Personnel Staffing Tailor

shutterstock_757774588

In the days of yesteryear, hiring a new employee was fraught with numerous uncertainties and typically required the service of a professional recruiter. The process was timing consuming, costly, and usually involved ploughing through an endless list of CVs, countless interviews, tedious salary negotiations, a job offer, a period of probation, and then finally, if you were lucky, you had a useful new member of staff. If not, you were then back to the start, absent your time, dollars and the few remaining hairs from your quickly balding head.

Enter the role of your Personnel Staffing Tailor (PST). Yes, as the name suggests, this is a new addition to the recruiting business, and one that guarantees 100% corporate satisfaction, complete with a lifetime warranty on your new hire. Your risk, zero.

Now that I have your interest, I’m sure that you will want to quickly utilise the service of your nearest PST. How? Simple. Just ask Siri.

By adhering to Siri’s detailed instructions, you should now be about to enter the business abode of your PST. Don’t be shy, just open the door and go in, even-though it looks like a high-end tailor’s shop. Once inside, you will be greeted by a person that has a welcoming appearance, and one that makes you feel completely relaxed and comfortable. Which, they should do on all occasions for every prospective buyer, as they have been matched to your individual personality requirements to ensure you complete corporate shopping ease. Yes, they are a fashionably dressed humanoid, fully equipped with a remarkedly superior artificial intelligence.

Once seated in a perfectly fitting leather viewing chair, together with any nourishment that you desire at that point in time, your charming PST will ask you to list the full personality traits, qualifications, experience, gender and physical appearance that you require with your new hire.

Equipped with the completed list, your PST will now mix and match your potential new employee via a meticulous arrangement of humanoid features and downloaded artificial intelligence Apps (just like the Apple App Store) to fulfil all your business requirements. Once done, your new employee will quietly sit down next to you awaiting your approval.

So, what are the additional benefits associated with using the services of a PST?

  • Should the employee’s role change in the future, just refresh their accumulated Apps, or download additional ones as required for a modest fee. Your PST will have a stock of all the latest fashionable ones!
  • Your new employee will never need sick leave, annual leave, lunch or coffee breaks.
  • Their hours of work are 24 hours, they don’t abide by the restrictive 9-5 regime.
  • They speak, read and write all languages, even the rarest of dialects.
  • They have a work ethic that perfectly matches your corporate culture.
  • Their clothing attire is never dull and always an inspiration to others in the corporate office.

But, one word of caution, just in case you didn’t read the fine print on the PST contract. You boss has the right to match you with the equivalent AI humanoid, so don’t be surprised if your tenure is limited. But, as they say, that’s progress!

 

The Office Well-Being Executive Manager

RetroWoman1950sStyle-Attrib-Flickr-MipsyRetro-5593568015-640x604

The corridors of corporate life used to experience it at least once a day, typically around 3 PM. Those of you with a longer memory say it also occurred in the morning, but alas, those days are reluctantly gone, possibly, never to be repeated.

The eagerly awaited activity heralded an opportunity to have a short break from your normal work routine and to refresh your mind with small morsels of needed sustenance.

It was a welcome time for all pens to be lowered, inky nibs blotted, and writing paper pushed aside on your desk to make room for the appreciated earthenware additions.

For a brief few minutes, the worker could engage in a pseudo-flirtatious social dialogue and build a non-threatening personal rapport with the service provider, who was usually wearing a bland coloured corporate pinafore apron. Their official work title was “Tea Lady”, but they were the backbone of many successful organizations.

No office door was ever closed to the Tea Lady. They traversed the building pulling a trolley that was equipped with a large teapot, hot water, coffee, milk, a selection of biscuits (or cakes if you were lucky), and an array of cups and saucers, some of which occasionally matched. Their arrival could be heard well before they reached your desk, owing to the rattling of the crockery and the heightened conversation that they would always generate.

