Collectively as a team we nominated Eric Jones our Conference & Events Manager, here are a few reasons why we believe him to be a worthy winner.
Eric joined the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly team around 1 year ago, His unique personality and focused determination shines through in a way never experienced before. He really is one of a kind.
Eric runs events with military precision and focus, his infamous speeches before the team start an event are funny but also focused inspiring and well…. legendary, and always guaranteed to end with a round of applause from his staff.
He very much focuses on ownership for every individual person to be proud of their part in a particular job or event. In a hotel of this size, it’s so easy to get lost and for people to not value or understand the importance of a task that might first appear so simple, he creates a proudness in tasks, which you can visibly see the difference in.
Eric’s dedication is unwavering and he certainly goes above and beyond what is expected on various levels, due to him living in Chester quite often he will stay at the hotel, this means he is living in for 5- 6 days at a time running multiple conferences & events each and every day. His wider team rally around him, ensuring he has lunch and a coffee break – you literally need to make him stop!
Despite days off sometimes being in short supply, he will never take the day before a large event off, for him to run each event smoothly and efficiently he likes to personally lead his team in the preparation, he leaves absolutely nothing to chance!
Having spent more direct time with Eric recently running the HBAA event, I witnessed first-hand his forward thinking. In his team’s quiet moments, he will be preparing for an event that’s happening in three days from now, or prepping for evening meal service having just served morning break.
In hotels, in hospitality there will always be curve balls and unexpected challenges, however Eric’s ability to cope, adapt and morph when needing to get the job done is a credit to him. He will not take short cuts, utilise the easy way or ever say that’s not my job. It’s his job to facilitate and oversee the running of all large conferences & events and every day you can be sure that he will give the hotel, his team 100% dedication in that.
Eric is the quirkiest person in the hotel, he has a very individual style and way of doing things, on first glance you might laugh or smile at the way he approaches things, but quite soon after you get to see the magic.
For the MHA to recognise what he does for his team, the hotel and the industry would be a massive and well deserved accolade for him.