By Noah Parks

As we send off January to the history books, we should remember that this month we celebrate one of HMG+’s most cherished practices: Mentoring.  Everyone is always so eager to move forward, make progress, and blaze their trail.  Life does move in one direction, however, it’s our luck that we have the ability to reflect on the past.  In the hospitality industry we have rich traditions that serve as the foundations for our current and future success.  HMG+ has always understood this and because we offer opportunities to so many young, new service professionals it’s important that we offer our experience to them.  This comes in the form of mentoring.  

We’ve developed a community that nurtures itself through self-discovery.  Using what you’ve learned to better others and be of service is a core belief at HMG+.  It keeps us a step ahead of everyone else because we’re operating with a growth mindset.  We’re focused on the possibilities of every person in our growing community.  Besides the benefits to the company, we’re creating a culture of success that will spread beyond the workplace.  As we build skills in the workplace, it naturally improves your confidence.  Working with a mentor sharpens those tools even more.  According to Guidr a mentoring service, “Whether it’s the ability to share ideas comfortably in meetings, or stand up for yourself in a challenging situation, people with mentors benefit from higher confidence in themselves.”   Working with the public requires us to always be able to exude the ability to get things done correctly and quickly.  Mentoring ensures that we aren’t “faking it” and can always express our challenges or high points with someone that can relate.

We’re social creatures and love to be around a culture that supports who we are personally and professionally.  HMG+ is the staffing solution for New York City because we build around personalities.  We can hire anyone to bartend or serve, but we want YOU because you are YOU.  Once people are a part of the team, there is always someone they relate to.  It happens usually after the first event or a travel assignment. There’s a bond that is formed when a Captain and a team of service professionals execute a busy wedding, dinner or all day conference.  It’s not only the service side of HMG+ mentors.  Our Corporate team is also eager to build horizontally to improve from the bottom up.  For example when a busy season is coming and our President needs to model how to secure contracts, or our Vice-President can model and discuss how to email clients, we afford those opportunities to members of the team.  

In fact it works both ways.  Mentors always grow just as much as the mentee because there’s new ways of doing things.  A mentorship is not an apprenticeship.  We have a wealth of knowledge but always are seeking the next trend.  And with this kind of investment and open mind we usually are three steps ahead of the industry.  If you want to get ahead it’s important to listen to all the voices, not just the ones that might be the loudest or with the most experience.  Instead we invest in developing HMG+ into a wholistic company that uses mentorship to, “broaden… the perspectives of the mentee and mentor and exposes avenues to learn and contribute to the organization at large’  We hope you’ll join us in order to expand your horizons and learn the life long skills of mentorship.