A good friend of mine told me that when recruiting, she looks for three things: attitude, intellect and experience, but strictly in that order. And I agree.
So I have to confess that when we recruited Harry to Front of House Manager I barely scanned his CV, which detailed his long experience in hospitality. The reason why was because, having worked with him for a year, Nick and I both already knew that he had the right attitude.
What is the right attitude?
For us, it’s a willingness and confidence to “hold the space” and set the right tone; to smile and welcome people in. It’s having a sense of humour, creating good rapport with the rest of the team and guests. It’s an attention to detail: tuning the lights, the sound, the temperature and making sure that everything is ready.
It’s about stepping up and taking on responsibility, which sometimes means stepping down and getting your hands dirty when the need arises. It’s about keeping calm under pressure, listening and responding. It’s about being honest, reliable, and always turning up, no matter how good last night’s party was.
It’s about “looking after the ship”, keeping in mind the interests of the whole team and the local community.
Harry ticks all those boxes. But it turns out that he’s not doing so bad on the intellect front either. In January, Harry won the prestigious Global Wine & Spirits Education Trust Vintners’ scholarship for achieving the highest overall mark across his Diploma in 2018. So it’s no great surprise that he caught attention of the industry and at the end of the month, Harry will continue his journey, taking up a fabulous new role as a wine buyer in London.
We’ll miss him, but more than that we’re super proud and pleased for Harry. And we wish him all the very best! ✌