you’ll likely get different answers. But one thing that’s for sure is that the show emphasized the fact that you don’t have to be a subject matter expert to be a leader. Here are just eight of the many leadership lessons we can learn from Ted Lasso.

Find Others Who Complement Your Skills & Weaknesses

One of the key relationships in the show is that between Coach Lasso and Coach Beard. The two met during their college years when both played on their college (American) football team. Few leaders can “have it all” when it comes to the skills needed to be a good leader. This means finding others who can lead with you, that complement your weaknesses, is critical. In Ted Lasso, Coach Lasso is engaging and amiable with a solid ability to develop others. Meanwhile, Coach Beard is quiet, thoughtful, and fully invested in understanding every aspect of the sport (which Ted did not). Together, they make a coaching combo that checks all the boxes!

Lead With Kindness, Empathy & Compassion

These three things can really bring professional success to an organization as well as personal success for each member of your team. And it’s important not to lose sight of these even when you’re under pressure or facing losses. In fact, that’s when they matter most! Kindness, empathy, and compassion will get you through the hard times.

Be Confident but also Trust Those Around You

This one ties into the last lesson. Be confident in your skills (and your weaknesses), and be confident in the team you have around you. You picked them for a reason, so trust in them.

Be a Goldfish

In one episode, Ted asks a player “you know who the happiest animal in the world is? A goldfish. Why? It’s got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish.” This direct quote by Coach Lasso reminds us that we are not defined by our mistakes but rather by how we react to our mistakes. Learn from them, adjust, then forget them.

Great Ideas Come from Everyone

Ted sees value in everyone. He knows he doesn’t need to be an expert and that the best way to lead is to lead in conjunction with those around him. This includes (of course) Coach Beard as well as Ted’s “kit man” (equipment manager) Nathan, among many others. Not only does Ted do this as a soccer coach but he does it as the “coach” of himself when he realizes he needs help handling his own depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Know Names & Use Them

Early in the pilot episode, Coach Lasso introduces himself to his limo driver with “My name’s Ted. What’s yours?” and then uses the limo drivers name (Ollie) twice during the short drive. Other examples include Coach Lasso using the first names of press members during interviews and also when interacting with fans in public. Knowing the names of others and addressing them by their names shows the utmost level of respect. This makes it a very effective way to build trust and improve working relationships.

Stick Together, Especially in the Tough Times

In season one, episode 10, Ted tells the team, “I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad. And that is being alone and being said. Ain’t no one in this room alone.” If you’re facing tough times, you’re likely not the only one. But, if you are, it feels a lot better to have someone with you as you face them. Great leaders make sure nobody on their team ever feels alone.

Don’t Take Things Personally

During the show, Ted never pretends to be the subject matter expert when it comes to soccer. In fact, he owns up to not knowing much about soccer both publicly and often. However, it was for just that reason that he was judged negatively by the press, public, and fans frequently during the entire show. Despite that scrutiny, Ted kept going. Although he knew he was the topic of the criticism, he also knew he wasn’t the source. Instead of responding to negativity with more negativity Ted stayed true to himself, let it roll off his back, and kept going. Eventually, this is exactly what led him to the success nobody else saw coming.

Ted has a lot of teaching moments as a leader and a lot of quotes that help teach. But he’s also got some great quotes overall. Here’s a few to laugh along with because another big lesson he can teach us is that humor can do a lot for a leader.

Ted Lasso Quotes

“I feel like we fell out of the lucky tree and hit every branch on the way down, ended up in a pool of cash and Sour Patch Kids.”
“If that’s a joke, I love it. If not, can’t wait to unpack that with you later.”
“I always thought tea was going to taste like hot brown water. And do you know what? I was right.”
“As the man once said, the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
“It’s kind of like back in the ’80s when ‘bad’ meant ‘good.'”
“I believe in Communism. Rom-communism, that is. If Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan can go through some heartfelt struggles and still end up happy, then so can we.”
“Little tip for y’all. Fries are called chips. Chips are called crisps. And bangers aren’t great songs, but they do make you feel like dancing because they’re so darn tasty.”

Educators at universities and colleges across the country, in just about every field, invite employers into their classrooms to give presentations to students. Employers embrace the opportunity to show students the work, pay, and benefits their company offers. Some employers take it further and provide tools that will help graduates get their first job and be successful.

When FlexTrades does a ReTool Employer Presentation for students, we show that we offer a rewarding career in the trades with excellent benefits. But we also understand that many students have other companies in mind, have already accepted jobs, or have plans to put their education to work elsewhere. Half of our presentation is catered to ANY job seeker, even if they aren’t interested in FlexTrades at the moment.

Below is an outline of the script for our ReTool Employer Presentation.

Act 1: About FlexTrades

The first act of a FlexTrades employer presentation is shamelessly, and genuinely, promoting the opportunities our company offers. We name drop some of our clients who are among the nation’s largest manufacturers in heavy agriculture, aerospace, consumer products, and more. We talk about our need for skilled technicians throughout every step of the manufacturing process.

The pay and benefits FlexTrades offers to employees are competitive nationwide. We talk about travel and how many of our technicians see travel as another benefit; seeing the country and enjoying hobbies and activities they can’t do at home. To close Act 1, we talk about the many opportunities for growth within the company and how to get started pursuing a career with us.

