by Gus Pine, General Manager of the Bayfront Convention Center

As the General Manager of the Bayfront Convention Center, I’m often asked about the biggest challenges I face in my position. It’s always fun to talk about my experiences over the years; like dealing with circus animals in your convention center for a week, or how to clean up a building after a 3,000 person paint and electronic dance party. In reality, the biggest challenge I face in a given year has always been finding and keeping dedicated customer service-oriented staff.

We often work when others are celebrating, and that can present a problem for people unwilling or unable to have a flexible work schedule. For others, however, the jobs we offer can be ideal. For students, semi-retirees, teachers or anyone looking to supplement their income with part-time work, we have lots of positions we are looking to fill to service our convention and show guests. We are proud of our service culture, so a positive, friendly approach is just as important when we look for a potential employee. Surprisingly, these people seem to be harder and harder to find in today’s competitive environment.

To address some of our challenges we’ve implemented several changes over the past year. For instance, we now offer a money incentive for any of our current employees that recommend a new hire that is able to make it through 90 days of employment. Any employee can refer an employee to work in the following departments: Operations, Food & Beverage, & Kitchen. That referred employee must work 300 hours in a 12 month period. We feel strongly that tomorrow’s star employee can come from today’s star employee. In addition, we are offering a new “on-call” designation of flexible employment that allows for people to utilize us as a second or even third job. And finally, we have begun to work more closely with our two hotels in order to share workers across or organization which is allowing some people to work as many hours they would like across our three properties.

In my role, I’ve come to realize that we will always be on the lookout for more people friendly employees. With our busy year ever coming up in 2019, this certainly won’t change anytime soon. Whether you’re a current employee who knows someone looking for part-time work or someone looking to supplement their own income, we are always looking to add customer-oriented people to our family!

To become a part of our team or to learn more about our recommendation incentives contact our Human Resources Department at dweaver@erieevents.com