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When did Interviews and Performance Reviews become part of the Menu?
By TWilson | January 21, 2008
The other day I was meeting with a client at a local sandwich shop. After the meeting, I stayed to have some lunch. When I went up to pick up my order, there was a young man sitting at the table in front of me, we greeted each other with a nod and I sat down to have my soup and sandwich.
Two minutes later, a young lady who seemed to be the manager came out, took the chair in front of him, and proceeded to conduct an interview with this person within earshot of everyone in the restaurant. Now you have to understand, I’m sitting right behind him and can hear everything. I must admit I found this a bit befuddling. I looked at my receipt to see if I was charged for this because I certainly didn’t order it or see it on the menu.
After leaving for another appointment, I then recalled a similar instance; I witnessed in another restaurant; the manager was conducting a performance review for one of their employees, again with customers sitting around able to hear everything that he and the employee had to say. All I can say is I’m glad that person wasn’t our waiter, because the review wasn’t going all that well.
I started thinking about this looking for a common theme and came up with the following, these took place in chain restaurants. The other common theme was I was uncomfortable witnessing both of these instances. I wondered why this was happening in such an open area, where customers could hear every question – in the case of the interview – and every this is what you need to improve on statement– in the case of the performance review.
This got me to wondering, is this becoming a common practice or is this just unique to chain restaurants. If this is or has become a common practice then I’m beginning to understand why service people are becoming less and less helpful, and customer service is going in the drink. Think about it for a moment, if you just received your review in front of customers, would you be a happy camper? Would you want to be the best waiter/waitress or would just rather drop a pot of hot coffee on the next customer that came into the restaurant.
When I go to lunch or dinner at a restaurant and review the menu to make my lunch or dinner selection, I don’t ask for a side order employee performance review or potential wait staff interviews with my order. So why do managers insist on doing this? To do this is being disrespectful. It’s disrespectful to customers, they come to have lunch or dinner, not hear an interview or performance review.
But most of all it shows a profound lack of respect for the employee or potential employee. How can you expect anyone to work hard for you if you review him or her in front of customers? What are you saying to potential employees when you conduct their job interview in a setting where everyone can hear the entire conversation?
I’m still wondering when interviews and performance reviews became part of the menu. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
Topics: Accountability, Communication |
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