Hilton increases employee retention with Passport to Success

Huge gains in employee skill building, retention, and promotion

The Challenge:

Hospitality workers face diverse workplace challenges and need to adapt rapidly to satisfy their customers’ needs. Hilton found that many of their Team Members were joining the workforce for the first time and lacked soft skills such as teamwork, time management, and problem solving. Due to this skills gap, Hilton struggled to retain new Team Members. Hospitality workers face diverse workplace challenges and need to adapt rapidly to satisfy their customers’ needs. Hilton found that many of their Team Members were joining the workforce for the first time and lacked soft skills such as teamwork, time management, and problem solving. Due to this skills gap, Hilton struggled to retain new Team Members. 

The Outcome:

Hilton met this skill deficit head-on in their partnership with IYF, offering tailored life skills training through Passport to Success (“PTS”) to help Team Members elevate their ability to manage guests’ problems with understanding and sensitivity, while maintaining a professional demeanor. The IYF team adapted 30 PTS lessons to create a tailored hospitality-specific instructor-led curriculum for Hilton. In its first years, the program certified 67 trainers within Hilton’s Human Resources team who have gone on to deliver PTS to thousands of employees.

The program’s initial success led to Hilton and IYF introducing ePTS for Hospitality, a set of 5 online modules adapted from the PTS for Hospitality curriculum. To meet Hilton’s growing needs, both on property and in the communities where their hotels are located, IYF created PTS in a Box, a modular blended learning approach that combined the benefits of instructor-led training with the flexibility of online learning. With these new modalities, the program’s reach to Hilton Team Members doubled in just six months – a milestone that took two years with in-person training.

To date, over 15,000 young people have been training in PTS at Hilton properties or within their communities. In addition, in a survey with 300 supervisors, Hilton Team Members who received PTS training, 96% were retained after six months and 40% were promoted.

Passport to Success® prepares young people to be the kind of employees every company wants to hire and retain: responsible, motivated, and engaged team players.

Chris Nassetta
President and CEO, Hilton

Background:

The hospitality sector is one of the largest economic sectors globally, employing 1 in 10 people (330 million) worldwide and generating 10.3% of global GDP.

The hospitality industry’s potential to realize growth and make significant contributions to the economic development of communities around the globe hangs on one condition: its ability to rapidly fill hundreds of thousands of new positions with qualified young people. There are few industries whose resources, expertise, and career pathways are as relevant to addressing the challenges facing young people today, and whose business and expansion relies as heavily on a trained workforce in every region of the world.

Turning this need into action, Hilton partnered with IYF to help equip youth with skills and prepare them for jobs in the hospitality industry. 

How We Did It:

  1. IYF delivered multiple in-person PTS Training of Trainers workshops to over 800 Hilton HR and CSR leaders across 34 hotels and 14 countries to become certified to train new Hilton Team Members in PTS. 
  2. Working with Hilton Learning and Development staff, IYF implemented ePTS for Hospitality, an on-demand online training course for all staff members, accessed through Hilton University. 
  3. IYF is currently in the process of adapting and expanding the ePTS for Hospitality program into a new, mobile-friendly course called PTS Concierge. PTS Concierge will be accessible to the global hospitality and tourism sector, not just to Hilton properties, to create a more enabling environment where young people can access skills training via a smartphone for free. IYF is launching this program in 2021.

Why PTS Has Worked For Hilton increases employee retention with Passport to Success:

  • PTS soft skills lessons emphasize engagement, not memorization or information-sharing. Hilton employees engaged as active learners throughout the process and leaders could mentor staff in new, personalized ways.
  • PTS allowed Hilton Team Members to gain new and valuable skills to help their professional careers. As a result, Hilton benefitted at the organizational level, both from the skill levels and from loyalty developed as employees felt the commitment and mentoring Hilton makes with each team member.
  • PTS covers crucial skills needed in the hospitality industry including communication, teamwork, confidence, and conflict management. 
  • Online learning allowed Hilton to standardize and scale high quality PTS soft skills education to staff all over the world. 
  • Online learning is also advantageous due to its environmental and cost benefits as well as its flexibility. 

PTS boosted my confidence. It has opened my eyes to so much and given me skills I didn’t have… My bosses and colleagues can see that I can make a difference. They’re giving me opportunities to grow.

Yvonne
Team Member, Hilton South Africa
 

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