Act 2: Career Tips & Advice

Degrees, certifications, and hundreds of hours of time-on-tool get you a baseline of knowledge to do the job. But a resume must get you an interview, and that interview must go well before you ever get paid for those skills.

Our longest slide in the entire presentation is called “Resume & Interview Tips.” We share tips and advice that apply to anyone listening, whether they’re interested in FlexTrades or not. For example, calling out your skills and certifications correctly on a resume can determine whether you even get a chance to interview. Preparing for an interview by researching the company and practicing your responses to tough questions is equally important.

Act 2 answers one of the most important questions we should ask: What’s ahead in manufacturing? We talk about Industry 4.0 and what it means. You’ll need to hear our presentation for the full answer, but (spoiler alert) robots are not coming to take our jobs! Skilled tradespeople will always be needed, but we will need to adapt and continue to learn new skills.

Act 3: Questions & Answers

We place a lot of information in our ReTool Employer Presentation, so we always open it up to questions after the slideshow. Many students are curious to hear more about travel, where they might get to go, and how we get them there. Some students ask what tools they need to bring on a project (hint: very few). We are often asked what an apprentice-level ReTool employee can expect on their first few projects.

Instructors usually jump in to ask questions, too. They know their students better than we do, so they often anticipate questions students haven’t thought of yet. Some instructors even ask about how they can work on a FlexTrades project over summer break, or once they’ve retired from teaching.

We’re always excited to dig deeper into any of the topics we cover!

Conclusion

We understand that we aren’t the only employer out there, but we might be the perfect fit for a student who hasn’t found the right job yet. Or we might be a better fit when they’re looking for a change later in their career. Some of the students we speak to will go on to manage a facility or start their own company and may need FlexTrades technicians to get the job done.

We genuinely care about the next generation of skilled tradespeople and the world of manufacturing that they are entering. We want to encourage students in trade school programs to stay on the path and start a great career. If you’re an educator or instructor at a trade school, we would love to show you and your students our ReTool Employer Presentation live!

Ever since COVID-19, virtual presentations have become extremely popular. To book a ReTool Virtual Employer Presentation for your class, just click here to pick a time that works best for you!

If you’d like us to make an in-person presentation, or if you have any questions, please reach out to marketing@flextrades.com. If you or someone you know is looking for work, resumes can also be sent to marketing@flextrades.com.

We appreciate your time today, and look forward to working with you and your team soon.

The days of manic rushing to Best Buy and Walmart before you’ve even had a chance to digest Thanksgiving dinner are over. In addition to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we now have Amazon Prime Day. Amazon Prime Day is a two-day event typically held in July where the masses are able to converge online to score obscenely amazing deals, with free shipping to boot, if you’re an Amazon Prime member.

Amazon first held Prime Day on July 15, 2015, as a celebration of their 20^th anniversary. But, due to the staggering success of the event, it turned into an annual affair. You’d think such an event would be the busiest time of year for the massive shopping site but it actually only ranks in fourth place, after Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the lead up to Christmas. Despite its ranking, 2022’s Prime day saw record sales of over $12 billion. Due to such a high demand, it only makes sense that behind the scenes things are being kicked into high gear.

The entire enterprise is a Swiss watch of moving parts. The scope of work doesn’t sound like much when you think about the fact that Amazon already does all this on a daily basis. However, when you factor in the massive uptick in quantity of items sold, therein lies the difficulty. On average, Amazon ships out roughly 1.6 million packages per day, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the more than 300 million items sold on Prime Day 2022. And the effects of this surge across their operations are a perfect case study to understand many of the factors impacting supply chain volatility across the larger economy. Doing so makes the risks and opportunities within this volatility much more obvious to other vendors of any kind.

Demand Fluctuations

Forecasting is key to any business. But the sales on Prime Day are unique and buying patterns are often spontaneous. This makes predictions precarious because both overestimations and underestimations can lead to dissatisfied customers and lost profits. Skillfully walking this tightrope is as much art as science and explains why experienced supply chain experts are so in demand.

Logistical Capabilities

Amazon typically averages a little over $1 billion in gross sales daily. This means that the numbers from 2022 were almost 10 times what happens during a “normal” day. Companies can’t increase their footprint by 10 times for just a day or two every year, so how do they handle surges like Prime Day or Black Friday? The answer is that sometimes they can’t. Websites crash, orders get backlogged, products sell out and that can’t be helped. Twitter revels in highlighting these struggles. But the goal is to avoid it at all costs and many companies do so with careful preparation and nimble planning. When facilities and workforces are well-prepared, and plans are closely monitored issues can be addressed appropriately in real time, consequences mitigated, and customers end up pleased.

Communication is Key

Whether you’re the scale of Amazon or just starting to scale up from a company of one, no business can handle a 10x increase in daily business alone. It takes great partners to do so successfully, and it takes great communication to get great partners. Amazon takes collaborative communication so seriously that it’s driven a lot of their other business research. Now every business doesn’t have to develop their own version of Amazon Web Services, but they should all invest in tools that make communicating with partners easier and more accurate.

There is much more that impacts the supply chain, for Amazon or any other business, than what has been covered in this article. But focusing on these three areas of emphasis has shed a little light on why some companies don’t survive supply chain disruptions while others, like Amazon, are able to thrive. If you’d like to learn more about supply chain resilience and how you can make it a reality at our company, you should read our recent blog about it too. Have other questions about supply chain? Send them to our Writing Team and keep your eyes out for future blogs.