Full Time

Want to work in one of the most influential places in Scotland? Now is your chance!

This is an excellent opportunity to join the Visitor Services (VS) team as a Visitor Services Supervisor. The VS team provide a range of services for MSPs, their guests and other visitors to the Parliament while currently developing new online services. We are proud to have been awarded the Visit Scotland five-star tourism award in recognition of our exceptional customer service and services we offer and invite you to be part of a team that not only meets but exceeds visitor expectations.

Activities include managing our booking systems, supervising service delivery in the parliament’s public spaces, managing visitors, delivering guided tours and talks and other general office administration. Cash handling and stock-processing duties are included as the Parliament Shop is a part of the Visitor Services operation.

A requirement of this role is being able to work on a shift rota basis which may include Saturdays, evenings and public holidays to support major events. Exact working patterns are currently being reviewed.

Still interested? If you have experience of working with the public in a similar environment, of leading and inspiring within a busy customer environment, have outstanding communication and engagement skills as well as a passion for speaking publicly to diverse audiences, we’d love to hear from you!

Thank you for your interest in the post of Commercial Manager for the Urquhart Castle District with Historic Environment Scotland. Your base location is Urquhart Castle, with some travel across the Region and, on occasion, to other locations in Scotland. This is a permanent and pensionable appointment.

You’ll lead all our visitor operations team at Urquhart Castle, running a successful operation that delivers an outstanding service to visitors and local communities. You’ll lead a team of customer service colleagues, creating an empowering culture that inspires innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Scottish Canals is looking for a Destination Supervisor for The Caledonian Canal Centre in Fort Augustus. The Destination Supervisor will have responsibility for operation of the visitor centre and the successful candidate will manage all employees to ensure the smooth running of the catering delivery and service, rooms and retail areas.

You will set the standard and ensure staff exceed visitor expectations at all times. Customer care is of primary importance. You will manage and influence the visitor journey from first engagement until they leave, satisfied with their experience. 

Training, mentoring and leading front of house staff to create a visitor experience team who greet, engage, enthuse, excite and inform all visitors and who “go the extra mile” to make a visit to the Caledonian Canal Centre the best it should be.

As well as a competitive salary, Scottish Canals also offers a generous annual leave entitlement of 34 days rising to 39 after 5 years (inc. public holidays), along with enhanced company sick pay, discounted shopping vouchers, and a contributory pension scheme with up to a 10% employer contribution.

The Destination Supervisor be responsible for:

•             Line management of Destination Assistants and Housekeepers
•             Destination Promotion across a variety of social media and local platforms
•             Daily finance and banking admin
•             Food hygiene compliance and labelling
•             Raising purchase orders, checking invoices/profit margins, implementing pricing changes
•             Ordering of stock & stock taking/recording and management of supplier relationships
•             Creating/maintaining/updating staff rota and cleaning schedules
•             Annualised hours administration
•             Responsibility for legal records for alcohol sales/temperature checks/VAT coding
•             Responsible for setting up of customer-facing displays
•             Meeting reps and agreeing prices for suppliers
•             Costing – ensure appropriate gross profit for all items sold
•             Waste documentation & control
•             Basic marketing and promotions
•             Ordering and compliance of staff uniforms/PPE

Skills/Experience Required:

•             Line management experience
•             Great leadership qualities
•             Social Media experience
•             Experience of working within a high-quality, hospitality environment
•             A confident, friendly, welcoming, helpful, engaging nature
•             Flexible approach to the role
•             Ability to co-operate with and support colleagues
•             Use of initiative in applying and maintaining high levels of customer service
•             Keeping brand standards at highest level
•             Strong communication skills
•             Computer literate
•             Keen to work across various disciplines
•             Good time management and organisational skills

JOB PURPOSE

To ensure that the garden, grounds and related policies of Culzean Castle are managed and maintained as a nationally-recognized garden of outstanding historical and horticultural importance; contributing to the property’s overall conservation and development, and its enjoyment by visitors and supporters.

The role of ‘Gardener’ as a key member of the Culzean team will be heavily involved in the development plans of the garden and wider designed landscape.

CONTEXT

Culzean Castle & Country Park:
The National Trust for Scotland’s (the Trust’s) property at Culzean is located on the Ayrshire coast of the Firth of Clyde, some 19 kilometers south of Ayr. The estate has been in existence since the 16th century and comprises the former seat of the Kennedy family – Culzean Castle – together with the core 228 hectares of Cassillis and Culzean Estate. The 5th Marquess of Ailsa, with the Trustees of the 4th Marquess, gave the Castle, some of its contents and the designed landscape to the Trust in 1945. Culzean became Scotland’s first Country Park in 1969 under the Countryside (Scotland) Act and is managed by the Trust. The centerpiece of the property is Culzean Castle, acknowledged as Robert Adam’s masterpiece in the Romantic Castellated style, matched by its sublime cliff top site. The designed landscape contains a rich variety of features, including some by Adam, such as the Viaduct and the Home Farm, to complement his design for the Castle, and is important also for its gardens, policy woodland plantings and natural heritage.

