How to be pampered in the Carriage House at Adare Manor?


By: May 25, 2018


Last month, I shared with you the great news that the Tom Fazio-designed championship golf course (7509-yard) at Adare Manor went through a reconstruction. Now I can report on the opening of The Carriage House at Adare Manor (owned by the McManus family).

This is the largest restoration project of its kind in Ireland today. The opening of the Carriage House is part of the expansion part of the project.

The Carriage House Lounge at Adare Manor

The first thing that impressed me in the Carriage House is the effortless and low-key luxury. What I also welcome is that they want to be unique also by offering Irish favorites.

Paul Heery, General Manager of Adare Manor, said: “We want all our guests to enjoy a comfortable, relaxing, yet luxurious dining experience, with the very best of Irish produce. With the opening of The Carriage House, we look forward to now offering a new guest experience.”

The Carriage House Terrace - Adare Manor

Here are the details:

The Carriage House – restaurant

The Carriage House Restaurant showcases the best in artisanal and local produce, prime Irish dry-aged beef, and fresh fish. Open for dinner daily, the menu shines a spotlight on Irish favorites with an elegant flare, including Connemara lamb and Atlantic lobster, alongside some of the best prime cuts of beef, grilled using sustainably sourced charcoal.

Restaurant in The Carriage House 1on1 table

The Carriage House – the bar

Designed as a union of traditional Irish culture and elevated contemporary styling, the rich leathers, dark-stained oak furnishings and an impressive Breccia Capraia marble framed fireplace.

The Carriage House – The Terrace and The Cigar Lounge

If you have ever been to Quinta do Lago‘s Bovino Steakhouse (Algarve, Portugal) then you can easily have a déjá vous feeling that The Carriage House’s Terrace looks a little bit similar, but with lighter colors.

We can also find a lounge for small talks or simply relax over a drink at The Carriage House.

The Carriage House Exterior at Adare Manor

The Carriage House – employee experience investment and development

We tend to focus on customer experience innovation and development. This is what we hear in the media most of the time. However, we should not forget that our golf club’s employees have got the biggest impact on the overall customer experience.

This is why I was happy that Gregg Patterson, my guest writer told me that he would like to share with my readers his employee experience development best practices. (Check out his post!)

A great employee experience can increase employees’ contribution (e.g. progression, continuous learning) to the company/golf club.

In the current business environment, we need to create a place where people want to work. Today your future employees are checking you on online platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Monster.com to be able to decide whether worth working in your company/golf club or not.

CareerArc found that 55% of job seekers abandoned job application just because of negative reviews on the above-mentioned platforms. Thus job interviews are becoming more like everybody is reviewing everybody.

Employer branding keeps on being a big HR trend in 2018. You should minimize the gap between the perceived and the intended employer brand. This is why I recommend finding external avenues for employee journey stories to be shared.

The 2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends study says the challenge is to figure out how to appropriately address each individual’s preferences and priorities while engaging with a more diverse set of workers and workforce segments than ever before.

If you are able to provide an engaging and meaningful experience it will help your golf club to succeed in attracting and retaining skilled employees.

These are the TOP 5 factors that can contribute to outstanding employee experience:

  1. Meaningful work: select to fit, autonomy, small & empowered teams etc.
  2. Supportive management: clear & transparent goals, coaching, agile performance management etc.
  3. Positive work environment: humanistic workplace, the culture of recognition, flexible work environment etc.
  4. Growth opportunities
  5. Trust in leadership.

So far, I came across with only one major employee experience program, Billy Casper Golf’s ACE the GUEST experience. I must add to it that it is not a true employee experience program, rather an employee training and coaching program.

However, this was the closest to the definition of employee experience program.

The Carriage House Exterior Locker room