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Two awesome employer stories!
Both from Ravelry, which is a site *anyone* can register for, in case you'd like to read more stuff like this.
From the "Veiled Knitters" group for women who cover their hair for religious reasons, we have IKEA adding a matching head covering to employee uniforms for their employees who are Muslim hijabi.
And the longer story about customers who are not always right? From Remnants, naturally:
From user "Morrisoncorner":
I work in retail in a resort town, and the staff I work with are, for the most part, young, in many ways quite innocent, and remind me of bouncing yellow lab puppies. Really, there is no sport in abusing these girls, but people seem to enjoy doing it anyway.
So we have a customer and his wife in the store in the latter part of the evening, so they have the place pretty much to themselves, and the girls are being very attentive.. it seems the couple is going to the Olympics and the girls are very excited for them. Our area sent athletes to the event, athletes that are pretty well known around town, but nobody knew anyone who was actually going to see the olympics, so it was fun for the girls to wait on this couple.
Our of naive curiosity one of the girls asked “when you get there, do you need tickets to see each event, or do you just go and you can see everything?” The man gave her that look usually associated with discovering you’ve stepped in dog poo and said.. you know the voice, that ”I’m too good for the little people” voice, “I have no idea… I was invited. We’re not paying for anything.”
The kid was just crushed. Had I been there there’s a good chance I’d have excused her from the floor and sent her out to buy cookies for the staff, but she had to continue to wait on the customer and pretend to be happy and excited for them.
So I’m relaying this story to the owner of the store.. ranting really.. because kicking puppies may be amusing, but for heaven sakes.. what IS it with some people? And I say “do you know what I want? I want a key code for the computer that allows me to add a fee for this kind of behavior. The person who insists on cutting in line, or demands attention ahead of their turn, or the person who lets their kid tear apart a display.. I want to be able to slap a fee on their bill.” And in the background I realize I’m hearing the tap tap tap of computer keys.
“There you go..” he says.
And damned if we don’t now have a computer code which slaps an additional $3 charge on a bill for “expedited service.” You pay for faster shipping… now, at least in one retail store, if you’re going to abuse the staff and make other customers miserable.. we have the ability to charge you for it.
Interestingly enough, just knowing they can charge a customer for being rude has so empowered the staff that magically we don’t seem to have rude customers any more. It’s like magic. I don’t know if heads are up higher, or what, but since we installed that computer code, and the girls know I will back their butts if they use it, we’ve only had one incident, and that was with out of control children. And they were escorted out of the store. But for that to be the only incident for the remainder of the winter? Amazing.
And curious. That simply empowering an employee to charge for rude behavior seems to have subtly changed the atmosphere and eliminated rude behavior. Go figure.
Both from Ravelry, which is a site *anyone* can register for, in case you'd like to read more stuff like this.
From the "Veiled Knitters" group for women who cover their hair for religious reasons, we have IKEA adding a matching head covering to employee uniforms for their employees who are Muslim hijabi.
And the longer story about customers who are not always right? From Remnants, naturally:
From user "Morrisoncorner":
I work in retail in a resort town, and the staff I work with are, for the most part, young, in many ways quite innocent, and remind me of bouncing yellow lab puppies. Really, there is no sport in abusing these girls, but people seem to enjoy doing it anyway.
So we have a customer and his wife in the store in the latter part of the evening, so they have the place pretty much to themselves, and the girls are being very attentive.. it seems the couple is going to the Olympics and the girls are very excited for them. Our area sent athletes to the event, athletes that are pretty well known around town, but nobody knew anyone who was actually going to see the olympics, so it was fun for the girls to wait on this couple.
Our of naive curiosity one of the girls asked “when you get there, do you need tickets to see each event, or do you just go and you can see everything?” The man gave her that look usually associated with discovering you’ve stepped in dog poo and said.. you know the voice, that ”I’m too good for the little people” voice, “I have no idea… I was invited. We’re not paying for anything.”
The kid was just crushed. Had I been there there’s a good chance I’d have excused her from the floor and sent her out to buy cookies for the staff, but she had to continue to wait on the customer and pretend to be happy and excited for them.
So I’m relaying this story to the owner of the store.. ranting really.. because kicking puppies may be amusing, but for heaven sakes.. what IS it with some people? And I say “do you know what I want? I want a key code for the computer that allows me to add a fee for this kind of behavior. The person who insists on cutting in line, or demands attention ahead of their turn, or the person who lets their kid tear apart a display.. I want to be able to slap a fee on their bill.” And in the background I realize I’m hearing the tap tap tap of computer keys.
“There you go..” he says.
And damned if we don’t now have a computer code which slaps an additional $3 charge on a bill for “expedited service.” You pay for faster shipping… now, at least in one retail store, if you’re going to abuse the staff and make other customers miserable.. we have the ability to charge you for it.
Interestingly enough, just knowing they can charge a customer for being rude has so empowered the staff that magically we don’t seem to have rude customers any more. It’s like magic. I don’t know if heads are up higher, or what, but since we installed that computer code, and the girls know I will back their butts if they use it, we’ve only had one incident, and that was with out of control children. And they were escorted out of the store. But for that to be the only incident for the remainder of the winter? Amazing.
And curious. That simply empowering an employee to charge for rude behavior seems to have subtly changed the atmosphere and eliminated rude behavior. Go figure.
