How Marriott Got To The Top Of The Hotel Industry By Focusing On Employee Health And Wellness

By Jacob Morgan

For the first Future of Work Podcast for 2016, I speak with David Rodriguez the Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer of Marriott International.  The topic of this podcast is all around the business impact of employee health and wellness.  This is a huge theme that we will see increased investment around in 2016 and beyond, but why? What’s the point and is there any real business value in making employees happy, healthy, and engaged? David provides insight on why Marriott is investing in health and wellness programs and the benefits that these programs provide to individual employees and to the organization as a whole.
With over 400,000 employees (after the proposed acquisition of Starwood) in their managed locations, Marriott spans 31 brands, across 100 countries all over the world. They are the largest hotel company in the world, knitted together by their people centric culture that David and his team have been spearheading. David has been with the company since 1998, holding the Global CHRO title since 2006.  Marriott was founded on the principles that if you take care of employees, they will in turn, take care of customers; employees feeling good about themselves will be inspired to serve others.  It is this belief that is utilized for business effectiveness. David shares what Marriott has implemented, and gets personal as he shares how their programs literally saved his life after his battle with leukemia.
Source:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2016/01/04/how-marriott-dominated-the-hotel-industry-by-focusing-on-employee-health-and-wellness/#888b04731116