Finding and keeping good and motivated employees can be challenging for any manager. However, sometimes the perfect employee presents himself on a silver platter and you overlook him.
During my years at the Fort George hotel in Belize, we had many young people that came to do their internship.
I was excited to give a young guy, who came from the deaf institute in Belize, a feel of a busy hotel kitchen. Andrew came in and almost immediately blended in with the kitchen team. There were some slight challenges in the communication however they were minor compared to his joy and eagerness to prove himself.
At the end of the training, we sat down together to evaluate his internship and he passed with flying colours.
I thanked him very much and wished him good luck for the future and home he went.
The next morning I came early to work, then again Andrew was even earlier. I thought I hadn’t been clear in my communications and called him in my office. After explaining to him again that his internship was over and I had no job for him at the moment, he looked a bit disappointed and went home.
However, early the following day he was back to work in full uniform. I called his teacher who speaks sign language and she came right away. Together we explained the situation again to the young man. He signalled to us that he understood.
When he showed up the next morning again, I realized that I had to create a job for him and hired him as a fulltime staff. He has been doing absolutely great and although I moved on, he is still at the Fort George Hotel. He runs the production of ‘le petit café bakery’ and is doing great.