The role of Tea Lady was an unrecognized strategic cog in the corporate organizational hierarchy as they were privy to all levels of the business, from senior management, right down to the new starter or graduate. They could sense the mood of the corporate office, whether it was dynamic and innovative, or one that was struggling and ready to implode. The Tea Lady became the confidant of many employees, a person that they could talk to about work, home-life or their personal ambitions.

Business today needs a modern version of the Tea Lady, which would probably now have the more acceptable corporate title of “Office Well-Being Manager”. Many organizations have tried to foster various methods of casual communication within the corporate office with the introduction of “Chatter”, “Yammer” and other electronic applications, but none have been as effective as the old fashioned Tea Lady.

So why not reinvigorate the Tea Lady role with a more modern version?

Many employees want to have access to their senior management team, but may be too shy or a tad embarrassed to engage them in an open forum. One solution is to have a weekly (or monthly) roster where your Executive Team takes it in turns to be “Office Well-Being Executive Manager”. Yes, they would walk the office corridors with an electric powered beverage trolley fully equipped with the latest coffee (short black, long black, latte, cappuccino, flat white), tea (Early Grey, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, herbal), soymilk chai lattes, and a selection of cakes (high fat, low fat, gluten free) or fruit. Besides your Executive Team learning new catering skills that they can add to their already impressive CVs, they would have instantaneous access to the pulse of the business and an opportunity to gain an insight on the nuances of their staff (and vice-versa).

So, when next you plan to have a well-earned rest break from your computer, may I suggest that you first stop, and listen. Hopefully you will hear the buzz of your corporately branded electric beverage trolley as it happily approaches your desk. Bon appetite!

Taking Your Brand to New Promotional Heights

Searchlight

According to my trusted meteorological iPhone app, the timing looked just right. It was 2:04 PM and by my reckoning, the clouds were at the optimum “Genus Cumulus” appearance so I should achieve the desired picture “hang time distribution” before the visual sight was dispersed by the wind. My calculations indicated that I should have about 10 minutes to brand my customised CV message to the population of New York.

I quickly glanced once again on how my image and brief professional experience synopsis looked on the “LinkedIn Cloud Projector” in preview mode, yes it all looked good. I was hoping that the QR code would come through with the right definitional clarity so potential business prospects could scan my profile details with ease. My only concern was the timing of the 2:05 PM supersonic Virgin Atlantic flight from London to New York as it could cause some cloud turbulence when it commences its gradual decent into JFK airport, but that’s one of the risks associated with personal cloud advertising these days.

OK, it was now time to press the Cloud Projector button and start the process. Immediately a thirty square kilometre coloured, and rather snazzy image of myself was beamed skywards with vibrant intensity. I was also pleased that I had spent the extra dollars on the additional promotional advertising, as suggested by the LinkedIn sales agent, as the large sonic boom with the accompanying missile explosion at 2000 feet above the New York skyline appeared to have caught the upwards attention of the New York crowds particularly nicely.

I smirked with some personal pride as my large handsome face (well, I thought so anyway) beamed across from above, that was, until that pesky Virgin Atlantic flight descended through my left nostril. However, I was relieved, as the QR code seemed to remain intact. For the next few minutes I watched as my portrait hovered quietly above New York until some high level winds decided to take one ear in the direction of Newark, the other towards Brooklyn. A few minutes later I had vanished into the upper atmosphere, except for my left eye, which remained with a look of naughtiness down on the city, then, with a final momentary wink, that also eventually disappeared.

Suddenly, I was awakened from my feeling of self-righteousness by the continual interruption of text messages on my phone. Yep, it appears that the “LinkedIn Cloud Projector” advertisement had worked! However, when the forty-first text message arrived, I was immediately brought back to reality, it was the LinkedIn invoice. Oh well, I suppose that’s the price of corporate fame!

Room Service With A Difference

CE003

I was sitting at my hotel room desk when the doorbell rang. “Brilliant”, I said, my room service meal had finally arrived and I was famished! I bounded up from my desk, opened the door, and was greeted by an attractive young woman called Adriana and immediately signalled for her to come into my room.

