19 Have the nicest people

19

HAVE THE NICEST PEOPLE

A recruitment manager told me once, “Our graduate applicants think that what employers want is someone who’s ambitious, full of initiative and willing to take on a lot of responsibility. What we really want are people who will fi t in with the team, make the tea when it’s their turn and get on with what we ask them to do.”

Some companies have realised how important it’s to employ pleasant people. Others persist in believing that they need the hardest, meanest most ambitious staff members to be successful. The Harvard Business Review wrote about how one person can destroy a company’s positive culture. They called this person “the corporate ass-hole” and recommended that no matter how hardworking or fi nancially successful this person is, they should be removed from the business, or sent for behavioural training to help them fi t in. Their research showed that although the bullies had short-term success, long-term they would upset so many clients and colleagues that it would damage the business. Lush’s founder, Mark Constantine, recruits people only if he likes the idea of spending a two hour train journey with them. He regularly travels from Poole, Dorset, to London and back. He would picture himself travelling with a potential candidate along this route. If he can’t bear the thought of it, he would recruit someone else no matter how good this person looks on paper.

The idea One company that takes the pleasantness of its staff seriously is

Singapore Airlines. They were quick to realise that when people are 30,000 feet up in the sky, stuck in a metal tube for up to 18 hours at a stretch, friendly smiling faces can make the experience a pleasure rather than of a pain.

An ad man names Ian Batey came up with the Singapore Girl idea in 1972, and the airline’s publicity has emphasised the helpfulness, grace and beauty of their air crew ever since. The Singapore Girls have been wearing a version of the Malayan sarong designed by Pierre Balmain, the Paris fashion designer, since 1968.

Attitudes to women have changed, and the Singapore Girl has been criticised as old-fashioned and demeaning. Singapore Airlines’ response has been to employ equally helpful, pleasant men as aircrew, building on on their reputation for superb service from nice people.

In practice • We’ve all been on journeys where the staff have made a difference to the atmosphere, whether it’s half an hour on a train with a pleasant conductor, or a driver who smiles when we board the bus. We know we’ll never return to restaurants with snooty waiters no matter how good the food was. And yet when it comes to recruitment we tend to follow the age old rules of checking to see who’s the best qualifi ed or has the most experience. Try changing your recruitment policy, putting yourself in your customer shoes and asking yourself if you would enjoy doing business with that person. • Lead by example. If staff see that it’s fi ne for managers to shout, bully, and hard sell their way through the day, then they’ll behave that way towards their customers. Be pleasant, fair and fi rm when necessary, and behave towards staff and customers the way you would hope to be treated.