I’ve been blogging long enough to know that disclosing confidential information about your employer is a “no, no” and while I’ve never necessarily have fought the urge of wanting to, it’s harmless to state that as a retail manager, a fraction of my work entails conducting interviews.
The process in time has become a well memorized screenplay carried out several times in a month, each encounter being different, strenghting of experience gained through each one but an element that remains unchanged is the expectations we set on doing our best of bringing people on board that really care about the company, the product and the culture.
As much as I frequent stores like Target or Sports Authority, the one thing you’re likely to find in each one is just workers. Absolutely nothing wrong with that admired attribute but I can’t recall the last time I ever found anyone in those stores to assist on a purchase either because there wasn’t anyone around or the ones that were visible cared only enough to finish their projects and not on servicing.
So the question to myself is, does this staff really want to be there? Perhaps a few do but Jonathan Christopher’s description of what he loves most about his profession and industry is what would make a shopping experience in any store an even greater one -
I sincerely doubt that you’ve come across a fellow [Web] designer who talks about his job as though it only pays the bills. I find that extremely endearing about our industry. We’re all here by choice, and apart from unavoidable frustrations found in everything, we love what we do.
Despite our current economic hardship, I think it’s easy finding a job but the difficulty relies in finding one that you truly enjoy and want and not just have because society and bills says you need one.
The same goes for hiring. We can hire anyone to fold a shirt, to break down a box or ring at the register but if all those attributes overshadow the likelihood of providing an exceptional customer service, what’s the use for them. As associates, it’s about being versatile enough to handle everything in the spectrum without jeapordizing one or the other.
Equally important is about us as managers being meticulous in hiring candidates that will highly represent the company name and not accepting a bunch of people connected together by the fact that they work in the same buildilng with nothing in return.
A large quantity of employees in a store with the intent to service customers does nothing if half of those staffer don’t care about anything other than not being approached and their paycheck.
Finding the Right People
In an ideal world, everyone that worked in a store would care about their line of work and it would be clearly visible from a customer’s perspective. Mark Sanborn says “there are no unimportant jobs, just people who feel unimportant doing their jobs” and as a leader, that’s where the training, coaching and mentoring comes from us in valuing the employees we have and instilling the mentality that being of service isn’t an obligation, but an opportunity.
Nobody decides to become car salesman because they feel they need a job. The people employed in the industry do it because they have a passion for cars, they care enough to become knowledgeable about the product and because making a sale is not about actually selling things but about building relationships with hopes that customers come back and do more business with them.
As taxing as the hiring process can be, it’s a critical stage for any great company wanting to build a core passionate team. A team that will always go the extra mile for each other, their customers and by extension the company simply because the staff loves what they do.
November 17, 2009 |
Tags:
opinion
life
work
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