A summer story of an Employer Brand own goal

One of the biggest traps any management can fall into is creating an EB which does not deliver on the detail of the employment experience. This summer I saw this happen in a great company who are clearly doing so much right. The organisation is a leading brand in the global hotel and restaurant business and I know the story because a 21 yr old daughter just did a temporary month there as a waitress.

Good news first. On day one she returned with an experience to make any EB professional proud and in particular me as the originator in the first place. The whole session (for both full time joiners and temps) concentrated on the brand and what it meant, the standards, the values, the support and rationale. She came home proud as punch and really understood what her dad had been going on about for years.

That weekend the management had a party in the park for the new team. Superb food and drink and attended by most of the management (there cannot be many companies who would include a temporary waitress on such an event)

Then the work itself, she was a ‘runner’ making sure that the food was delivered to the right person at the right table coordinated with that for other diners in the same party. Working to the precise and high standards of this fashionable restaurant demanded attention to detail, teamwork, speed plus good personal appearance and ability to help others. Furthermore, it required quick learning and the preparedness to take detailed criticism on the minutiae of how the brand and its customer service standards were maintained. Great training for any job as the advertising man David Ogilvy described in his early days at the Ritz Carlton in Paris. Not everyone survived these first weeks and my daughter was proud she did.

Was not this experience what an Employer Brand should be like? a brand to be proud of, excellent training on the job, high standards and bright ambitious colleagues. That was ‘the give’ from the employers point of view, what was ‘the get’?

She was paid at the rate of £12,000 pa ie around £6 per hour for a 39 hour working week including shifts covering breakfast and lunch till 1600, then a two hour break and then on again at 1800 till 0200 the next morning. Awkward shifts come with the territory in the restaurant business. No complaints there. The problem was the unpaid hours. The contract stated that employees would be expected to work longer when that was necessary – but no overtime. Yet some weeks she was doing 55 hours and as the weeks went on so her respect for the brand, which the company had done so much to describe and burnish, started to decline.

However, her standards did not and she left with the good will of other staff and management. In my view the balance between ‘give’ and ‘get’ cannot have been right. Maybe unpaid long hours are a rite of passage in the hotel and restaurant business particularly where the standards are high and the brand on your CV is a benefit. Trainee solicitors in magic circle firms experience the same pressure though the prospects for them are perhaps more enticing in the longer term.

Did the employer pick up on this little story? Not really, she politely asked HR if there was an exit interview and was told ‘ no you’re only a temp’ (subtext, plenty more like you).

Simon Barrow