Forget green food coloring.  This year’s St. Patrick’s Day drinks are all about taste!

Here are three unique and festive drink recipes to add to your menu that are sure to bring out the Irish in all of your customers:

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Irish Jack Rose

Courtesy of Liquor.com

Ingredients:

1 oz Michael Collins Blended Irish Whiskey

.5 oz Calvados

.5 oz Fresh lime juice

.5 oz Grenadine

Garnish: Lime wedge

Glass: Cocktail

Directions:

Add all the ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice.  Shake, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lime wedge.

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The Blarney Stone

Courtesy of Food & Beverage Magazine

Ingredients:

2 oz Sobieski Bizon Grass Vodka

Apple Juice

Glass: Highball

Directions:

Pour Sobieski Bizon Grass vodka into glass with ice.  Add apple juice.  Stir and serve.

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Black Velvet Beer Cocktail

Courtesy of yumsugar.com

2 oz Guinness Extra Stout

2 oz Korbel Brut

Glass:  Champagne coupe

Directions: 

Gently pour stout and sparkling wine into coupe.  Stir and serve.

Here are a few interesting facts for you, according to a recent ehotelier.com article by Caroline Cooper:

• Gaining a new customer costs anywhere from an estimated five to eight times more than retaining an existing one.
• An estimated 68 percent of customers will fail to return if they feel unappreciated.

Obviously, it makes sense for hoteliers to place as much (if not more) emphasis on keeping existing customers as they do on gaining new ones.

Thankfully, there are lots of ways to keep hotel customers satisfied and coming back to stay with you.  Here are four of Cooper’s top tips for retaining loyal guests:

1. Create a great last impression.  Develop ways to ensure your guests leave with a favorable impression that lets them know you appreciate their business.  Saying “Thank you” as guests leave is a simple, free and personal touch that goes a long way.  Additionally, consider giving little mementos for them to take home (think truffles, local specialty items, exclusive toiletries or quality items with your logo).  Some hotels stand out from the crowd by sending handwritten and personalized notes to thank guests for staying with them.
2. Reward loyalty with exclusive deals.  Offering travel packages or deals exclusive to returning customers has a tri-fold benefit:  it may prompt additional bookings; it demonstrates your appreciation of their loyalty; it counterbalances offers that are made only to new customers.
3. Ask for feedback.  How many customer problems go unresolved because you never even learned about them?  How many clients have you lost as a result?  You’ll never know unless you ask.  Make it easy for customers to tell you what they enjoy – and don’t enjoy – about staying with you.  Leave simple, short survey forms in guest rooms; follow-up after guests leave by e-mailing satisfaction surveys; give specific instructions on your web site for how to submit feedback.  When you receive a complaint, resolve issues quickly and exceed dissatisfied customers’ expectations.  When you get positive feedback, use it to your advantage!
4. Train your staff.  Unless your employees know the level of service your valued clients require, you can’t expect them to consistently deliver it.  Provide the appropriate training, tools and systems to allow your staff to deliver a great customer experience.  Equip and empower employees to resolve customer complaints – quick resolution can earn you big brownie points in the client’s mind.

Penguin Staff can rapidly supply the experienced, trained hospitality professionals you need to create a great customer experience – keeping them satisfied and coming back to you.  Contact us to learn more about our hospitality staffing services for Atlanta, D.C. and Central Virginia.

Looking to tip the financial scales in your favor?  What business isn’t!

For most hospitality organizations, staffing is a huge line item on a P & L.  As a result, the way you use your staff can have a major impact on your company’s overall profitability.

If you only think of hospitality staff as a stop-gap measure when someone calls in sick, you may be missing out.  Consider these ways staffing can actually help you drive revenues:

Capitalize on new opportunities.  Ever feel as though you “made it through” your busy season, but could’ve done more to capture business?  Ever have a great idea for an event or new service offering, but fail to implement it because you lacked the resources?

Hospitality staffing firms like Penguin can help improve your responsiveness to (and follow-through on) new opportunities.  Because we maintain a vast applicant pool of trained front of house, back of house and culinary professionals, we can provide immediate access to the talent you need – and capture business opportunities you may otherwise miss out on.

Increase productivity.  Penguin can supply direct, on-call or supplemental staff to:

• reduce the bottlenecks that slow your processes down;
• relieve direct employee burnout, keeping them working at peak efficiency;
• minimize productivity-killing turnover;
• help you deliver the best customer experience.

Effectively manage growth.  The recovery is slowly taking hold – is your organization ready to hire?  A hospitality staffing service can alleviate the hiring headaches growth can cause, while ensuring you have the specialized, trained staff in place to drive revenues.  Beyond traditional hospitality staffing, Penguin can also be a strategic partner, providing the hospitality workforce solutions you need to ensure profitable growth.

Drive Revenue with Penguin Staff

When your Richmond, Atlanta or D.C. hospitality organization needs hospitality staff, there’s only one choice – Penguin.  Contact us today to schedule a free workforce consultation.  We can show you how to use hospitality staff to create a great customer experience – and ultimately make you more profitable.