The Castle and Country Park is the most significant property in the ownership of the Trust in terms of scale of business, investment and profile and is currently undergoing an extensive period of investment and development to establish it as one of Scotland’s leading heritage visitor attractions.

Culzean Castle Garden:
The gardens and designed landscape at Culzean have been independently assessed as being of outstanding significance. They feature at the highest level across all categories in the benchmark Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland managed by Historic Scotland – one of only 5 sites in Scotland to do so.

The extensive formal lawns of the Fountain Court, the planted south-facing Terraces and the Orangery are focal points for visitors crossing the Viaduct to the Castle and feature frequently in photographs of the property. The Walled Garden – which lies to the south-west of the Castle – is double in construction. Its northern half is managed as a production walled garden with soft and top fruit, vegetables and cut-flowers as well as extensive herbaceous borders; it is in the process of redevelopment with an emphasis in increasing the range of production an enhanced visitor experience. The South Walled Garden contains impressive fruit ranges (Peach House and recreated Vinery) but otherwise is more ornamental; the display here is also undergoing redevelopment and extension. A woodland garden called Happy Valley extends behind the walled garden and contains a number of built features relating to the productive history of the landscape as well as specimen trees, rhododendrons and a selection of exotic woody plants. The garden team also maintains a number of other small amenity plantings throughout the park as well as holiday cottage gardens and other public areas.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

The Key Purposes of the job will be met by:
1. Undertaking practical maintenance of the garden (e.g. managing trees and shrubs, herbaceous plants, and bulbs; turf care; pest/disease/weed control; staking, plant nutrition, composting and soil improvement to the required standards expected by the Trust and for the maximum safety of, and enjoyment by visitors including other professionals in the horticultural industry;
2. Fostering positive relationships with local communities and organisations and promote the work of the Trust.
3. On occasion, supervising and working with volunteers and/or staff members to ensure they deliver required outputs at the appropriate standard, and gain benefit/satisfaction from their activities;
4. Demonstrating self-motivation, organizing, planning, and prioritizing and good time management;
5. Undertaking such other reasonable duties as may from time to time be required to ensure the smooth running of the property as required by the Head Gardener.
6. Ensuring compliance with the Trust’s health, safety, and environment policies and procedures.

The current duties of this job do require a criminal records (Disclosure Scotland) check to be carried out.

JOB PURPOSE

This is a fantastic opportunity to work as part of our leadership team at the iconic Glencoe National Nature Reserve and its Visitor Centre, which attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe every year.

You will be responsible for the day-to-day catering operations at our popular Highland Coo Cafe. You will deliver our quality standards and performance targets, ensuring we offer customers a fantastic Food & Beverage experience.
You will be an enthusiastic team player who can lead by example to supervise, coach and motivate your team. You will also be part of a broader duty management team responsible for promoting good communication across the site and a joined-up visitor services provision.
As a charity, every penny we raise goes back into the National Trust for Scotland’s conservation work, caring for this special place.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Catering operation
• Contribute to menu development, preparation, cooking and presentation of a high quality food and drink offer.
• Ensure compliance with health and safety, food hygiene and environmental health standards and appropriate record-keeping
• Accountable for cost-effective stock management, ordering, storage and wastage control.
Visitor experience
• Offer excellent customer service and ensure all members of the catering team do the same.
• Support property-wide targets for completion of visitor surveys to understand more about our visitors.
• Act as one of our duty manager team, responsible for ensuring a safe and smooth visitor operation, addressing issues, and opening/closing up the visitor centre.

People management
• Supervise the activities of a team of permanent and seasonal Visitor Service Assistants (VSAs), kitchen porters and cooks, achieving excellent staff performance and motivation through effective induction, training, task-setting and coaching on front and back-of-house routines.
• Prepare catering rotas and holiday allocation to meet business needs.
• Work closely with specialist advisory colleagues, i.e. our Trust-wide Catering Development Manager.

Finance Management
• Share responsibility for achieving an F&B budget of around £450,000 a year.
• Monitor commercial performance and adjust activities to capitalize on sales opportunities and run a cost-effective catering operation.
• Supervise daily café till operations and perform end-of-day income reconciliation as a duty manager.
• Assist the Catering Manager with menu costing, ordering and stock-taking.

Performance indicators and targets
• Weekly, monthly and annual sales and cost of sales targets
• Food compliance standards and record-keeping
• Visitor enjoyment reviews and ratings from visitor surveys and visitor feedback
• Staff satisfaction from staff surveys

Tools / equipment / systems
• Access to desktop PC and relevant online people management, training, financial monitoring and stock ordering systems, including NTS intranet and Microsoft 365.
• EPOS tills and chip and pin machines
• Fully equipped commercial catering kitchen