Nearly a century after Marriott International was founded, the world’s largest hotel company by revenue and size continues to set the bar high for service excellence in the industry.

While the business of hospitality has evolved in the face of disruption – not the least of which are the pandemic and the rise of smart technology – Marriott International remains rooted in the same values of putting people first, pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity and serving the world.

For guests to experience this distinction, Marriott International ensures everyone who works for the company, regardless of role, can draw inspiration from these values and is empowered to do their best.

“Culture is the glue that holds us together. It’s what our associates experience every day,” said Andrew Newmark, Chief Human Resources Officer - Asia Pacific (excluding China) at Marriott International.

Despite setbacks in the hospitality industry in the past few years, “our business has come roaring back,” he said. It’s this dynamic nature of hospitality that keeps Marriott International invested in the growth of its talent.

Andrew’s own mission is to develop the next generation of leaders at all levels of the organisation.

Mentoring young talent has, in fact, become one of the most fulfilling aspects of his over 30-year career with the company. Today, he and his team are redefining talent development through programmes such as Elevate and Voyage.

With a milestone celebration on the horizon, Andrew spoke to People Matters in an exclusive interview about how Marriott International cultivates talent and leadership as factors behind its success:

How is 2024 shaping up for Marriott International in terms of talent?

From the lens of our industry, I would say, after a difficult few years through the pandemic that business is back and travel is back, which also means for us – from a talent perspective – things are very competitive.

I do believe that after coming out of the pandemic and having some periods of maybe more elevated turnover, things have stabilised. We've had a very successful 2023 from a business perspective and that's continuing in 2024.

Yet, from a talent perspective, it still continues to be very competitive. I hear the term “war for talent” is often used. I think it's still there. And so we have to be very heavily focused on our efforts of sourcing and retaining talent to ensure we are delivering the experience that we aim to, so that our associates are feeling great about their work with us and that they can continue to see a great path forward with Marriott International.

Overall, I think it's still incredibly competitive, more stable than where we were coming out of the pandemic and particularly for our industry. We recovered much faster than perhaps we had anticipated.

We're seeing that our comprehensive approach to the attraction, retention, engagement and development of our associates is all playing a role in helping us to continue that journey of stabilisation and supporting our growth as a company because, while the industry had some difficult years, we are continuing to grow. We currently have around 95,000 associates across the region, across our 570 hotels and a pipeline of 340 hotels to open over the next three to five years.

It's very dynamic, with lots of growth and opportunity for talent to join our industry.

What gives Marriott International that competitive edge in the talent space? What distinguishes your employer brand?

The first thing is our culture. For us at Marriott International, it's the glue that holds us together. It's what our associates experience every day.

We're about to celebrate in the next couple of years our 100th year since our founders set up the company in 1927. Certainly, the culture and the ways of working have evolved over the years.

Yet, it is those core values that were set by our founders many years ago that guide us today. So, often when we talk to our associates and even when external parties are talking to our associates to get their feedback around what it's like to work for Marriott International, it will be a reference to our culture and that it is like a family. I think that is what's different and it's something that we can never take for granted. It's something that we always need to nurture, grow and evolve over time.

Beyond the culture, as the world's largest hotel company, we do have programmes and resources dedicated to our associates to help them achieve what they want to from their work perspective and also for life in general.

So, it could be around their careers. It could be around well-being, contributing to them, achieving their personal goals in life as well.

Number one is the culture – never taking that for granted. And then it's delivering that experience through our various initiatives and programmes that support a holistic approach for our people.

The hospitality industry is a very high-touch type of industry, but how is Marriott International investing in tech to redefine the employee experience?

For our industry, we certainly see technology as an enabler – it can help us to be more efficient. It can help us to automate manual tasks. But it'll never replace that human contact and connection that our associates have with our guests and with each other.

By integrating technology more into what we can do, it can only help us elevate the experience for our customers, for our guests, and for each other.

One piece that I would call out specifically for our associates is, in the next couple of months, we will launch a new technology platform for learning and communication. It'll be mobile-enabled to integrate learning and communication into the work life of our associates.

We're on a journey of making sure that we're getting training and communications to our associates right across the region in an efficient way.

We're feeling very encouraged by the platform. It will be mobile-enabled so our associates can access it on their phone. They can get it in bite-sized chunks that are digestible, and that they can also integrate it into their daily work.

What's your philosophy around growing the next generation of leaders in the hospitality industry?

We believe leadership is critical, so when we talk about the elements of what we do and how we bring to life our talent focus, leadership is the first thing we talk about – about how we grow great leaders. And we believe that leadership exists at all levels of the organisation.

