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A lack of initiative or over instruction?

How are you guiding your employees?

As one who spends an excessive amount of time in airports and airplanes, as one who has owned a store for many years, I find both of these occurrences providing examples that cause me to think about what we as employers are doing.

One such example occurred in the Minneapolis-St Paul airport as I was returning a rental car. As I approached the rental station in the garage there was a portable A frame sign that stated when you come to the counter a receipt would be given for the rental. As with many businesses, the rental employee is sitting on a stool behind the counter using their cell phone.

Handing in the key to the car, I asked for the receipt. “We don’t give receipts anymore”, was the response in a matter-of-fact manner. When I mentioned the sign and its’ message just outside the counter, the response was somewhat similar to the original one. I wonder how many times that conversation is repeated with other customers and why some rental car employee continues to put that sign out there every morning. I wonder why the employee behind the counter doesn’t go outside, pick up the sign and put it in some storage area.


A flight last week had a person listening to music on their cell phone. The issue was everyone in the area was also listening to the music. Heads were turning to determine who the culprit was. However, the music loving person never looked up. What was odd was the cell phone owner was wearing ear plugs.

The flight attendant, sitting more than ten feet away, noticed what was happening. Instead of addressing the issue directly, the flight attendant decided to address all 240 people in the place with a message about using ear buds or headphones when watching and listening on personal devices.

Perhaps the only connection between airports, airplanes and the liquor industry is the alcohol being sold and consumed. However, both have employees and managers. The biggest difference is when trying to travel distances there is little option. The airline industry has a captive customer. In the liquor industry, there is always alternative stores to do business with, not to mention online in some situations.

We can learn much from these examples. Were they examples of employees who lack the initiative to properly take care of a situation? Either of the rental car employees could have put the now irrelevant sign away. The flight attendant could have walked over to the offending passenger and offered an explanation.

In our stores, do our employees just point a customer to a cooler or aisle in the store as compared to taking the customer to the location; talking with them; and working to make a sale? Is this a lack of initiative?

What about the store in which an employee has been instructed to fill the cooler with a recently received shipment? While that may be the instruction, the store experiences a rush as many people walk in the front door. However, this employee was instructed to fill the cooler, so there is no looking up to see customers; no stopping to help a customer or offering to answer questions. This employee was told to fill the cooler and everything else is being ignored. Is this an example of over instruction?

If our stores are not offering an ongoing staff education program, how can we possibly think that the employee should know better? The employee likely came to us from another retailer where this “over instruction” format was the standard operating procedure.

There is no absolute answer to the initiative or instruction question. Having good employees requires practice – ongoing practice that teaches how to think in various situations and how that customer is very important. While there are few choices in rental cars and airlines, there are plenty of choices when it comes to making a purchase in our stores.

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This article is copyrighted by Tom Shay and Profits Plus Solutions, who can be reached at: PO Box 128, Dardanelle, AR. 72834. Phone 727-823-7205. It may be printed for an individual to read, but not duplicated or distributed without expressed written consent of the copyright owner.