Career Planning and Development in the Hospitality Industry: the Four Seasons Experience

Abstract

Over the past two years, FourSeasons Hotels has assisted more than 2, 000 of its employees in their personal career planning. Employees at every level, from housekeepers and secretaries up to senior management, have gone through the program, and we are continuing to promote it vigorously.

The idea that companies should support employees in their career planning is arelativelynewone. Traditionally, developmentplans forindividualemployees have been handed down from above. Today, however, organizations need to take a more active role in encouraging individual career planning.

Certainly, at Four Seasons, we found that our employees were increasingly demanding such assistance. At the same time, we recognized that we could reap tremendous benefits from providing it.

At Four Seasons, we conduct regular employee attitude surveys. These surveys consistently indicate that we enjoy a very high loyalty rating—among the highest of any company in any industry. At the same time, they point to emerging concerns that need to be addressed. By 1986 it had become clear that employees wanted more help in planning their careers, and more information about the opportunities that might be available to them in the future.

We saw, however, that career planning could be much more than just an employee benefit. It would also benefit Four Seasons. Through career planning:

• Employees would be able to make betterinformedcareerdecisions about the opportunities that became available to them.

• Employees would become more realistic about their career prospects.

• Employees would become much more articulate in describing their strengths, interests, goals and developmental requirements. This would result in valuable input for management development and succession planning purposes.