You can only learn so much about frontline employees as a customer, or even as a reporter. I knew that to find out how the best companies train and indoctrinate employees, I'd have to become one myself. In what wound up as a two-year undercover project, I took a series of entry-level retail jobs, becoming that critical employee who represents the company's face. I did it to better understand the world of commerce and the corporate cultures that drive it. In the process, I learned that Apple Stores, with their aura of cool, were in fact living up to their mission to "reinvent retail" and setting a high bar for other companies in the retail world.Book: Punching In The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line EmployeeI knew I'd have competition when I applied at the Apple Store, but I also knew store managers hire from the ranks of the brand's fans. Apple is surely a rare bird--few companies have such a broad and committed following, let alone frontline employees who revere its CEO. (When I worked at Gap, then-CEO Paul Pressler showed up in the store and coworkers knew he was a bigwig but didn't realize he was the boss.)
But even companies that have devotees don't always look as hard for passion as they should. On its hiring application, Starbucks asked briefly about my interest in coffee ("What do you like about coffee?") but left it at that.
In my journey, only the Container Store did as good a job as Apple Stores at finding people passionate about what they're selling. When I went in for my Container Store group interview, I choked during a show-and-tell exercise that's an impromptu sales demonstration-slash-passion display that rapidly separates wannabes (like me) from the real deal. Learning from that experience, in my Apple Store interview, I talked about all the Apple products in my life: from iPods to iMacs, AppleCare to Safari.