Ask HR: Should I hire a garden center customer as an employee?

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I recently had a customer suggest they'd love to work at my garden center. I don't know if they were serious, but it got me thinking. Would a previous customer be a good employee? And is there anything I'd need to do differently with them than someone I hired off a job board?

Photo courtesy of BEST Human Capital

I've personally been in this position both as a fan-girl-customer-turned-employee (four times, actually) and as the hiring manager who hired a customer as an employee. Through each of these scenarios, I can offer both positive and negative outcomes, because just like anything else, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I worked retail and hospitality throughout college and up until my current position. I was a previous customer at each place I worked as well and loved the idea of working there because I was so fond of my experiences.

Now, this may go without saying, but it is a much different experience to shop somewhere than it is to work somewhere; the reality isn’t always as glamorous as it may seem, and sometimes, the customers hold that impression simply because they love your product or they’ve had a fabulous customer experience (go you!) and want to be a part of that.

However, they’re only getting a very surface-level idea of the organization — they likely aren’t aware of the company culture, the KPIs, the POS, the logistics, the physical labor, the long hours, etc.

When I was managing a luxury spa, our guests would say “I bet it’s sooo relaxing to work here!” and my colleagues and I would have mental flashes of having to silently tiptoe-run through the halls while the services were underway and also while carrying 50 pounds of robes and shoes, flipping the entire spa in 10 minutes, balancing various calls and the reservation books, stocking and reorganizing retail shelves, navigating upset customers…you get the picture. But we just smiled and said, “Yeah, it is sooo nice!”

Full disclosure, I absolutely loved that job and was fortunate to work with an incredibly fun and talented group of people. But even still, I would never call what we did “relaxing.” The discounted spa services and free cinnamon tea were certainly a perk, though.

Overall, this worked out in my case because I was in fact extremely passionate about what we offered and loved being a part of that experience for others. But I’ve also had jobs in which learning the other side of the customer experience as an employee was not at all enjoyable. (I’ve come to find that I do not enjoy tagging and folding clothes at 6 a.m. and aimlessly wandering around with no tasks…I’ll leave it at that.)

On the negative side of my experiences, there is one situation that stands out to me in which I hired a former regular customer, and it did not turn out well at all, unfortunately. They were always so kind and outgoing when they were in, and they were smart, enthusiastic and easy to converse with, which seemed to be a fantastic fit for the role for which we were hiring. To keep it brief, in time, we came to have issues with sales ethics, behavior, trainability and overall culture fit with this individual, and it left a very negative impact on the entire team.

Of course, you can’t always predict these things in hiring — it was a very disappointing shock to all of us. And as you very well know, in retail, the hiring process for sales associates or cashiers isn’t typically extremely intensive, especially when you’re usually short-staffed and looking to fill positions as quickly and efficiently as possible.

However, I’ve seen the other side as well, where hiring a former customer was more in line with my positive experience, so really, anything is possible.

Ultimately, these are just examples from my personal experience on both sides of the situation, both positive and negative. I do think that more often than not, a previous customer expressing interest in your organization would be worth taking a chance on because they are arriving as an advocate for your product or service, displaying immediate knowledge to some degree and bringing passion and enthusiasm.

That excitement and interest in an employee can go a long way, especially in the green industry. The only thing I’d advise doing a little differently with this type of candidate, as opposed to one off a job board, is to emphasize that the working experience is different than the customer experience and try to give as clear an overview of job expectations as possible.

As long as the interview process goes well and there are no major red flags or lack of alignment, I certainly advocate for taking a chance on customers joining your official team.