Greyston Bakery, in Yonkers, New York, is the primary supplier of brownies to Ben & Jerryâs ice cream company and has its own line of baked goods sold at Whole Foods. Itâs also committed to serving its low-income surrounding neighbourhoodâ an effort that begins with the way it welcomes potential employees. It uses an Open Hiring model that explicitly welcomes âthose who face rejection elsewhere.â It replaces âscrutiny with trust.â It does away with background checks, rĂŠsumĂŠs, drug testing, credit checks, and interviews.
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MOMâs has taken a similar approach to attract candidates in a variety of other positions, from grocery baggers to executive-level jobs. For instance, on the âJoin usâ page on its website, a recent advertisement said:
You:
⢠are really interested in electric vehicles
⢠appreciate a good debate, even with your boss
⢠figure out how to fix it instead of whoâs to blame
⢠paid for your own stuff when you were a teenager
⢠have pulled recyclables out of the trash
We:
⢠work to protect and restore the environment
⢠like real food
⢠arenât afraid to make mistakes
⢠care more about your intelligence and values than your experience
... Perfetti Van Melle, the Italian company that makes Mentos mints, AirHead fruit chews, and other delicacies. His sales force sells products to retailers who then stock their shelves and hope customers will buy. In the past few years he says heâs seen a shift. Retailers are less interested in figuring out how many rolls of Mentos to order than in learning how to improve all facets of their operation. âTheyâre looking for unbiased business partners,â Chauvin told me. And that changes which salespeople are most highly prized. It isnât necessarily the âclosers,â those who can offer an immediate solution and secure the
signature on the contract, he says. Itâs those âwho can brainstorm with the retailers, who uncover new opportunities for them, and who realize that it doesnât matter if they close at that moment.â Using a mix of number crunching and their own knowledge and expertise, the Perfetti salespeople tell retailers âwhat assortment of candy is the best for them to make the most money.â That could mean offering five flavors of Mentos rather than seven. And it almost always means including products from competitors. In a sense, Chauvin says, his best salespeople think of their jobs not so much as selling candy but as selling insights about the confectionery business.
Our intention was to usher in a more elegant style of service, but I found if I hired people who had worked in fine dining, they already had too many bad habits. So we started looking for people with the right attitude and philosophy of hospitality.
We were looking for the kind of person who runs after a stranger on the street to return a dropped scarf, who stops by with a plate of cookies to welcome a new family to the neighborhood, or who offers to help carry a strangerâs heavy stroller up the subway stairs. The kind of truly hospitable person, in other words, who wants to do good things, not for financial gain or some sort of karmic bump, but because the idea of bestowing graciousness upon others makes their own day better.
a. This anecdote was documented in Joseph Carvin, A Piece of the Pie: The Story of Customer Service at Publix (Nashville, TN: Favorite Recipes ~Press, 2005), a fantastic resource used to clarify the culture for new Publix employees and share the companyâs values with the larger business community.
a. This anecdote was documented in Joseph Carvin, A Piece of the Pie: The Story of Customer Service at Publix (Nashville, TN: Favorite Recipes ~Press, 2005), a fantastic resource used to clarify the culture for new Publix employees and share the companyâs values with the larger business community.