To not reprimand staff for not smiling?

Does the training cover smiling for customers?

no no no

this is awful advice

you are on dodgy ground telling a women in a work environment that she didn’t smile enough when a male gaze was on her even though her performance is great

don’t let yourself down by colluding with the patriarchy

Anybody working in hospitality irrespective if they are male or female
is except to be warm friendly and dare I say smiley
but that doesn’t mean a ridiculous forced Cheshire Cat smile
it’s more your facial expressions in general and a smile is part of that

tone manner and body language is a big part of it as well

I would sit her down and say "I've been informed I must reprimand you for not being smiley enough. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you I value your work ethic, you've always been great at X-Y-Z. I didn't see the interaction that led to this complaint so cannot comment further but I do have to remind you to smile at customers even if you're busy doing your work"

Basically saying in code this is ridiculous and you hate reprimanding her w/o saying that aloud. Hopefully she'll clock that you're not taking it seriously. It feels misogynistic to me and I hate it-can you push back at all to your boss?

When I worked retail we had a problem customer making trouble for us and I had my supervisory staff on constant alert if she came in they were to call me, if I wasn't there they must stop whatever they're doing, go greet her, ask her if she needed assistance etc and SMILE at her (bare your teeth if you must). It worked so well she refused to shop elsewhere so I cursed myself but the insane complaints ended.

I would have a friendly chat with her about it, and come at it from the pov of “welcoming” the customers. She may have a wholly different story of what happened but she can’t tell you that unless you raise it.

Then you can tell your manager you’ve discussed it.

I remember this, smile when you dial 😀 must admit still smile even when I send emails now

I have really conflicting thoughts about this.

On one hand, women are always told "give us a smile love" etc. It's everyday misogyny because men certainly aren't treated the same way.

But when you're working in a service capacity and your job is to be welcoming, I don't know how you can achieve this without smiling? Being polite isn't the same as being welcoming/friendly.

I choose not to be a customer-facing role any more precisely because I don't want to do this (but I have done in the past). I get that it's knackering but so are many aspects of working, surely? Having to be polite to people who didn't deserve it used to really grind me down. So I'm not without sympathy at all - but I'm not sure how "welcomed" I'd feel by a man or a woman who greeted me without a smile cracking their face. You don't have to be grinning inanely to be welcoming.

How sexist of him. Bet he wouldn't say that about a man.

RBF comes to all of us with age.

I once had a customer lose it at me because we sold Coke and not Pepsi. Some people are just looking for a punching bag.

I’m in a couple of minds about this. It isn’t good to leave feeling unwelcome … BUT I’ve worked in a shop and will say that quite a few customers were utterly unreasonable (to the point of being quite mental). I had one guy get quite cross because he asked me a question about physics (at the shop till) and I answered it correctly.

Absolutely

• focus on the women’s performance

• challenge idea smiling enough is part of the job

• respect womens emotional freedom

I cannot believe people are saying to take seriously a complaint that a women didn’t smile enough - completely sexist - the fact that the complaint is that she was smiling, just not enough

Honestly I wouldn't even mention it to her - it's a ridiculous complaint by the type of person with too much time on their hands, and who is a busybody. My old coworker was told by our manager that she "was being paid to smile." She promptly got another job and quit. I wasn't happy as I loved working with her.

Not really - it’s highly unprofessional

to try and control how a women presents her body for men

all those giving examples of bosses giving golden nuggets about smiles are talking of another era - it’s very outdated

How dare that man try to control staff members body!

Research indicates 98% of women have been told to "smile more" at work, a frequent form of gendered, emotional labor and workplace sexism where women are pressured to appear accommodating. It undermines professional autonomy, often punishing women for having neutral expressions that men would not be criticized for, particularly during assertive moments.

i admire you OP for picking up and filtering this complaint - I hope your staff member knows the above and that it could be workplace sexism to confront her

I think the OP sounds like a great manager

You say tomato I say TOM art toe

i trust myself

Excellent take!

So you worked with a man giving excellent customer service and another man came back and said he didn’t smile enough

i dont believe you

Intuition is a great word.

However, both you and the OP are coming across as biased.

Don’t they just

I prefer intuition - I think we are being worldly and realistic - OP has weighed up the complaint In Light of what she knows about the business and staff

don’t forget review on Google are random - the person might not have even been to the place - and we know people hide behind online reviewing

You're very naive if you believe customers don't exaggerate and even lie in reviews, and some people just enjoy looking for reasons to get upset and cause a fuss.

Well, yes. That’s why the guy I worked with got pulled up. Not everything is sexism although you seem to want it to be