Goals  & Objectives

• Create innovative and adaptable flexibility programs that increase employee engagement and satisfaction while generating positive business results. 
• Help managers address the concerns of older workers in physically-demanding jobs. Employees in the housekeeping, kitchen, and banquet divisions do work thats requires constant movements such as bending, stretching, lifting, pushing, and pulling. 
  

Project Highlights

For years, Marriott has offered a traditional portfolio of flexible work arrangements, including flextime, core hours, shift trading, compressed work weeks, reduced work schedules, job sharing and teleworking.  At the same time, they focused on flexibility innovations in scheduling, careers, and work design for hourly associates.

Key features of the Flex Options for Hourly Workers include:

1. Cross-training enables associates to pick up shifts in other functional areas. For older workers, cross-training helps them continue to maximize their hours and develop new skills without completely changing jobs.  Additionally, associates in physically-demanding jobs such as engineering might cross-train in a job that doesn’t require as much heavy lifting. 
2. Job rotations often develop out of cross-training when associates move to another position for a period of time, or a specific number of days a week. For example, a housekeeping associate who works in laundry might cross-train as a lobby attendant and then rotate to that job two days a week, working the other three days in laundry.
3. Work process redesign resulted in a team room-cleaning approach employed at some hotels with various adaptations:
   • Pairing a younger associate with an older associate.
   • Dividing time and tasks, such as 10% of the time spent on general cleaning, 20% on messenger and other delivery tasks, and 70% on cleaning rooms.
   • Teaming up for a specific task (For example, a team of three might handle turndown service:  one straightens the bathroom; one straightens the bedroom; and the other obtains ice and water.  Team members proceed in this manner for five rooms and then switch roles, repeating the process for a total of 35 to 40 rooms.)
   • Categorizing tasks according to those that require reaching (such as high, deep cleaning) and those that require bending (such as cleaning under beds).
4. At-home agent positions for sales and customer care attract hourly workers on both ends of the generational spectrum: younger workers in their early 20s with children and retirees older than 50.  At-home agents can bid for a variety of shifts with the flexibility to build in one half-hour increment so they can step away from the phone.  They can also call in and request a block of one to three hours off, with the option of making up the time later in the week.
5. Flex coupons available to associates in Marriott’s reservations centers enable staff to log into an automated system and sign up for time off, in one- to three-hour increments, a half day, or a full day, either on the “day of” or for a future date.
6. Down time without pay is offered to staff in reservations centers during slower times in the form of extended breaks, shorter shifts, leaving early, or extra days off.  This option is also informally offered to hotel staff during slower periods.