'HR has an essential role in delivering a customer-centric experience'

The formula for maintaining a positive company culture is relatively simple, according to Natasha Rasheed, area director human resources for Marriott New Zealand, Australia and Pacific.

“I believe we’ve got a very consistent culture across our hotels,” said Rasheed. “Marriott has been able to build its success on the core principle of ‘take care of our people and in turn they’ll take care of the guests’.”

With this in mind, smart investment in staff has become a cornerstone of the organisation. Marriott utilises a variety of internal tools and staff KPIs to generate reports. These enable HR and other leaders to gain insights into which staff are ready for new positions, and whether there are proper succession plans for existing positions in play.

“Marriott’s business has really been built on taking care of our people and taking care of our guests,” said Rasheed. “So we can’t really have that philosophy without investing in our people and providing them with the opportunity to advance within the organisation.”

Marriott’s HR team also spend a considerable amount of time investing in personal development plans, and having conversations with staff to ascertain their career goals.

Once these goals have been established, HR and management staff alike work to help support their staff in achieving their goals. Additionally, the company actively pursues a ‘hire from within’ philosophy, aiming to encourage staff who actively pursue promotion within the organisation.

These policies create a heady environment for HR professionals, one that’s in stark contrast to the oft-heard criticism that HR departments are too detached from the workaday experiences of staff.

Rasheed insists that this hands-on attitude is crucial to delivering the best possible outcomes for current and new staff alike, as well as Marriott’s customers.

“HR has an essential role in delivering a customer-centric experience and helping support the business’s operations,” she says. “If HR isn’t recruiting people with the right experience for service and we aren’t listening to feedback from those on the frontline, we’re not going to be able to live up to our guests’ expectations either.”

Rasheed highlights three staff programs in particular as noteworthy for both new and existing staff. The first is Journey Week, which enables hotels to express their creativity while also promoting career development opportunities to staff.

Each Marriott Hotel marks the occasion differently; some hotels hold career fairs to attract prospective talent and others launch internal mentoring programs. Some hotels have even conducted professional photoshoots to help staff members with polishing their CVs for internal promotions.

There’s also a heavy emphasis on fun – for example, one hotel had a map of the world prominently displayed, and hotel staff had to mark with pins which Marriott Hotels they had worked in around the world.

Activities like this aim to show new and existing staff just how far they can potentially travel with the company, and give them a sense of the larger vision of Marriott Hotels. Additionally, it’s an opportunity for existing staff to reflect on the journey of others, and on where they may be able to contribute to helping them reach their career goals.