Interview questions

Interview questions:

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  Hello, thanks again for sparing your precious time for our interview today. I really appreciate it. It means so much towards my coursework at London South Bank University.
  
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  Yeah, yeah no problem. Thanks for inviting me to such an occasion. I have never done this type of work really, so I am kind of happy helping university students.
  
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  Thank you. Because of our assignment requirements I am going to record our today’s interview, just for educational purposes. There will not be any privacy issues. Would you please give your consent for recording our interview?
  
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  Yeah, sure. No problem with that.
  
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  Thank you. So I am going to ask you some questions about managing diversity in an organisation, specifically in the restaurant that you work as a manager. That is a Turkish restaurant, right?
  
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  Right. We focus and serve Turkish cuisine and are located here in Croydon, London.
  
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  Great. I am once again Farkhod Nekov. I am doing my Master’s degree at LSBU. May I please know your name, your age and the position you are holding at the restaurant?
  
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  Nice to meet you, Farkhod. My name is Giuseppe and I am nearly 40 years old. I am a manager here at Atesh Restaurant.
  
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  That’s perfect, sir. And how long have you been working in this position?
  
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  You can call me Giuseppe. I like it that way. Well I have been working as a manager here for almost a year now.
  
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  I see. I happen to dine in your restaurant sometimes and I must say the food is really unique.
  
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  Oh thank you. We try and do our best to allow each one of our customers have a special experience eating out in our restaurant.
  
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  Yeah, and I seem to notice that the staff working in the restaurant are from different backgrounds. Has it been the same way for a long time? Or is it something the restaurant started following because of you?
  
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  Well no. it isn’t about me really. Atesh restaurant has always supported tolerance towards different backgrounds and ideologies. We are happy to do so from our heart and from our experience I believe that is a great way of bringing people together.
  
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  That is marvellous. Alright then, let us now turn to our main research questions. Mmm… okay, let us see. I believe this question would be a good one for a start. What value do you think diversity brings to organizations?
  
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  Oh well, it is a big question. I mean the scope of the question is quite large. I totally believe that diversity is beneficial to organizations in a number of ways. It plays key roles, especially in restaurant management. First of all, with diversity we can look at our business from various perspectives. That is very useful in terms of business planning and executing when people bring in different ideas and outlooks. Also, diversity means faster problem solving skills in the business. You see, there are always some problems that occur in the businesses and they often require quick solutions, quick and efficient. People from different backgrounds utilize their own different experience and knowledge making the solutions more diverse. And from those, we can choose the best one quicker which leads to faster problem solving. That is very, very important in restaurant business because we deal with customers on site. In addition to that, diversity results in higher profits as well. That might not seem so to others but managers are quite aware about this. Fast and efficient problem solutions give us a high advantage over our competitors. For instance, we have had a short term shortage of one of our key ingredients in our meal because of delay in delivery from a different city. Well we could not have cooked that special meal without that ingredient, therefore have almost decided to stop cooking that meal for some time. But one of our kitchen staff, who is from Asia, informed that a different ingredient could substitute the one we were waiting. We tried that meal with a new ingredient and to our great surprise that solved our problem. The food tasted even tastier with the different ingredient. Our profits would have been low should we stopped cooking that meal really, but our kitchen staff literally saved us from that.
  
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  Wow that must have been a huge experience for you guys right, being forced to take out one of the best meals from the menu…
  
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  Yeah, that really was a day to remember. What’s more though, diversity reduces employee turnover. Imagine a business where the employees, no matter what their background is, feel special, valued and accepted. Well that place is here at Atesh restaurant. Because of the qualities I mentioned above our employees feel happy in their workplaces and would choose to stay longer. We always try to create a sense of belonging to the restaurant so as a result our employees are less likely to leave. Having said that, managing diversity here at Atesh restaurant facilitates better company reputation, not locally but also internationally. It makes our company look interesting and raise our brand into people’s mind and opens doors to new customers, business partners and new markets.
  
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  Wow excellent, I haven’t had a talk like this before to be honest. Managers do really think differently. I did not notice there were so many advantages of having diverse employees in a company.
  
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  Yeah, everything comes with experience. Do not worry about that, you students are going to become even better from us in the future.
  
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  Thank you, I hope so too. Okay, down to our next question, Giuseppe. Does bringing people together from diffirent backgrounds reinforce bad behaviors?
  
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  You mean with employees who were convicted before?
  
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  Yeah, I mean if you happen to hire anyone of that group and have had any problem with that?
  
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  Oh okay, I think we might have employees of that background too, but like I mentioned before it is how the manager reflects the company successes to its employees. Everyone makes mistakes and we are not here to judge them. If they feel special to the company, they wouldn’t hurt anyone working there. I mean I haven’t had any occasion where we had such challenges. I am not saying there will not be any, but it just has never happened in our business. I have not seen it here at the restaurant.
  
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  Okay, got it. I believe the staff working in the restaurant has become one great family, haven’t they?
  
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  Totally. Being slow, but confident on our mission to bring people together with various backgrounds has built up our one big family.
  
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  Excellent. Now this brings to our last question in the research paper, sir. As a manager, how do you avoid disqualifying people with different background?
  
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  Oh mmm… I haven’t thought about this one before. Let me see. I strongly believe that employers, especially managers should always work hard to find the right balance between looking for employees who will positively contribute to the business and at the same time should be careful not to fail to build a workforce where the different backgrounds are affected. I have recently read an interesting article on Harvard Business Review where it said there was a strong tendency between employers to hire people who are like themselves. But this of course harms diversity in the organization and affects overall team performance. I do believe that we should hire employees that fit well in the business but I also remind myself from time to time that it is important to ensure that my working staff is diverse and that they reflect our business in different ways. The only way to do so is to embrace people who are different from you and from other members of the team.
  
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  Great. That was a good answer to be honest. I have carried out my interview, plus I have got to see what a true manager thinks like. I am so grateful for the given chance, Giuseppe, to carry out the interview with you. This has been a great experience for me, both for my coursework and for my future. I mean I didn’t realize a manager would be responsible for so many things. Managing the working staff is quite tough itself, not mentioning the other stuff happening in the restaurant. But I should say your employees have got one of the best managers in the world.
  
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  Oh thanks a lot. I am trying my best. Thanks again for inviting me for the interview. It’s been quite interesting. We are always open for upcoming youth like you. I wish you all the best with your coursework and future studies.
  
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  Thank you very much, Giuseppe. And I guess this ends our interview here.
  
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  No problem, I still have so many things to manage here at the restaurant for today.
  
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  Oh yeah, no worries. I don’t want to take your time then. Thanks and have a good day.
  
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  Bye-bye, Farkhod. You too have a great day ahead.