Episode 856 - Hire the Smile

0:04 Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving. This is the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast with your host, Paul Falafelito.

0:21 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode 856. If you are in the hospitality business, I want you to think about the people walking through your front door every day. Not the customers, the employees. Because before you worry about teaching someone your reservation system, your menu, your check-in process, your service standards, or how to properly answer the phone, I think there's something you need to figure out first. Can this person naturally smile at another human being? And I mean naturally. Not the fake customer service smile where the mouth moves but the rest of the face looks like they would rather be anywhere else.

1:06 I mean genuine warmth. The kind of person who sees someone approaching and naturally looks up, makes eye contact, smiles, and acknowledges them. Makes them feel like they belong there. So I spent part of my career working in hospitality at Club Med in Mexico. And that experience helped shape the way I think about leadership and service today. And one thing I learned from hospitality is that the customer experience begins long before anybody solves a problem. It begins with how people make you feel. Think about the last time you walked into a really good hotel. You walked through the front door carrying your luggage. Somebody behind the desk looked up and smiled at you. Good afternoon. Welcome.

1:53 That interaction changed. might have lasted two seconds, but something happened. You felt noticed. Now imagine the same hotel, the same beautiful lobby, same expensive furniture, the same room, the same amenities. You walk through the door and the person at the front desk never looks up. They're just staring at a screen and you approach the desk. Still nothing. And finally you get it tired. Can I help you? Technically, The employee did their job. Operationally, the hotel may have done everything correctly. Emotionally, the experience has already started going downhill.

2:32 That's why I believe hospitality leaders need to rethink what they're looking for when they hire people. We spend a lot of time looking at resumes, experience, education, how many years someone has worked in the industry, what systems they know. where they worked before, and all of that has value. But I would add something else to the interview. Watch what happens when they walk through the door. How do they treat the receptionist? How do they acknowledge the person who passes them in the hallway? Do they naturally make eye contact? Does their face change when they meet another person?

3:10 Do they have warmth? Because I can train somebody to use a computer system. I can teach someone how to check a guest into a hotel. I can teach them where the silverware goes. I can teach them the menu, how to answer the phone, the customer service techniques. I can teach service recovery. But genuine warmth, that's a lot harder.

3:32 You can train someone to say welcome. You can't easily train them to mean it. And customers can tell the difference. They know when somebody is reading from the corporate hospitality script. Good evening, Mr. Fallivalito. We are delighted to have you staying with us today. Great. Now look at me when you say it, because if your eyes are glued to the computer and your voice sounds like you've said that exact sentence 200 times today, the words don't mean much.

4:02 Hospitality happens in the human connection, and I think some companies accidentally hire backwards. They hire primarily for experience, and then try to train personality. I would rather find someone who naturally likes people and train them how to do the job. Give me the person who smiles when somebody walks into the room. Give me the person who sees the older guest struggling with luggage and instinctively starts moving toward them. Give me the person who notices a confused family looking around the lobby and asks, are you looking for something? That's hospitality, and this doesn't only apply to hotels, restaurants, airlines, theme parks, coffee shops, retail, healthcare, anywhere your employees interact

4:53 directly with customers, patients, guests, or the public, their natural human behavior becomes part of your product. Your people are the experience. A restaurant can serve incredible food, and still lose me because the service felt miserable. A hotel can have an amazing room and still leave me with a bad impression because the front desk made me feel like I was bothering them. And here's where leadership has to enter the conversation. Leaders sometimes try to fix this problem with training. Someone says, our customer service scores are dropping. Okay, let's schedule customer service training. And everybody sits in a conference room watching a PowerPoint presentation about smiling. Think about

5:41 how ridiculous that sounds. Slide number 14. Remember to smile at the customer. If you have to constantly remind someone working in hospitality that human beings walking through the door should be acknowledged, you may have hired the wrong person. Training should sharpen natural ability. It shouldn't. have to manufacture basic human warmth. And there's another side of this that leaders need to understand. You can hire warm people and then destroy that warmth with a miserable workplace. That's leadership's responsibility.

6:23 Take someone who naturally loves people and bury them under terrible management, constant criticism, chaotic scheduling, understaffing, broken processes. in a workplace where nobody seems to care, and eventually that smile disappears. So hiring matters. Leadership matters too. When I say hire the smile, I don't mean hire someone because they are bubbly or extroverted. Some of the warmest people I've ever met are quiet. This isn't about personality type.

6:59 It's about human connection. A quiet employee can look someone in the eye and say, good morning, welcome, and you believe them. That's the difference. So the next time you're hiring someone for hospitality, try something. Stop interviewing only for competency. Create opportunities to observe humanity. Have someone greet the candidate when they arrive. Introduce them to a few employees. Walk them through the building and watch how they interact. when they don't think they're being evaluated, because the formal interview tells you what someone prepared to tell you. The walk through the building can show you who they actually are.

7:42 And if you're leading an existing hospitality team, walk your own front door. Don't announce that you're evaluating anyone.

7:51 Watch.

7:52 Watch what happens when a guest enters. Does somebody look up? Does anybody smile? Does anyone acknowledge them? How long does it take? before another human being makes the guest feel seen, that moment matters. Hospitality companies spend enormous amounts of money designing experiences, beautiful buildings, perfect lighting, music, furniture, technology, branding, uniforms, and even smells. And sometimes the most powerful thing in the entire building costs nothing. A human being who is genuinely happy to see another human being That's the experience.

8:32 That's what people remember. And that's why I believe leaders in hospitality need to hire differently. Skills matter. Experience matters. Competency absolutely matters. But when your business depends on people feeling welcome, warmth belongs in the hiring decision. You can train the system. You can train the process. You can train the job. Genuine warmth matters. has to walk through the door with the person. So maybe your next great hire isn't the person with 10 years of hospitality experience.

9:07 Maybe it's the person who walks into your building for the interview, sees the receptionist, smiles naturally, and says, Good morning. How are you? Pay attention to that person because your customers will. So great hospitality isn't... created by a script. It's created in thousands of tiny human moments, a smile, eye contact, a warm welcome, a person who makes another person feel like they are genuinely happy they came through the door. Hire people who naturally create those moments, then give them the training, leadership, and environment that allows that warmth to stay alive. This has been the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.

10:00 For more Paul Falivalito podcasts, visit paulfalivalito.com.