Next Steps in Hiring

So there I was, driving to work in the early dawn and thinking about applicant tracking or assessments or something.  As the sun rose, the sky lit the clouds from below and filled my windshield with a carpet of orange and salmon clouds, a backdrop for the street signs and landing airplanes and all the normal interstate claptrap. 

Moving with the morning rush hour, I fished the camera out of the back seat, rolled down the window and used one hand to wave my camera in the (cold) wind and fired off a dozen shots.  I always have my camera with me, and so I thought nothing of it.

An hour ago, I was on the phone with a client.  We had just set up a new assessment system that will help them screen for job fit, and I was checking in.  After we had done our business, he asked if I had seen the sunrise this morning. 

"Why, yes."

He said he was very frustrated.  He felt it was one of the more beautiful ones he had seen, and that he had pulled off the interstate, gotten out of his car, and thought he had taken a photo of it to remember it by.  He had just tried to show the photo to his staff, and the cell phone had not worked.  Grr.

I smiled.  "Would you like me to email some of mine?"

I could tell it made his day.

As HR professionals, we are always expected to anticipate needs and have everything that our staffs and employees and bosses want.  It always feels good to have exactly what a client wants, when they want it - be they internal clients or external.  Even if it's just a photo of a sunrise. 

In these stressful economic times, good customer service and high performance is everything.  Enjoy the pictures.  Maybe it's what you need right now...