Whom would you employ?

Yesterday my husband and I dropped into one of the Little Chef restaurants on the A14 near Kettering which received the ‘overhaul’ by Heston Blumenthal following the ‘Big Chef takes on Little Chef’ Channel 4 TV series. It was packed at 10am on a Saturday as travellers stopped for breakfast in droves. We were shown by a lady to the only two remaining seats and prepared to wait it out.

The service was surprisingly fast, but it also provided sufficient opportunity to observe the staff at work. Two members of staff stood out for two totally different reasons.

The first was the chef. He had a restaurant full of people wanting ‘fast’ food. Whilst there wasn’t much complexity in the menu, he was churning through the work alone. He was meticulously organised, smartly turned out and worked fast and methodically, engaging with his fellow workers to ensure food got to the customers quickly and whilst still hot.

The waiter who took over the management of our table after we were seated was perfectly personable, but dragged his feet and walked with hunched shoulders and looked totally disinterested.

The two chaps were not that dissimilar in age but the difference in the level of enthusiasm and professionalism communicated non-verbally to fellow employees and customers was vast. I know which one I’d employ.

So employees or those in the market for a new job, attitude is key…the value of enthusiasm is not something to be under-estimated. And employers, wouldn’t it make recruitment of staff so much easier if you could pick up these attributes from a CV? Could there possibly be a role for video CV’s in the future?