Starwood Hotels & Resorts Reviews

Pros

Early on when I started Starwood had a stellar reputation as an innovator from when Barry Sternlicht ran the company. It was truly an exciting place to work.

Barry left in 2005, and slowly all the smart and talented left as well, either voluntarily for a better job or by getting backstabbed by a senior manager who felt threatened. The mediocre folks stayed as they could never find a better job anywhere else.

Mediocre folks continued to backstab their way up to the top and hired mediocre direct reports so as not to feel threatened by good people below them who could take their jobs.

This cycle has been repeated for 6 or 7 years so that Starwood is now as mediocre as any of its rivals.

Cons

In 2009 or 2010 they added into their company values & mantra that they are "innovators". As if you write it in your corporate charter such will make it so. Duh, you innovated in the past because you hired the best and the brightest who were innovative. And paid them to want to be there and innovate. You get rid of all them and replace them with mediocre people, and that wont make you innovative even if you paste the word innovate onto your forehead

Advice to Senior Management

Keep cutting pay so that you can drive up the stock price and cash out on your stock options

Pros

*Health care and paid-time off

Cons

*Corporate office is very controlling- the Fall River office did not have empowerment
*Company is inflexible and never can make exceptions for attendance/leaving early
even when an employee wanted to leave due to severe weather
* I tried to transfer to higher positions five times but the HR DEPARTMENTS in all five locations
were the worst- the paperwork never went through and reaching the right people was impossible.
* I worked for the Hilton also and they treated their employees much better

Advice to Senior Management

*Show more concern about your employees by giving better bonuses and incentives
*Be more considerate about letting people go for attendance issues when snow and
ice storms make getting to or leaving work treacherous and dangerous.
*Let the call centers make their own decisions more often- since they know what the day to day
operations are like and the local weather is like

Pros

The benefits were very good, and the company offered deep discounts on their hotel properties which was great. The company also promoted internal networking via internal events.

Cons

Middle management in IT created a very political environment. There was a lot of back stabbing and favoritism which made for an uncomfortable working environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to learn not to have an agenda towards their team members. Get rid of the politics and favoritism.

Pros

-Opportunity To Work From Home
-Hotels And Resorts Are Nice
-StarHOT Rate For Employees
-Paid Bonus When Made
-Health Benefits

Cons

-Too Focused On Handle Times & American Express Card Sales Making The Job Extremely Stressful.
-Bonus Qualifications Sometimes Not Realistic.

Advice to Senior Management

True Customer Service Is Not About Quantity. It's About Quality Of The Experience The Customer Receives (Customers Shouldn't Feel Rushed).

Pros

Decent pay
Great benefits
Beautiful resort to work at
Well known resort
Meals are free

Cons

Lack of communication
Biased
Can't leave your work at work, seems like you always take it home with you.
Terrible hours
Horrible turn over!

Advice to Senior Management

Hire people who have stable job history and hire more employees.

Pros

Wonderful GM and Director of Rooms.

Cons

Mostly concerns with egos rather than guest satisfaction.

Advice to Senior Management

Be consistent and weed out the bad apples.

Pros

Always new challenges
Day is not boring
Great collaboration with employees

Cons

Important to have your personality match colleagues
To much to finish in one day
Often have several different people asking you different things.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a break- Upper management works more hours than anyone else. I often find my self in a struggle to keep up.

Pros

When working for Starwood, you are able to book hotels using the employee hot rate. This is a significant savings over booking through other venues.

Cons

The work life balance is so atrocious you will hardly ever be able to use your vacation or even leave at a reasonable hour. Instead of hiring more people so everyone would be able to work 50-60 hour weeks, everyone is loaded up to over 200% capacity and most activities end up being completed in a chaotic last minute push. Any environment where it is the norm to start your day at 7-8am and end at 10pm - midnight, needs more staffing WITHOUT increasing projects and operations. Try stabilizing with the increased staff first, then take on more.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more staff and correct the balance of work. Paying the employees a fair market value would help as well. Hospitality is not one of the suffering industries, as can be observed by our earnings. While keeping headcount down increases the value of our stock, paying an exorbitant amount of contractors for work you could be paying employees less for (even calculating in benefits and /or current employees obtaining a raise to bring them to market value) makes everyone feel that the corporate management's value of us is extremely low, and in turn lowers loyalty which we had spent years building. The new site in CT does not help either. It is a definitely downgrade from 1111 and will only serve as a detriment to staff retention, especially with March & April right around the corner.

To answer the question below regarding Frits... his overall vision is amazing and sound. The issue is with middle management and the lack of transparency of how they are running everyone into the ground.

Pros

I worked for Starwood for 10 years. Started off as a guest service manager and held various roles including Director of Housekeeping, Director of Front Office, Director of Guest Services. Had many opportuinites to advance in my 10 years which is why I stated so long. Learned alot and met alot of people along the way who helped me advance my career.

Cons

When you get promoted in Starwood, they don't take care of you financially. I have been promoted to positions and at times was paid over $20K less than my predecessor which never made much sense to me. I understand that salary is based on experience but in some cases it was robbery. They always stuck to "we don't give more than a XX% increase". It was just a way to save money. I always took the positions though as I worked hard and moved up quickly, faster than I would If I jumped companies at the time. I ultimately left as I hit a point where I couldn't advance anymore. They always said, "we promote from within" or "preference is always to those who work for the company/brand" but I found that get to the next level (Director of Rooms/Operations), they only wanted people with prior experience despite telling me I was ready (I was considered "high-potential") and ultimately proved that I was better than the ones they gave certain positions to.

Advice to Senior Management

Starwood has lost A LOT of good people over the past few years, atleast in the NYC market and they should try to find a better way of retaining them. Don't screw those financially that are promoted from within. Don't lose sight of your "high-potential" managers. Have senior level managers spend some time with managers of all levels, not just General Managers. They'll probably be interested in what they would find.

Pros

Discount for all Starwood properties around the world - Wonderful!

Cons

There was a lot of questionable things going on. Especially the overnight shift. Management showed too much favoritism...

Advice to Senior Management

Treat all workers with more respect. The workers are the ones who have the most interactions with the guest so ask for more of their feedback and implement their suggestions. Senior management should not depend on department managers for feedback. Department managers should be reviewed quarterly by their employees.