Staff at four-star Clare hotel win prestigious award

STAFF at a popular Clare hotel are celebrating this week after scooping a prestigious industry award.

Workers at the Lakeside Hotel in Killaloe gathered at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin for the first Employer Excellence Awards.

The scheme celebrates businesses which have demonstrated commitment to making the tourism industry an appealing and rewarding place to wok through their participation in Fáilte Ireland’s Employer Excellence programme.

More than 170 tourism businesses took part in the first staging of the programme which launched last September.

As part of this, Fáilte Ireland engaged internationally recognised employee experience surveyors, Great Place to Work, to invite staff of the participating businesses to complete their Trust Index Survey.

This survey gives the team the chance to highlight the strengths of their workplace, along with areas for further development.

The night’s winning businesses were chosen based on this survey feedback.

As a result, the Lakeside Hotel and Leisure Centre was certified as an outstanding employer, the highest certification available in the Employer Excellence Programme.

Speaking after the awards, Eoin Little, general manager at the Lakeside Hotel said: "We are really over the moon about winning such a prestigious award when benchmarked against such worthy hotels in the region. It is a testament to all the hard work that the management and overall team make each day to ensure that we are truly a great place to work. We now have a clear road map of what we need to continue to do to remain so. I am incredibly proud of everyone in the Hotel and we will display this award with pride."

The Lakeside has been in operation since the early 1900s and has a good reputation across Ireland as a place where couples can get married.