Marriott International, MEA vice president of HR Gary Dodds outlines the hotel group’s recruitment and training strategy in the Middle East
Being a Marriott International associate means feeling the power of belonging. We feel it each and every day. It comes from being recognised. It comes from knowing Marriott International sees talent in each of us. And, it comes from working together to make our guests feel as much at home as we do.
We aim to offer our associates the resources and encouragement they need to develop to their full potential, with most averaging 78 hours of training and 34 hours of professional development annually. We also recruit our new associates four months in advance to specifically develop their foundation within hospitality and our Marriott way of business.
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This way, when the doors to our new hotels open, the associates are fully trained from a hotel school graduate with no work experience, to a trained competent employee, integrated in their own local culture and our Marriott International culture.
For example we currently have 18 associates from our Kigali Marriott Hotel in Rwanda placed within various GCC hotels.
We also have business partnerships with local recruitment agencies in each key country we recruit from, to drive consistency of pre-selection, drive volume discount for services and aid in driving our diverse workforce as they are trained in our selection strategy criteria.
Focusing solely on our Emiratisation efforts within Dubai, we have an Emirati human resources professional who leads our initiatives. Recently, our JW Marriott Marquis Hotel hosted a one-day career fair for UAE properties. During the fair, over 80 Emirati professionals interested in a hospitality career with Marriott International participated.
Again it comes back to having a home-away-from-home feel for our teams. Besides our managers leading associate activities, we have a committee in each hotel that is compromised solely of associates. In their role, they serve as ambassadors of our culture, representatives of their department to the leadership team and event planners while developing their skills in areas such as business acumen as they manage their own budget for activities.
The hospitality industry is changing in Dubai, as we can see by the growing skyline. What this in turn means for human resources is even more development opportunities and the ability to watch today’s newest associates grow into our next generation of managers and our managers into senior leadership.
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