Piece in FT by Lucy Kellaway about how much you can tell about a visitor from the way they deal with a receptionist. All true. By the same token that visitor can also tell a lot about a company by the way the receptionist behaves.
I regularly sit in reception in a building used by one very high-profile public body and never fail to be amazed by the gossip and parochial whinging the staff seem content to let me overhear.
Kellaway talks about a company who have a spy among their reception staff whose job it is to report on the behaviour of waiting job candidates. Some managements should have a spy among the people waiting. They might find out a few things about their public image that would horrify them.
I read somewhere that American Football teams monitor how potential apprentices (are they called 'draft picks'?) behave in the cafeteria of their Colleges before making a decision on them.
ReplyDeleteWhy stop at "Receptions"?
ReplyDeleteJust meander anywhere, banks, council offices, shops, sorry Retail Outlets, supermarkets and ever onward and downward.
Highly skilled Executive Meetgreeters gabbing amongst themselves at volume levels higher than 11 is par for the course.
Day one of the half morning they get as training.
A bit savage, perhaps, but it is endemic.