Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Being "Nice" Is The Way To Go

One of the more important stresses placed on catering businesses today is finding, training and motivating staff. As our industry grows, the need for more people to fill new or soon-to-be-vacant positions increases.
What makes it even more difficult is the fact that catering is a tough business with longer hours than most other businesses. Add to that weekends ... Well, you know what I’m driving at. Long hours, hard work and lack of time for family and personal activities makes recruiting people to staff our companies challenging.
While I don’t have an answer for how to fill this need, I do have some thoughts. Whether you’re trying to find full- or part-time staff for culinary, sales, office, operations, management or whatever, the single most crucial guideline is to hire as many “nice” people as you can. Sounds sort of weird doesn’t it?
As the work force gets younger, the work ethic changes. I’m not suggesting younger workers have a poorer work ethic, but people in their 20s and 30s look upon work in a completely different way than those who are older. They see work as an important part of their life bur, for many, it’s not the most important part. They expect not just to work, but also to enjoy what they do and to find it meaningful.
We can’t guarantee nice customers, but we certainly can’t afford to have staff that isn’t nice touching our customers.
 I don’t believe you can teach a staff person to be nice, so it’s extremely important to hire staff who demonstrate that they are, more than likely, nice.
The employment interview needs to draw out a measure of the potential hire’s level of respect for others and their need to please and serve. Catering is a low-tech, high-touch business where many words are spoken before, during and after a sale. Buying a catered event is a major purchase for most customers, so they demand a much higher level of communication, empathy and service from a caterer than from someone selling a set of tires.
For those staffers behind the scenes who never get a chance to “touch” customers, the need to be nice is also crucial to maintain staff morale, safety and teamwork. The days of not-so-nice employees are limited, and that’s true for everyone from the lowest paid staffer to those in upper management.
Never before have workers had so little concern about “staying on the job.” If they can’t be both productive and happy, then they will most likely leave in search of a better situation. 
Losing outstanding talent because others were not nice is a waste for all concerned.

No comments:

Post a Comment