A New Kind of Warehouse Manager – the Female Kind
In a warehouse in Texas, a warehouse lead is struggling with unloading a truck. Looking up from their paperwork in the office, the warehouse manager sees the struggle and frustration. The manager dons their hardhat and safety goggles and walks out onto the warehouse floor. They jump onto the forklift and deftly unload some pallets showing the frustrated employee a more efficient way to unload. This could be any day at any warehouse, but this manager is special. The manager is a Latina woman, Zaira Escalera.
Zaira Escalera didn’t imagine that some day she’d be managing warehouses. The Laredo, TX, native grew up in a bilingual household where her Mexican-born parents spoke mainly Spanish. Zaira dreamed of a career in business. Working with numbers was something she loved and her high school math teacher was an encouraging mentor. She graduated high school with honors in 2008. After high school, Zaira discovered what many do, a sense of freedom and choice as an adult. For Zaira, that freedom took her off the path she had envisioned in school. Reflecting on that time, she admits, “I was young and careless about anything and everything. I was just living a life with no responsibility.” In 2012, she moved to San Antonio and found a job working in a bakery. And, that move changed the course of her career entirely.
Like most 22-year olds just starting out in the workforce, Zaira was living day by day, pay check to pay check at Sterling Foods. “I started going in the wrong direction,” says Zaira. Work was not a priority. She would show up late to work, call in or not show at all. “One day, a supervisor pulled me aside and told me that he believed I had the right skills to climb up the ladder. He saw that I had potential.” That conversation motivated Zaira to focus and made her eager to grow. Within six months, she became a supervisor. As Zaira continued to learn and grow on the job, she recognized that she needed a new challenge. In 2019, she decided to take a leap of faith and became a production supervisor at Fresh Texas.
In her new position, Zaira continued to impress management with her drive and ability to lead. Fresh Texas offered a management development program for high-potential employees. When Zaira was approached about participating, she jumped at the chance. The program included a rotation through departments so she spent time with the Continuous Improvement team, the Quality team, the Warehouse team and the Human Resources team. Once she completed her rotation, she was moved over to the Warehouse team full time as a supervisor. Today, she is the Warehouse Manager managing about 32 total employees.
As you might imagine, Zaira has faced some challenges leading in a typically male-dominated career. Aside from issues regarding traditional gender roles, she has to deal with a myriad of cultural issues as well. Many of the workers that Zaira manages are Hispanic or Afghan. Managing diverse cultural beliefs of female roles has been eye opening for Zaira. “The first conflict I had to overcome caught me by surprise,” she reveals. “The person came at me angry because I was a woman telling him what to do. It was really shocking to me. I had to learn that some of my employees are not going to appreciate a woman telling them what to do because that wasn’t a cultural norm for them. As leaders, we have to lead the situation. It can be frustrating, but ultimately, we have to get the work done. That’s what I try to convey in that situation. I’m not trying to be offensive; we just have to get the job done.” Keeping calm and working along side her employees has helped diffuse some of the cultural working situations, but Zaira feels that there are constant reminders of that divide. One of those is employee turnover. New hires that come in have varying reactions when they see her in the office. To those who think she’s just the girl that does the paperwork and not the manager she has a standard response. “Give me a second and I’ll show you I can do it.” Zaira says with a smile.
Even with some challenges, Zaira finds a lot of joy in her work. The fact that she’s built a team that has aligned goals and gets their job done together as a unit is immensely satisfying. “When I first started in the warehouse, my co-workers saw a new, young women and they were pushing back,” she reflects. “They didn’t like women being in the warehouse as it’s a “man’s” industry. Now, after about three years of working with them hand to hand, they have seen that I’m able to do what they do. They see me as a part of their team. It gives me a lot of pride.”
She also gets a lot of joy from being a role model to other women, and importantly, to Latina women. Zaira acknowledges that it took a lot of work to prove herself. She encourages women interested in her field to develop industry specific skills and demonstrate them. For example, when she didn’t know how to run a forklift, she stayed after hours and learned. “I’m one who likes to lead by example. And, when you work with men, a good approach is to show them that you know how to do things. Don’t be intimidated.”
While Zaira is proud of what she’s accomplished at work, her smile widens when she talks about her family and how they feel about her success. “My kids know kind of what I do,“ she laughs. “They are excited when they see me drive a forklift. My partner is super happy and proud of me. My parents are proud that I found the right path. My mom keeps telling me “keep going, keep learning.” With all of this support, Zaira still remembers that bakery supervisor, Joe, who pulled her aside and gave her the nudge she needed. She credits a lot to him. “Where I’m at is because of him,” Zaira says. “He, the words that he told me, really got into my head and into my heart. I’ll always thank Joe.”