Now the odd thing about hotel doorways is that they are quite narrow, and the meal tray that Adriana was carrying was quite wide. On seeing this conundrum, two possible solutions could eventuate. The first being that the door needed to be widened, but as I couldn’t see a sledge hammer neatly dangling from Adriana’s immaculate hotel uniform, I knew that this wasn’t going to be the chosen remedy. So option two prevailed.

Option two involved a contortionist yoga movement in which Adriana swung the meal tray around, utilising an impressive single slow pirouette action, which succeeded in the tray entering through the doorway with possibly one millimetre to spare on each side. What surprised me more was that the food, drink and cutlery, all remained firmly in position without experiencing an undignified free-fall onto the carpet in the room entrance hall.

I applauded Adriana on her room service skill and suggested that this innovative and creative food delivery move should be listed in bold italic font in her CV, and, that I would be happy to attest to this unique hotel qualification as an official referee should ever it be required!

But what if other hotel staff members saw Adriana’s meal tray delivery technique and tried it for themselves without any pre-training? Yes, I’m afraid the result could be catastrophic for the individual concerned, the food, and more importantly, the hungry hotel guest.

Now this got me thinking about a methodology for those potentially not as skilled as Adriana. One that provides an efficient, and reliable meal delivery service, together with the added benefit of improved health and safety for all concerned, including the food.

Why not expand the hotel’s limousine fleet to include a number of Segways (two wheeled, self-balancing, battery powered), each branded in the hotel’s colours to ensure that consistent professional appearance? The Segway could be modified to include a number of shelves into which the meal tray would snuggly fit, together with a Wi-Fi transmitter so the rider can communicate easily with the hotel kitchen. But the most important design feature from the hotel’s perspective of the Segway is its width. The Segway can be easily driven straight into the hotel guest’s room, without impacting the doorframe, thereby eliminating the need for any complicated and dangerous meal tray manipulations that were required in the past.

So, should any hotel management be reading this blog post, may I suggest that you explore this Segway idea as it might just be useful in the future. I would also be keen to know how it goes?

The Infectious Smile

Heike

Wow…..that was a great smile I told myself when receiving my coffee in the cafe! When this woman smiled, I, and everyone else she met just had to smile back. Her smile was genuine, natural, unforced and infectious.

This got me thinking….

How many people in your office “really smile”? Every business needs a “smiler” to initiate that human touch, to let people know that they are important and not just another employee number in the corporate organisation.

A “smiler” is like a little heat spot in the building that generates and radiates warmth that people are attracted to when needing a motivational uplift.

So why don’t we formalise the role of the “smiler” in the organisation chart? Those with the recognised “smiling skill” could list this attribute on their CV, and for those that are deemed “Masters of Smiling”, there would be a large salary increase entitlement to entice them to stay in the business! After all, these prized “smilers” would be the target of many a head-hunter (or smile-hunter)!

I also would suggest that each work department needs at least one accredited “smiler” to raise morale. For those working in the more dull work teams (eg accounting – apologies to any accountants that might be reading), a second “smiler” may be required!

So next time you see a person with a magnificent smile, please savour the moment and try to learn from the experience with the view of embellishing your own smile in the direction of “smiling grandness”!

 

An improved CV

Caught in the Cube

I don’t think that the traditional Curriculum Vitae (CV) does justice for the person it is trying to represent, I believe that it is time for an improved version that I will call the “Creative Visualization”. So what is this new “CV” you may ask?

This “CV” would be interactive and would provide the following key attributes:

– A 3D representation of the person. The reader could see their face, facial expressions, head, body and how they would look in various clothing (eg suit, work uniform, etc)

– Conversation. The reader could ask a limited range of questions and get answers on the person’s work experience and other qualifications. Similarly, the person could ask the reader a selection of basic questions about their organisation and management style so see how this would suit their work style.

– References. These would be visual testimonials from other employers or key people that would provide real situational examples to support the person’s work style and experience.

– Next steps. There would be links to both the reader and the person’s diaries to lock in a meeting date which could be done via Skype, FaceTime, or in person.

Now this to me is a much better “CV”!

%d bloggers like this: