Warehouse staffing for Sevierville & Kodak.

When a warehouse shift comes up short, orders fall behind and trucks sit at the dock waiting. That is expensive, and it is stressful for the crew you do have. Labor Exchange sends pre-screened warehouse workers same-day to the Kodak and Sevierville area, so you get hands on the floor before the shift starts, not the day after. We are a family-owned company based on Chapman Highway in South Knoxville, founded by Bill Peterson around 2012 and run today by his wife Kelly. Every worker we send is a W-2 employee of ours, and one rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening. We are in the people business, and our Google rating of 4.3 stars across 108 reviews comes from doing right by both the warehouses we staff and the people we put to work.

How Exit 407 became a distribution corner

Most people know I-40 Exit 407 in Kodak as the gateway to the Smokies, but it has quietly turned into a real distribution corner too. The Interstate 40 Industrial Park sits just north of the exit, and it is anchored by a large FedEx Ground distribution operation along with a Toyota parts manufacturer. A package and freight hub like that pulls a steady stream of loading, sorting, and handling work, and it keeps the surrounding warehouses busy. The same exit that funnels millions of visitors toward Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg also moves a lot of freight, and freight runs on people who show up ready.

The retail buildout around the exit has only added to it. The 407 Gateway development and the enormous Buc-ee’s that opened in Kodak draw constant traffic, and operations like that lean on resupply and distribution to keep shelves and coolers full. For a warehouse or distribution floor anywhere along the Kodak-Sevierville corridor, the challenge is the same one we hear everywhere. You can have the dock space and the racks, but if the right number of hands do not clock in, the orders do not move. That is the gap we fill, same day, with local people.

Positions we fill

Every shift, every season

Warehouses do not stop for weekends or holidays, so we do not either. We staff first, second, and third shift plus weekends, and we keep shift-experienced people in our pool on purpose because overnights are the hardest to fill. When holiday fulfillment surges hit or a new distribution tenant opens along the I-40 corridor near Kodak, we ramp your crew up fast and scale it back down when the run finishes. No severance, no layoffs, no unemployment claims to manage. You flex with demand and only carry the headcount you actually need.

Temp-to-hire

Start with temporary workers and convert the best performers to your permanent payroll once you know they fit. You get to see their real speed, accuracy, and attendance on your own floor before you ever extend a permanent offer, which takes a lot of the risk out of hiring. Many of our warehouse clients build entire shift teams this way, keeping the people who prove themselves and skipping the guesswork. When you find someone who clicks with your operation, we work out the transition with you.

The roles we fill on the dock and the floor

A distribution floor near Kodak is a chain of jobs that have to line up, and a gap in one of them backs up the rest. On the inbound side we send unloaders and receiving hands who break down trailers, scan freight in, and stage it so the door does not jam. On the pick side we send order pickers and packers who hold a steady pace, because during a busy stretch the orders only go out as fast as the slowest station. On the outbound side we send loaders and shipping hands who build clean loads and keep the trucks moving on schedule, which matters a lot when freight is feeding a tight delivery network.

Holding it together are the forklift operators and material handlers who move product between those stations. We match certified operators to your equipment, whether that is a sit-down rider, a stand-up, or a reach truck pulling from high racks, so nobody is learning your lift while the clock runs. We also send general warehouse hands for palletizing, staging, cleaning, and cycle counts. For retail and tourism resupply, where one slow day can mean empty shelves heading into a busy weekend, sending the right role to the right spot is the difference between a smooth shift and a backed-up dock.

Staffing through the tourism season swings

Sevier County runs on tourism, and that gives the warehouse and distribution work here a rhythm you do not see in other towns. When the Smokies fill up in summer, when Dollywood and the Tanger Outlets are busy, and when the holiday season brings the crowds back for the Christmas lights, the resupply and distribution behind all that retail surges right along with it. Then the quieter weeks come and the volume settles. A warehouse along the Kodak-Sevierville corridor has to flex with those swings, and that is exactly what same-day staffing is built for.

We ramp your crew up when the season climbs and scale it back down when it settles, with no severance, no layoffs, and no unemployment claims for you to manage. You carry the headcount you actually need for the week in front of you, not a payroll built for your busiest stretch all year long. When a peak weekend or a holiday push is coming, give us a little lead time and the full crew is ready on day one. Honestly, that flex is why a lot of seasonal operations around here keep our number handy. We keep shift-experienced people in our pool on purpose so the busy weeks do not catch you short.

What to expect when you call us

Call 865-247-4957 and you reach a real person on our team. Tell us where your facility sits along the Kodak and Sevierville corridor, how many workers you need, which shift, and what roles, whether that is pickers and packers, forklift operators, dock loaders, or general warehouse labor. If you run reach trucks or stand-up forklifts, tell us your equipment and we match operators accordingly. We will be honest about what we can fill and by when.

From there we dispatch from our local pool of pre-screened workers. To start, a new worker brings two forms of ID for the I-9, and if your site requires background checks or drug screening, just ask and we arrange it. Labor Exchange is family-owned in South Knoxville, founded by Bill Peterson around 2012 and run today by his wife Kelly. Every worker we send is a W-2 employee of ours, so one rate covers their pay, payroll taxes, workers’ comp, and screening. Because our people can be paid the same day they work, dependable folks keep coming back.

Why a local crew matters for distribution work

The I-40 corridor near Kodak and Sevierville keeps adding distribution and fulfillment space, and those operations only work when people show up shift after shift. A staffing company far from here cannot promise reliability the way a local crew can. We know who is steady for a 5 a.m. start and who can handle a long weekend during peak season, because they are our neighbors in East Tennessee, not names on a list. We are in the people business, and that is not a slogan to us.

It also means we can ramp fast without dropping our standards. When a new tenant opens along I-40 or a peak-season fulfillment push hits, we are not scrambling to recruit strangers. We are calling people we already know can do the work, who have been pre-screened, and who can be on your dock that same day. If a role needs a forklift operator for sit-down, stand-up, or reach trucks, tell us the equipment and we match it rather than sending someone to figure it out on the fly.

Family-owned since 2012, we have grown by keeping warehouses staffed through the busy stretches and the quiet ones, and our Google rating of 4.3 stars across 108 reviews reflects that steady work. When good people flourish where they are planted, your orders go out on time, and that is what we are here for.

Questions Sevier County operations managers ask us

Frequently asked questions