Being a part of the hospitality industry, we believe that it is attitude and not aptitude for service, which is the key that alone can measure the attitude of service. At Marriott, we hire for attitude and train for skills. Sourcing and selecting service professionals is a tough task; while we do get a lot many applications from applicants, the strike rate for us is around 40 percent. For sourcing of candidates, we take recourse to referral and relationship, online applications, campus visits, walk-in interviews and consultants. Once hired, the entry level training for freshers is very extensive, which prepares them to move from the college mindset to industry realities. As an organization, we have over 85 years of experience in the hospitality industry, and leading service professionals across the fields are a part of our organization who impart training to the new entrants. There are various training modules including orientation to company philosophy and policies. However, we emphasize upon on-the-job training. Besides the fact that the college curriculum provides enough exposure to both theory and practical inputs; a six months on the job training in every semester, an integral part of the curriculum, provides for a great platform. In fact, as a part of our talent acquisition strategy, we identify and make offers to interns during the internship stage itself. Thus, they become productive in 6 to 8 weeks time.

We do not have any specific metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of the training programs except for the guests’ comments and intent of the guests to come back to us.