Law firm staff wins
IN 1986 a 26-year-old legal firm staff won the receptionist of the year award run by the Ba Rotary Club.
An article published in The Fiji Times on February 16 that year said Laisa Eka, the receptionist at the law firm of Sahu Khan and Sahu Khan, won from the 14 Ba receptionists nominated for the competition.
Miss Eka had been with the law firm since May the previous year after working for 18 months as a receptionist at the Cathay Hotel in Lautoka.
She said she was “excited” being declared the winner and she felt the competition helped improve work performance.
Ba Rotary president Ram Lakhan said the competition was aimed at finding out whether office receptionists in Ba needed further training.
Mr Prasad, who was formerly the vocational services director with the club, said another aim was to encourage courtesy with the use of telephones.
“We found there was satisfactory performance by the 14 who took part, but there was room in educating them a little more on courtesy,” he said.
In May, the club planned to run a three-day course for the receptionists which was to be conducted by a qualified teacher in the field, who previously lived in London and was married to a Rotarian in Ba.
The judging for the Ba competition was done over a period of time by the club’s four service directors who awarded marks when speaking to the competitors.
Mr Prasad said the club had sent out circulars to employers who filled and returned them if their receptionists were willing to participate.
According to the article, judges assessed how calls were answered, how confidence was cultivated, the art of being apologetic, the precision in speech, the ability to transfer calls and manner of terminating calls.
The second place getter was Anjila Mudaliar, the receptionist at the Fiji Sugar Corporation in Ba, and the third place getter was Kusum Mala Singh, of Maganlal Jiwa and Sons Ltd.