To take advantage of this booming tourist market and reflecting the city’s new image, tourism and hospitality employers want staff with the right customer service skills. Job adverts specify that applicants be ‘well spoken and of smart appearance’ or ‘very well presented’. One Scottish-based boutique hotel company, known pseudonymsly as Elba, has created a sophisticated recruitment, selection and training programme for its new staff. Elba has hotels in two Scottish cities and has expanded into England and France. Opening a new hotel in Glasgow, the company deliberately placed job advertisements in the Sunday Times rather than local evening newspapers. Opening a hotel in Newcastle, England, it placed TV adverts during programmes aimed at the youth market. As a consequence, its typical front of house employee is in his or her twenties, a graduate and well travelled. Recruitment literature featured a person description not a job description, asking applicants to assess themselves by the 13 words that characterized that company’s image; ‘stylish’ and ‘tasty’ for example. After a telephone interview, application with CV and then a face-to-face interview, there was a 10-day induction at the Glasgow hotel in which extensive grooming and deportment training was given to the staff by external consultants. Sessions included individual ‘make-overs’ for staff, teaching them about hair cuts/styling, teaching female staff about make-up, male staff how to shave and, for all, the expected appearance standards. The sessions were intended to relay ‘this is what we want you to actually look like … you have to understand what “successful” looks like … what “confident” looks like.’ The hotel wanted staff that were confident, with a good attitude and appearance.