The latest jobs report revealed that 167,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were added since mid-2011.  But if you’re one of the countless unemployed Americans still trying to find a hospitality job, this encouraging statistic is of little consolation.

The simple fact is, it’s tough out there.  A large portion of the hospitality workforce is currently unemployed, and has been for quite a while.  To make things worse, unemployed hospitality workers now face yet another, seemingly unfair barrier to finding work – their employment status.

Right or wrong, some employers unfairly discriminate against candidates who have been unemployed for more than a few months.  Despite numerous EEO laws and safeguards, these employers ignore the résumés sent to them by hospitality job seekers who aren’t working.  They believe that requiring that a candidate be gainfully employed is just “smart business” – helping them control the flood of applications and filter out “damaged goods” before spending valuable time and resources on screening and interviewing.

So what’s a smart job seeker to do?  First of all, don’t admit defeat.  If you’re out of work and need a job, now is a time to stay strong.  Use these tips to overcome the stigma of unemployment – and find a great hospitality job:

• Forgive yourself – and move on.  Losing a job is nothing unusual, especially these days.  Mergers, cost-cutting measures and total shutdowns have forced countless people out of their jobs over the past few years.  Whatever your reason for being unemployed, you need a positive mindset to tackle what may be a tough job search.  The best thing you can do is forgive yourself for being out of work, and then move on.
• If you’ve only been out of work for a short time (a few weeks or months), invest a lot of time and energy into networking and informational interviews.  This will help you get past the initial human resources screening that would eliminate you from consideration.  Use networking as a tool to demonstrate your willingness to work hard, and your drive to find a job may overcome the bias against you as a person out of work.
• Ignore the verbiage in job posts that suggests an employer intends to discriminate based on recent employment status.  Just because the discriminatory language is present in a job listing doesn’t mean you have to adhere to the request!  If your job skills and experience are a good fit for the posting, by all means apply for that position – regardless of your employment situation.
• Consider adjusting your résumé.  If you’ve been out of work for awhile, you may want to switch from a chronological to functional résumé format.  This will allow you to lead with your skills and qualifications, outside the context of your employment history.  Additionally, you may want to omit dates from your employment history section.  Once your skills have an employer’s attention, he can inquire about the dates.
• Solidify references from previous employer(s).  When you’re unemployed, a strong endorsement from an employer – even one who let you go – may outweigh the length of your unemployment.

Temporary Hospitality Work – Your Best Bet for Beating Jobless Discrimination

Looking for a sure-fire way to overcome your jobless stigma?  Go to work for a hospitality staffing service like Penguin – as soon as possible!  It’s easiest to find a job while you’re working, so stack the deck in your favor.  Beyond merely changing your employment status, on-call or temporary hospitality assignments can help you:

• Earn valuable income – at a time when you really need it.
• Keep your spirits up – by being productive and engaged.
• Build your résumé and keep your skills sharp – the variety inherent in temporary assignments presents you with new challenges, allowing you to grow and gain experience.
• Find direct employment – if you prove yourself on the job, your temporary or contract position may convert to a direct opportunity.  Additionally, while you’re on assignment, Penguin Staff can actively search for direct positions that match your skills, experience and interests.

Contact your local Penguin Staffing office today to learn more about hospitality jobs in Atlanta, Washington D.C, Baltimore and Central Virginia.

When it comes to hospitality staffing, great results don’t happen by accident.

Instead, they occur when an organization like yours develops a strong partnership with a highly specialized hospitality staffing firm like Penguin.  The more successfully we work together, the better your results will be.

If you’re looking for ways to strengthen your relationship with us – and ultimately get better results – here are five tips to get you started:

• Give us as much lead-time as you can.  Sure, we’re prepared to handle your on-call event staffing needs.  But when you plan ahead for upcoming staff requirements, it optimizes your chances of finding the ideal candidate(s) with the skills, experience and traits critical to success.
• Give temporary hospitality staff formal job descriptions.  These descriptions should be well-defined, prioritized, current and submitted in writing.  Furthermore, they should include what you expect in terms of candidate abilities and experience, along with specific performance goals and standards.  This step helps clarify expectations and ensures you get exactly what you want.
• Remember that you get what you pay for.  People (including on-call and temporary staff) are your organization’s most valuable asset.  They should be viewed as an investment in your success, not merely an expense.  So make sure you work with a hospitality staffing firm that takes the time to fill your needs correctly – and not just the lowest-cost provider.
• Train your Penguin Staffing representative.  Tell us about your organization’s mission statement, goals, culture, history and current challenges.  Explain the types of work styles or personalities that fit best in your business.  By familiarizing your Penguin representative with your needs and preferences, we can become a more knowledgeable extension of your human resources department.
• Take full advantage of all we have to offer.  Did you know that, in addition to traditional hospitality staffing, we offer outsourcing services?  Strategic workforce solutions?  Hospitality training?  Invest a little time to learn about our full range of capabilities and value-added services.  At your request, we will gladly arrange for a capabilities demonstration.

Great Hospitality Staffing Starts with Penguin

When you need hospitality employees in Central Virginia, Atlanta or the D.C./Baltimore metro area – think Penguin Staff.  Contact us today to learn more.