As I continue to develop myself in my personal and professional life, and as I spend more time developing my leadership and talent evaluation competencies, I am always catching myself noticing and earmarking the differences in the level of service I receive from the people and places where I spend my money.
I am often delighted with the level of service I receive from the frequent flyer desk at American Air Lines, from the sales woman in Nordstroms women’s department, or from Laverne at the dentists office. Then there are times that I can not imagine in my wildest dreams who would have employed such unfriendly folks at other service providers. American Air certainly does not hold the award for having mastered the art of a service hire; but honestly my experience with them is 3:1 in their favor.
When we hear about offshoring of work, I wonder what kind of jobs were sent away. It seems that some industries hire people who don’t want to be there, and resent you for being there. If we don’t want the work, someone, somewhere else certainly does and just might work harder to achieve & keep the work.
This is as true for recruiting as elsewhere. We are in the service profession. For many of us, our job is to partner with our customers and help them win the war for talent; proactively. I know they frustrate you. I know they can’t make up their mind. I know they always think someone better is lurking around the corner (frankly, in my dating life so do I, don’t you?). So… Why settle? Bad service isn’t limited to fast food restaurants and mall workers. What happens when a client is hiring workers that aren’t interested in serving the customer?
Times are tough, life is short, why should anyone spend 80% of their waking hours managing a half baked employee? Why spend hours on end trying to fix an employee’s bad behavior or bad work habits?
Management books and trainers everywhere are coaching corporate executive teams to “Choose Wisely” and build their succession plans around the right behaviors and the right leadership traits. Stephen Robbins The truth about managing people & nothing but the truth” writes that management begins with hiring right; funny that is what Jim Collins says too; and Ken Blanchard
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