Marriott International Inc, a leading lodging company with approximately 151,000 employees worldwide, has been ranked as one of the best companies to work for by Fortune magazine. A Best Employer in India 2007 Award from Hewitt and an HR Excellence Award from CII are among the many honours Mariott has won over the years. With this article, the last in a series on HR practices of some of the world?s best employers, FE takes a look at what Marriot International intends to accomplish in India and the challenges it faces.

J Willard Marriott once said, ?When you take good care of your people, they?ll take pride in their work. And when they take pride in their work, they?ll take good care of the customers and if you take good care of the customers, the customers will come back and back and back. And the business will take care of itself.?

These words have remained a leitmotif for Marriott International that has about 3,000 lodging properties in the US and 67 in other countries. The company operates and franchises hotels under brand names Marriott, JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Residence Inn, Courtyard, TownePlace Suites, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites and Bulgari.

Says Gurmeet Singh, area director-human resources, India, Maldives and Pakistan, Marriott Int?l Inc, ?The human resources practices in Marriott revolve around associate engagement and these engagements are divided into four broad categories that include talent acquisition, performance development, total compensation and work environment.?

According to experts, the human resources practice in the hospitality sector is different compared with other industries. More than 50% of the staff serve guests and customers. Hence, it?s a challenge to maintain balance between the needs of employees and HR initiatives.

With about 3,500 associates in the country, Marriott India plans to have 10 more hotels by 2010. The focus is on developing the skills of the associates and training them for key management positions.

To hire a majority of associates locally, the company is building bridges with all catering colleges. This is being done through mentoring, internship and guest lectures. But growth has it own pangs and, therefore, myriad challenges need to be met. What tops the list of challenges the industry is facing is, of course, attrition. Singh says, ?Attrition is a major area of concern for us as we are losing people not to competition but to employees moving to the UK, West Asia and cruise lines. So, to counter attrition, the company hires aggressively and has increased its bench strength.? The attrition rate in Marriott India is about 32% against 35% in the whole industry.

According to experts, the hospitality industry is facing an acute shortage of trained manpower as talent flows freely across the business spectrum. Strategies for retention, therefore, need to be regenerated to acknowledge talent. At the same time, the industry suffers from a negative perception worldwide owing to its notoriety for long hours at work, and night and weekend shifts. It is also perceived as a low-skill, low-tech and low-wage job.

This perception, however, has been made to stand on its head by the findings of an Assocham study study in 2007. The findings showed that hospitality is also among the urban youth?s new choices for building a career. That?s because the hospitality industry offers greater job security and more moderate and regulated working conditions than BPOs. The trend would go a long way towards ensuring future talent supply, said the study.

Apart from attrition, recruiting employees is another challenge for the company. ?Recruitment has become a major challenge with catering college graduates having many more options than only hotels, but it is manageable,? Singh adds.

Marriott India follows an aggressive selection system for hiring associates. The system requires every associate to undergo an online test (that has 42 behavioral questions). If selected, a line manager conducts a personal interview of the associates. This is followed by a second round of interview with the department head. The general manager does the final scrutiny and interview. Once selected, each associate has to go through a three-day induction training called ?In the Beginning? ? a common programme for the group worldwide.

The company provides about 40 hours of training to each associate per year and spends about $50 on each annually at the managers? level and above.

Describing the competition as healthy, Singh says, ?Marriott will soon be the first hotel chain in India to have a five-day week.? On building employee morale, Singh says, ?As associates are a very important part of our business, Marriott, from May 17 to 21, celebrates an ?associate appreciation week? worldwide. During this period, managers appreciate and reward associates and plans parties and celebrations for their families.?

Marriott hotels also conduct a worldwide online survey called associate opinion survey to check how associates and their internal customers rate the organisation. Based on the feedback, the company develops its HR strategy.

Morale, accordingly, is defined after considering the feelings of workers about their jobs and employers and the extent to which the organisation is seen as meeting workers? needs and expectations, say industry experts. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Marriott International recorded sales of $13 billion last year. Going forward, Marriott Hotels is also reported to be not only focusing on cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Calcutta but will also concentrate on smaller locations like Amritsar, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad.