TM - March 2008 - (Page 29)

STARWOOD HOTELS’ RECIPE FOR TALENT SUCCESS Ken Lahti, Ph.D. One. Create a hiring assessment solution to find candidates two and a half times more likely to be top performers. Then prove it. Two. Try not only to find ways to improve your performance and bottom line, but to simultaneously deliver service excellence. Add to the mix that you are a Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 company with more than 145,000 employees in more than 850 locations in 100-plus countries around the world. Three. Toss in one more big challenge: Customer satisfaction is your main product and metric. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. manages such internationally renowned brands as St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W, Westin, Sheraton and Four Points. Maintaining a strong brand image is critical. Now distill those three ingredients. To achieve and maintain the highest guest satisfaction ratings, the hotel chain needs great people working throughout the company, with guest-facing positions such as doormen, front desk and concierge filled by outgoing, conscientious, service-oriented individuals. Starwood pulled off this recipe by applying good science to the hiring process. Monica Hemingway, Ph.D., senior director of selection and assessment, has a degree in industrial-organizational (IO) psychology with years of experience in global assessment. She leads a team that includes two more IOs who work to fulfill the Starwood promise of service excellence. About four years ago, Starwood began to use more rigorous hiring selection tools, first in North America and then a year later globally. They started by completing a thorough job analysis on roles within each region and division. While the results were largely the same, there were subtle differences between geographies that turned out to be important. Hemingway’s assessment group then designed a selection process that relies heavily on personality testing. “Starwood’s service culture is very strong,” she said. “We found through our data analysis that it was most effective for us to hire for attitude and train for skills. Experience doesn’t matter as much as whether or not you have the right attitude to deal with guests.” Starwood piloted its first selection program with call center positions in North America. Success there led the organization to quickly develop a selection program for sales positions, which it rolled out internationally. Tests were adapted to each language and local culture, as needed. A third selection program recently has been launched to hire for guest services positions in North America, with international pilot studies under way in Ireland, the United Kingdom, across Europe and parts of Asia Pacific. Starwood uses different assessments for different jobs. Some form of personality testing always is part of a mix that may include biodata, situational judgment inventories, simulations or cognitive ability. All assessments are Web enabled with some delivered in a proctored setting. Most are unproctored. An important part of Starwood’s success is due to the fact the organization doesn’t stop measuring once someone is hired. First, new hires are measured for retention and performance at three, six and 12 months post-hire. Supervisors rate employees against applicable job competencies. Second, employees are asked to rate their job satisfaction and engagement level. The third piece is completed through guest satisfaction surveys and objective hotel-based metrics, such as revenue. Data is then analyzed, correlated and reported. This detailed level of analysis allows the assessment group to make incremental changes for continuous improvement over time. Since piloting its first selection tools four years ago, Starwood’s assessment group has found year-after-year improvement that it has tied to ROI. In a recent study of new sales people hired, the highest scorers achieved sales goals 5 percent higher than the lowest scorers, up to $350,000 per year in additional sales revenue per topscoring seller. Starwood plans to continue expansion of the selection program to other job positions and countries. Ken Lahti, Ph.D., is director of client solutions for PreVisor. He can be reached at editor@TalentMgt.com. March 2008 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com 29 http://www.TalentMgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - March 2008

TM - March 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance - The Paradoxically Gifted Leading Edge - Reverse Engineering: Shifting Focus to HR's Cause Learning Connection - Sharing Talent On the Hunt for Talent Unlock Employee Motivation Through Personality Testing HR Crucial to Executive Compensation Process Downtown Management: Surfing May Not Be Slacking Think Tanks Aid Government in Talent Management Creating Consistency: Enterprise-Wide Succession Plans Battle Retention Deficits With On-Boarding Sunbelt Rentals: A Mid-Level View of HR From the Trenches Butterball: No Chicken When It Comes to Talent Management Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources Full Potential - Choosing Change

TM - March 2008

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