An accurate duties list and a duties list that filters are different documents. A posting can name the duties in the right order, receiving, picking, packing, loading, and still pull applicants who quit in week 2. The filtering version states pay, shift, pace, and physical reality plainly enough that mismatched candidates rule themselves out before they apply.
That gap is expensive: replacing one frontline employee costs roughly $7,000 on average. What follows: what belongs in the duties section, how the work changes by facility type, and how to write requirements that screen instead of deter.
What does a warehouse worker do?
A warehouse worker receives and stores goods, inspects, picks, packs, and ships them, tracks inventory through counts and records, and keeps the work area clean and safe.
Two federal occupation codes cover most warehouse postings; a third covers dedicated forklift work. Warehouse worker and material handler sit in 53-7062, laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand, which excludes movers who use power equipment. 53-7065, stockers and order fillers, covers receiving, storing, and issuing merchandise, including running forklifts to fill orders, while forklift operator maps to 53-7051, where truck operation is the primary duty. O*NET lists no “warehouse associate” occupation, so a posting using it has to spell out duties instead of leaning on the title.
Grouped by function, the task inventory looks like this:
- Receive and inspect inbound freight. Workers count stock against records, unload and unpack shipments, and flag damage or defects.
- Put stock away where the next person can find it. Locations follow turnover and the building’s constraints, not whatever shelf is open.
- Pick orders and pack them for shipment. Workers read orders for catalog numbers, sizes, and quantities, then pull merchandise from bins and carton it.
- Sort, brace, and load outbound cargo. Bracing and strapping keep loads from shifting in transit, and containers get tagged for identification.
- Count inventory and record what moves. Workers run cycle counts, flag items for reorder, log units handled, and dispose of damaged stock.
- Operate pallet jacks and other power equipment. Dedicated forklift roles fall under the industrial truck operator code instead.
- Keep the work area clean and safe. Workers maintain tools, equipment, and storage areas to stay compliant with safety rules.
Which functions dominate depends on the building, not the title.
How warehouse duties change by facility type
The same title means different daily work depending on the building, and a duties list borrowed from the wrong facility type mis-sets expectations before Day 1.
Four patterns cover most logistics and warehousing hiring:
- An e-commerce fulfillment center runs each-picking at scan speed. Workers stow, pick, pack, sort, and ship single items, often alongside automated equipment or mobile robots, and peak-season pace shifts enough to belong in the posting.
- A third-party logistics site changes its rules with the account. Workers may run piece, case, and cluster picking in one shift and segregate inventory by client, so name whether pace changes by account and whether client peaks overlap.
- A retail distribution center case-picks to pallet on a store schedule. Pallet jacks and reach trucks move the loads, and orders group into waves by delivery deadline, so the rhythm follows store replenishment rather than consumer clicks.
- A manufacturing feeder warehouse works to the production schedule. Workers kit components into totes against work orders, replenish assembly lines, and log lot-tracking data, and a delay in the aisle stops the line downstream.
Before you post, swap each generic duty for the workflow your building runs. “Pick and pack orders” becomes “case-pick store-replenishment orders by wave and move completed pallets with a pallet jack,” which a candidate who has done the work recognizes immediately.
Requirements, physical demands, and certifications
List only essential requirements, quantify physical demands by task, weight, and frequency, and describe forklift training as employer certification rather than a license. Warehouse management system (WMS) familiarity is the clearest case of drift: it can usually be learned on the job, so writing it as a hard requirement shrinks the pool for nothing.
Test every line by whether anyone on your team screens on it. Requirements carry legal weight, so treat this as orientation rather than legal advice and confirm your obligations with counsel.
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Physical demands and forklift certification
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Requirements Survey, reaching at or below the shoulder is required for 93.8% of transportation and material moving workers, and only 4.6% can choose between sitting and standing. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a written job description prepared before advertising counts as evidence of essential functions.
The version that holds up states task, weight, and frequency: “moves cartons weighing up to 50 pounds, up to 10 times per shift,” not “must lift heavy objects.” Overstatement cuts the other way. In 2018 the Ninth Circuit let an ADA claim proceed where the job description required 75 to 100 pound lifts the employer couldn’t show workers regularly had to perform.
Forklift operation is the one credential with a federal training rule behind it. Under 29 CFR 1910.178(l), training has three parts:
- The employer delivers formal instruction. Lecture, written material, or video all qualify, as long as it covers the truck type and the conditions in your building.
- The operator trains hands-on with the equipment. Practical training sits alongside the formal instruction rather than replacing it.
- The employer evaluates performance in the workplace. That evaluation repeats at least once every 3 years, a performance check rather than a recertification.
The process ends in employer certification, because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issues no forklift license. “Forklift license required” screens out experienced operators whose training you would have to evaluate anyway, while “forklift experience preferred; we provide certification training” describes what will actually happen.
How to write a duties list that pre-qualifies applicants
Specificity is a filter, not a courtesy. Pay, shift, pace, and physical demands stated plainly let applicants decide whether they can do the job before they apply. 70% of organizations that list pay ranges say it brought them more applicants, and several states now require ranges in postings.
