Spirit”. This approach is one that remains consistent across all
markets, and is something on which we are aligned globally.
ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT IN
ASIA PACIFIC We are in a golden age of travel and the center
of gravity for this industry is shifting to Asia Pacifi c – both in travel
to the region and with outbound travel. It is truly an exciting time to
be a part of the rapidly growing travel industry.
There is a particularly keen interest in travelling as part
of career growth, as youth are increasingly seeking out job
opportunities which allow them to experience multiculturalism,
whilst being exposed to a wide variety of skillsets.
Hilton is committed to nurturing a larger pool of industry talent
as well as creating opportunities for youth. Our portfolio of over
5,000 hotels around the world spanning 14 world-class brands
presents our team members with diverse opportunities across
unique brand experiences and propositions.
This remarkable diversity and geographical span explains why
Hilton was recognised as one of the World’s 25 Best Multinational
Workplaces in 2016, awarded by global research and consulting
fi rm *reat Place to Work.
RECRUITMENT We continue to identify best practices in
recruitment - our focus is absolutely on simplifi cation and how we
can make things easy with digitisation. In 2014, we committed to
opening doors for at least one million youth by 2019, and to date,
we have reached over 500,000 young people.
Our journey to reach this goal continues, and every year, we
host a Youth in Hospitality Week. This is our annual global aware-
ness campaign that encourages hotels to host job fairs, career
guidance workshops and job shadowing days to raise awareness of
careers in hospitality and connect young people to opportunities.
Additionally, each year, we run the global campaign
Careers#Hilton /ive: Youth in Hospitality Month, which invites
young graduates to visit more than 4,660 hotels in more than 100
countries around the world.
In 2016, we created 20,000 new jobs worldwide, and are
projected to add 25,000 jobs in 2017. As the tourism boom
continues in all parts of Asia Pacifi c, these numbers are only set to
rise further.
DEVELOPMENT At Hilton, Hospitality is more than a job – it is
a journey of self-discovery, growth, community and cultures. In
line with our vision of ³to fi ll the earth with the light and warmth
of hospitality”, we create meaningful opportunities for our team
members. Comprehensive training is key so we can deliver
excellent and consistent service for guests.
Our fi rm belief in unlocking meaningful opportunities drives our
initiatives such as the Management Trainee Program, Elevator, and
E /eadership 'evelopment Curriculum.
Youths who want broader operational exposure and who as-
pire to be people leaders but do not have any hospitality experience
can join our 12-month Management Trainee Program in China, or
our 18-month program in Southeast Asia, Japan and India.
Those with exceptional potential and who aspire to become
hotel general managers, can put themselves on the fast track with
our Asia Pacifi c Elevator Program.
The E /eadership 'evelopment Curriculum is our globally
harmonised framework for leadership development with three
distinct tracks – Elevate, Engage and Excel, aligned with different
career stages for our team members.
RETENTION Such comprehensive exposure – in a truly global
setting – has compelled many of our team members to grow with
the company and stay on in various capacities that push them to
the next level.
For example, in Southeast Asia and India, 70 per cent of senior
leadership appointments (e.g. general manager and head of depart-
ment) come from our internal talent pool. We believe that in giving
our team members a fi rst shot at available Mobs, they will stay with
us longer because they will achieve more professional satisfaction.
To further motivate and inspire our team members, we also
offer industry-leading benefi ts. /ast year, for e[ample, we launched
the *o Hilton travel program for team members and family and
friends – an improved version of the Hilton Team Member Travel
Program. With this program, our team earns points that never
expire and can be used towards free stays.RECRUITING AND RETAINING MILLENNIALS
If I had to narrow this down to three key priorities, I would say
millennials are looking for fl e[ible hours with work-life balance, work
that they fi nd meaningful and interesting, as well as opportunities
for development, promotion and feedback.
As part of Thrive#Hilton, we offer fl e[ible work practices.
This is designed to meet the distinct needs of each team member’s
lifestyle, their location and their role and to encourage a work-life
balance. Examples of these work arrangements include work-from-
home, fl e[ible scheduling, and part-time working options.
In addition, we have several leadership development programs in
place and these programs are divided into three stages: ³elevate ́,
“engage” and “excel”.
The elevate level is made up mostly of millennials and is
dedicated to mapping out careers for young, entry-level supervisors
and managers. It places a strong emphasis on dynamic jobs and
portfolios that allow the team members to work on different things
from time to time and gives them the opportunity to be engaged in
meaningful projects, whether it is community or work-based.
We have also introduced a leadership index to measure the
effectiveness of the hotel chain’s business leaders. Particularly with
millennials, we have found, it’s about giving them a great boss.
*reat bosses will mentor them, advise them on their career paths,
coach them, and give them opportunities to grow and develop.
Finally, given how important it is for our team members to
grow and fl ourish in Body, Mind and Spirit at Hilton, we have also
begun measuring the thrive index this year during our global team
member survey to ensure that our people initiatives are benefi cial
for them.Brendan Toomey is Hilton Human Resources
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