Hire People You Like
Posted by estiator at 18 January, at 09 : 21 AM Print
MANAGING FOR SUCCESS by CONSTANTINE N. KOLITSAS Business Coach
I’ve hired hundreds (possibly thousands) of people through the course of my career as a restaurant manager, owner, multi-unit director of operations, and consultant. And if there’s one part of the job I’ve always hated, it is without question hiring staff (both front-of-the-house and kitchen staff). With a million things going on that have a direct impact on the bottom line (managing vendors, keeping up with repairs and maintenance, placing liquor orders, monitoring social media, spearheading marketing, etc.), the last thing I want to spend my very valuable and limited time doing is interviewing people. And the lack of qualified candidates (or, in most cases, of candidates that are even remotely hirable) makes the exercise all the more dreadful.
And so, every candidate who came in appearing mentally sane and not visibly intoxicated, I used to put in the “to hire” pile, usually holding out hope that they’d be good hires and work out. But I have almost always discovered that, as a wise coworker once told me, “Hope is not a strategy.” Not surprising, many people hired out of desperation turn out to be duds, no matter how impressive their résumés.
I realized that to spend less time hiring, I needed to spend more time hiring. No, that’s not a typo. Read the line again: If I want to spend less time hiring, I need to spend more time hiring, so the hires I make stay longer and don’t need to be replaced. This requires a strategy, and not a hope.
The first step in making positive changes is always to look at what you’re doing and recognize the areas that aren’t working. In the case of hiring, I would often look past minor signals, explaining them away or making excuses for them—in essence, lying to myself. A restaurant owner once complained to me that he would “fall in love” with management hires because he wanted to believe they would be the answer to his problems, and free up his time to spend growing the business and possibly even take some time with family. I recognized this in myself as well, brushing aside telling comments and silent signals that a specific candidate would be problematic.
I look for qualities I can’t teach, that are ingrained in a person’s nature: kindness, a good sense of humor, a good work ethic, a strong sense of integrity.
Once I recognized this flaw in myself, I made the conscious decision to only hire people I liked, and if I didn’t like anyone, to just have the others pick up the slack or, in many more instances, pick up the slack myself.
When I say I only hire people I like, I mean this in a literal sense. Experience is helpful, and an impressive résumé may have benefits, but experience can also be a bad thing if the candidate is accustomed to a negative environment or has bad (and unbreakable) habits. And an impressive résumé is often an exaggerated résumé. Instead, I focus on the person, looking at him or her from the vantage point of the customer and asking myself some questions: Is the candidate fun to talk with? Does the candidate demonstrate intelligence? Do I feel as though they want to be there?
When I interview, I listen to see if I have an empathetic person across the table from me—a person who doesn’t only think of themselves. At the end of the day, I can teach anything to anyone who has a halfway decent IQ. I look for qualities I can’t teach, that are ingrained in a person’s nature: kindness, a good sense of humor, a good work ethic, a strong sense of integrity. I look for qualities I like in people I choose for friends—not because I want to hire people to be my friends, but because if I like a person, I believe my customers (for front of the house) and staff (especially for back of the house) will like that person, too.
In the last few restaurants I’ve staffed, I’ve had great success finding people who care about their guests and about their coworkers, and about the restaurant and about their managers. This has created an environment of support and camaraderie unlike any I’ve seen, and has had a profound impact on the vibe customers pick up on.
Constantine Kolitsas is the president of CNK Consulting, a restaurant consultant and coaching business. He can be reached at 203-947-6234 or at ckolitsas@gmail.com.