The application lift matters less than what a candid posting does to early turnover, where that $7,000 replacement cost lands. A duties list that names the pick-rate target and the shift pattern, and says out loud how cold the dock gets and how heavy the cartons are, keeps the week-2 quitter out of the funnel entirely.
The failure modes are consistent: pay goes missing or sits below the duties, titles carry internal codes candidates don’t recognize, requirements nobody screens on deter people who read them literally, and silence about training reads as “experience required.”
Length costs you too, since 60% of job seekers abandon an application mid-way over its length or complexity, per CareerBuilder research. One rewrite fixes all of it.
Before:
Warehouse Associate III (Supply Chain Operations), Req #WH-3391-OPS. Loads, picks, packs, and counts inventory under the site’s procedures. The ideal candidate is a detail-oriented self-starter with a high school diploma, 3+ years of warehouse experience, WMS proficiency, a forklift license, and the ability to lift heavy objects. Compensation commensurate with experience.
After:
Warehouse Worker, Night Shift, $19.50/hour. Sunday through Thursday, 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Picks single-item online orders with a handheld scanner at the site’s stated units-per-hour target, packs them, and stages them for carriers. Moves cartons up to 50 pounds several times per hour. Forklift experience helpful but not required; we provide certification training. Applying takes under 5 minutes on your phone.
Every line in the rewrite does screening work, so a candidate who can’t work nights, hit that pace, or move that weight knows before applying rather than in week 2.
Sample warehouse worker job description
Swap the duty lines below for the functions your building runs, and apply the general rules of job description craft on top.
Warehouse Worker, Fulfillment Center
Pay: $18.50 to $20.50 per hour, paid weekly. Shift: Sunday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with overtime during the November and December peak.
Who we are: This fulfillment center ships home goods to 40 states. Most orders are single-item, so expect fast, scan-heavy picking rather than pallet work.
What you’ll do:
- Receive and count inbound stock, inspect for damage, and log it in our system (we train you in week 1)
- Pull items for orders with a handheld scanner at the posted units-per-hour target once ramped
- Pack orders in cartons and stage them for carrier pickup
- Count assigned bin locations during weekly cycle counts
- Keep your zone clean and follow posted safety procedures
Physical requirements: Moves cartons weighing up to 50 pounds several times per hour and stands or walks for most of the shift. The dock area is not climate-controlled.
Required: 18 or older; able to work the posted shift, including peak overtime; comfortable using a handheld scanner after training.
Preferred, not required: Prior warehouse, stockroom, or fulfillment experience. We provide forklift certification training for workers who move into equipment roles.
Read it from the candidate’s side before publishing: any line that doesn’t tell them something they can act on is taking space the pay and shift details should have.
How Fountain runs warehouse hiring after the posting
A filtering posting only sets up the funnel behind it, which is what decides whether the right applicant is still available when you call. Fountain runs frontline hiring through Cue, the orchestration layer across every Fountain product and the core of its Frontline Superintelligence.
A warehouse manager types “Screen this week’s applicants for the night pick shift and book the qualified ones for Thursday facility walkthroughs,” and Cue coordinates the work behind it. Managers still approve every offer and exception.
Cue orchestrates the agents that keep applicants moving. Anna, the AI Recruiter, runs voice and SMS screening around the clock, so someone who applies at 11 p.m. finishes a screen before a recruiter opens the queue. Emma, AI 24/7 Support, answers candidate questions and clears document blockers before Day 1. Sam, AI Satisfaction, collects post-hire feedback, which is where you learn whether the posting set honest expectations.
The agents work on the platform underneath. Fountain ATS turns the posting’s shift, lifting, and equipment lines into knockout questions, so the mobile application repeats the filter the posting already applied, and Fountain Onboarding handles mobile I-9 completion and stores the training and evaluation records forklift certification requires.
WIth Fountain, Stitch Fix raised the fulfillment rate of applicants who pass background checks and show up on day one from 68% to 95%, and cut median time to hire to 9.16 days from nearly 3 weeks.
The posting keeps the week-2 quitter out; the funnel behind it keeps the right candidate from taking another offer while you schedule. Book a demo to see that on your own postings, watch Anna screen a night-shift pick queue and Onboarding carry a hire to Day 1 paperwork.
These three come up most often in a rewrite.
Frequently asked questions about warehouse job description duties
What are the main duties of a warehouse worker?
Receiving and inspecting inbound stock, put-away and storage, order picking and packing, shipping and loading, inventory counts, and safety housekeeping, plus powered equipment operation in roles that allow it. Emphasis depends on the facility: each-picking in e-commerce, case picking in retail distribution centers, kitting in manufacturing feeder warehouses.
What is the difference between a warehouse worker and a warehouse associate?
Warehouse worker maps to 53-7062 for manual freight and material movement, while “warehouse associate” appears on no O*NET occupation page. Each employer defines it, so a posting using that label needs an explicit duties list to carry the meaning the title can’t.
What physical requirements should a warehouse job description list?
Only the essential ones, each stated as task plus weight plus frequency, such as “moves cartons up to 50 pounds, up to 10 times per shift.” A job description written before advertising counts as ADA evidence of essential functions, so the wording should match what workers do.
