So, congratulations on being number eight on the one for best list.
Got nearly 800,000 associates. That's quite a for all group.
Name badge. Over 9,300 locations in 144 countries and territories around the world. How do you make sure that 800,000 people stay connected and cared for all around the world?
Yeah, it's a good question. I maybe three ways. I think number one, it starts with the Marriott family. This is my first day in the US in almost a month. And as I travel around the world, I've been in India, China, all over Europe and the UK over the last couple weeks. And it's fascinating to me. One of the great privileges of my job is I get to spend lots and lots of time meeting our associates around the world. And you see it and you feel it. They think they work for a small family company. We're celebrating our 98th anniversary this year. We've had three chairman of the board, JW Senior, JW Jr., and now Mr. Marriott's youngest son, David. And so the influence and the impact and the visibility of the family, I think goes a long way to keeping folks connected. I would say number two, not surprisingly, the company's core values. Our founders founded this company 98 years ago on five core values. Won't surprise you. Putting people first, pursuing excellence, embracing change, acting with integrity, and serving our world. And then I think number three, what really sort of pulls everybody together is this idea of creating an enterprise mindset. This idea that whether you're a doorman in Dublin, whether you're a general manager in Shanghai, whether you're a front desk agent in Bethesda, Maryland, everything you do every day can have a really profound impact on the performance and the perception of the enterprise and that really pulls us together as a team in pursuit of a set of common goals.
Yeah. So, everybody matters.
Yeah. So, 800,000 people, their experience, our data tells us and your data tells you that 70% of it is who you work for.
Is for that leader. And so, that is really what drives the great place to work effect. What do you do to first of all define a great leader at Marriott and what do you do to make sure that you're continuing to develop and support them?
Yeah, I mean, it's work that will never be done. The focus of our team is to ensure that people understand being a leader has nothing to do with what your title, what your role, where in the organization or the org chart you find. At every level of the organization, we encourage people to embrace the opportunity to lead. And we ask them or we encourage them to do that really through three lenses. We ask them to be curious, be intellectually curious about not only the job you're doing every day, but about the broader enterprise and the broader sector. Number two is to be courageous. We have to have an environment where people feel empowered and encouraged and supported to take risk. And third is be connected. We were talking backstage. I was on Capitol Hill with my peer at Hilton, Chris, and in so many sectors, in so many industries, the ability to connect with your peers to take on issues that are of great importance for that sector or that part of the business world is critical. And so we encourage our folks really to do that. Now, we certainly have programs and rigor around those programs to give our leaders at every level of the organization tools. When Tai and I were with you here last year, we talked a little bit about a program called Elevate, which is a platform that we're really making available across the company to ensure people can be more directly involved and more deliberate about managing their career path.
And right now, we've got I'll call it global economic uncertainty.
It's an elegant way to say it.
There there even in this room we've had, you know, all of a sudden smiles, and all of a sudden frowns.
That's when the smiles came, and this is the time that we're living in. And you've got 800,000 people going through that various experience. So, how do you help them navigate this current climate?
Well, the good news is 98 years ago, our founder said, 'You've got to put people first.' And so, we have a platform I know you've talked with our team a little bit about called Take Care. And in its early days, Take Care was principally focused on physical well-being. And to be sure, that's still a significant pillar of Take Care. But over the last number of years, maybe in response to the pandemic a little bit, we've expanded the focus into really three pillars: physical well-being, mental health, and financial literacy. And so we've created all sorts of tools and resources to ensure against the backdrop of uncertainty or economic headwinds, the ability to tap these resources to ensure our associates around the world are taking care of themselves physically, are developing real financial literacy, enhancing that financial literacy and well-being by reinstituting things like our employee stock purchase program. But I want to spend a minute on the mental health pillar of Take Care. Maybe a year ago I attended a JP Morgan conference in New York and most of it was sort of financially technical or consumer technical but they did one session where they had some health care professionals come in and share some really profound statistics about not only how prevalent mental health issues are in the workplace but how little progress we had made as a business community in making people comfortable, ensuring it was acceptable to have those conversations. And I was so taken by it that I actually had that speaker come to Marriott headquarters. He partnered with Bill Marriott's daughter, Debbie Marriott Harrison, who also is a member of our board, and they did a two-hour session just encouraging people to say, 'You're not alone. These are issues that lots and lots of us or our friends and loved ones face. Here are the resources that are available to you.' It was without question the most impactful session I've seen in my 30 years with the company. When the two-hour session wrapped up, a hundred people were lined up to talk to the speakers. And I think my perspective on that session has caused us to even double down on that pillar of Take Care.
It's a complicated world and no one certainly at Marriott but in any of your companies should ever feel uncomfortable raising an issue around mental wellness.
Yeah. You know probably it's more important now than ever. I couldn't agree more as a matter of fact.
Yesterday we had Dr. Anarude Devan the CEO of Cadence on our stage talking to us about AI and we learned a couple things. One is everything in AI is about three things. It's an inside joke. I'll tell you later. And the other thing, we learned is that it's here.
It's here. It's not coming. It's absolutely here. And he feels like, in terms of verticals, industries, parts of our business, that's really where it's going to thrive, solving specific problems around the work that we do. And so, how are you helping your people get comfortable and integrate some of these new tools and approaches?