It's not necessarily the title that you have, but if we can grow and empower leadership at all levels, the business really will take care of itself.

We have various development programmes that are in place for leaders to develop themselves at various stages of their career journey. I would highlight two specifically for the next generation of leaders.

Elevate

One programme launched this year is called Elevate by Marriott International, and its specific focus is on how to build the bridge or the link for our non-management associates to break through into leadership. What can we do as a company to facilitate and grow our non-management associates to make that breakthrough?

Some key elements of this programme is that it includes access to a one-to-one coach that the associates can talk to about their aspirations and what they want to achieve to become a leader, and so we invest in coaching for them.

We also give them access to learning resources and programmes that will help them in areas such as building their business acumen, business skills, or digital literacy.

Voyage

The second programme for the next gen of leaders is our Voyage programme, and that's for fresh graduates.

Across the region each year, we recruit what we call our “Voyagers” who have freshly graduated from university or college and are coming into the industry, and we put them into an 18-month development programme where they ground themselves in a particular part of the hotel operation or one of the core disciplines of the hotel and go through a programme that aims to give them the foundations to come out of that development experience into a supervisory or an entry-level non-management programme.

The Voyage programme has been around for a number of years. What's really rewarding about that programme is, I now see directors and general managers who were Voyagers many years ago and have continued to grow their careers with Marriott International, and it all started back with the Voyage programme.

We normally recruit around 200 to 250 voyagers each year across the region and take dedicated time to nurture them through their experience in that 18-month programme. I've been fortunate to play a role in a number of cohorts over those years and mentor a number of the Voyagers myself, and it's great to have the opportunity to share some of my experiences and knowledge with them.

I'm also learning from them because they're sharing with me their feedback and their experiences, which I can certainly benefit from in my role.

It's been a great programme that I'm sure is going to continue to fuel those next-gen leaders who are going to come through the organisation in the coming years.

By the nature of our industry, the way jobs have been structured in the past can be very much seen as a narrow scope of role. For example, a room attendant role may simply be seen in the capacity to clean a room.

One of the things that we have tested through 2023 and now in full rollout in 2024 is what we call iJobs or integrated jobs. Rather than having that narrow scope, iJobs create roles for our associates where they actually become experts in their craft. So, for example, we’re not hiring a room attendant anymore, but actually hiring a guest cleanliness expert, which means the associate has been trained, certified and recognised as an expert in their role.

It's really been a tremendous initiative benefiting our associates because it's enriching their job. It is creating more flexibility for our business because we are able to have our associates work in different areas because they've become trained and experts in different roles. Ultimately, it impacts the guest experience because we have associates who can work in different functions. It creates a seamless service and guest experience.

And we're really encouraged to see that, in hotels that have rolled out this type of work, it is having a positive impact on retention, our engagement scores, and also on the guest experience. So, we're really encouraged by this particular way of working. We see that there's great opportunity to expand it further in other elements of the business as we go forward.

What do you find most fulfilling about your role at Marriott International? What would you say is a good day at work for you?

For me, having been with the company for 31 years, it has been the culture that I talked about earlier. That has been a huge part of why Marriott International has been such an important part of my life and my journey.

I would say, in my role today, what has driven me as an HR leader over the years, the highlight, is seeing people, our associates, grow and take the next steps in their career.

I've had different HR roles, whether it be HR operations, Learning & Development, or talent management. But if I've been able to support an associate to take that next step [and] make a breakthrough, or if I could help someone who might be struggling with something and I could help through listening or coaching for them to make a breakthrough or solve a challenge, then that's what's a good day for me.

What opportunities are opening up for your own team members for the months ahead?

I think the opportunities are to continue to drive our culture and our talent initiatives to support the business.

Again, our business has come roaring back. There's high demand for travel, so largely our hotels are busy, which makes them vibrant places for our associates to come to work. [There is an] opportunity for us to continue as an HR function and as a discipline to partner with the business, to partner with our hotel environment, our general managers and other leaders, to make sure that the initiatives and the experience that we're bringing to life for our people aligns with what the business is facing right now. Ensuring that we're not just rolling out an initiative because we need to do it and tick the box, but [because] it's actually going to contribute to the associate experience [and] guest experience.

Ultimately, the guest will be the end recipient of what we're bringing to life in each of our hotels. The opportunity for us in HR is to continue to stay connected and in strong partnership to ensure the HR initiatives we're driving are contributing to the overall business and strategy of the organisation.