Starwood Hotels & Resorts Reviews

Pros

Very open, non-pressured corporate culture. Celebrates diversity among it's employees. Well run, with high ethical standards. Motivated, self-propelled workforce. Salaries and overall compensation at or above industry standards.

Cons

Perhaps a bit top-heavy in the VP/Sr. VP department. But people are promoted on merit and for their smarts and contributions.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire your good contractors! You've got some wonderful people working with you. Take the time to discover their abilities and bring them on board.

Pros

Great leadership, intersgting products in a challenging markets.

Cons

Multiple reporting lines, sometime difficult to rach the head office and make things moving.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a more open door policy!

Pros

Senior Management was very competent and the hotel staff were all very professional. Clients were very pleased with their experiences.

Cons

Direct management did not appear to be concerned about employees beyond the value of having the position filled. Insurance options were not that great.

Pros

New positions open up throughout the year, even management positions because people move on to better things, so you can move up quickly if you get to know the right people.

Cons

They don’t follow corporate (Starwood) polices at that particular resort. Overall I think the company Starwood is a great place to work. Over a 1000 hotels/resorts to work at, and to transfer to.

Advice to Senior Management

Follow corporate polices at that particular resort, don’t make your own rules as you go, don’t discriminate. Utilize proper disciplinary procedures. Also when you have an employee that has the proper disciplinary action against that person; don’t keep on giving that person chances over and over. Listing to your employees will make you a better company.

Pros

The people are great to work with.

Cons

Corporate does not care about employees
Health Benefits

Advice to Senior Management

fight for employee benefits to corporate

Pros

Good at developing managers.
Many hands on projects.
As an intern I worked with the Executive Chef & F&B Director to help open 2 new restaurants.
Good at answering questions when something is not clear
Great Starwood training about the Starwood brand.

Cons

Communication from managers to associates was not clear when something was changed. The changes would not be emphasized to all employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Some of your management team do no communicate well with one another, I think you need to make managers have a mandatory one on one personal meeting with each other to hash out any problems or concerns they may have with one another or the operation itself.

Pros

There were no benefits to working at this property.

Cons

The work schedule was inconsistent and unfair, you did not find out your hours for the week until the day before the week started. Back to back working hours were given even though it was against company policy. Promotions were based on the relationship you had with your manager rather than performance. No work - life balance. Times when you had to work 10+ days in a row with no time off. Benefits were horrible.

Pros

The tools available to everyone with a starwoodone account are great to learn about the company and different brands of hotels. Constant encouragement to succeed and move forward in ones career. Great leadership values and training programs.
Six sigma is a greatly implemented

Cons

The SPG program seems flawed as it is not consistent throughout the entire company.
The differentiation between the tiers of the SPG program are too relaxed making the top tier feel unappreciated and the lower tiers wanting more.

Advice to Senior Management

Kaizan projects with front line associates are necessary more often than not for small annoying day to day problems.

Pros

Free stays at resorts, really good discounts on hotels

Cons

Favoritism among certain employees, health insurance was excellent, now it went downhill

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up

Pros

Company offered a good benefit to employees, and the work environment is good, managers and supervisors were very professional on how to talk and train employees. Hotel provide training programs for employees, which was a very good thing.

Cons

The salary was not as competitive as the other same level hotels in the market, so employees' turnover is not low.

Advice to Senior Management

It will be a good thing if the management could give employees a more open environment to give advice and speak their problems.