At this hospitality training course, Jodkar, along with other colleagues, learnt the importance of using good crockery, ironing his shirt, and not sniggering at overheard conversations. "I know the meaning of polite now," says the 29-year-old, who wears polished shoes and ironed shirts to work. Such unprecedented manners are increasingly becoming characteristic of not only peons but also others at the bottom of the food chain. Drivers have started holding the door open for clients and security guards are no longer scared of smiling.
"Corporates have realized that these guys at the bottom of the pyramid are important image-builders as they form the first or last point of contact with the customer," says Dominic Costabir of Hospitality Training Institute. He has trained everyone from "the diswasher to the brainwasher (manager)" but was pleasantly surprised when a diamond firm called him with a request to groom their office boys. They used to dump the guests' teacups on the table or serve them in chipped cups. The class taught them how to place pads and pens on the table, hygiene habits and the art of cultured indifference. "We teach them to be emotionless during meetings," says Costabir, who does so by asking the peons how they would judge the kid who spills out family secrets to neighbours.
Such "emotional" examples, say trainers, work best. Often during his complimentary training sessions, Alam Khan, CEO of Synergy Manpower Services, which provides drivers to individuals (chiefly luxury car owners) and corporates, uses the severe imagery of waiters who dip their fingers in the glass of water. This helps them understand the gravity of their common mistakes—chewing tobacco on duty or sporting oily hair, smelly shoes, onion breath and yesterday's shirt. While regular topics include self-esteem and confidence, good manners, anger management, driving etiquette, appearance and hygiene, a recent instance made Khan add a chapter on "alertness on duty." Here, a lady who had left her laptop in the car with the driver and gone to shop, came back to find it stolen. "It turns out that the thief had distracted the driver by dropping a ten-rupee note," says Khan.
In fact, it was to groom drivers and improve traffic sense just earlier this month that the state transport department tied up the Institute of Chauffeur services (IOCS) to launch a software that taxi and auto drivers can access with their cellphones. While IOCS used to conduct classroom sessions for drivers, "we realized that they do not have the time to be physically present in class. So we decided to bring the class to them," says Amin Merchant, director of IOCS. The software, which costs Rs 850, is a six-hour Hindi instructional programme that focuses on punctuality, lucid communication, vehicle maintenance and traffic rules, among other things.
"Our ultimate goal is to delight the guest," says a company spokesperson for Ginger Hotels where security guards and peons, too, don designer uniforms. "We look at them as brand ambassadors. We want them to exude warmth."
The changes pay off. Alam Khan recalls a driver whose salary shot up from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000 in a month. Pop singer Sharon Prabhakar, who has hired two drivers from Khan's firm, says she is happy to miss the last-minute excuses of former drivers who would take leave on a whim. "My drivers look like professional, middlelevel management executives," says Prabhakar, adding that her driver Mohammad is computer-literate too. "I wish they had a grooming module for housemaids too," she says.
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