Ask Ty Breland, executive vice president and CHRO at Marriott International, how his organization has made Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 26 years in a row, and his answer is simple.
It starts, Breland says, with a “people-first culture” that includes investing in employees and, as Marriott chairman emeritus J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. would say, providing opportunities to as many employees as possible. And Breland should know. He joined Marriott in 2004 as director of HR, talent management and analytic solutions and has steadily risen through the ranks over the past 20 years.
“Like most of my peers, I probably thought I would be here a couple of years. But I really do feel that the culture is real. I always felt that there were people investing in me and I had an opportunity to move all around the company. I’ve had global assignments. I’ve had operations assignments. I’ve had sales and marketing assignments all over the organization,” Breland recalls. “I had leaders betting on me, and I think that belief allowed me to believe a little bit more in myself and pursue an array of different things over the years.”
Breland now oversees the HR department at Marriott International, which has 850,000 associates across 141 countries and territories at nearly 9,000 properties. Helping Breland to build Marriott’s large employee base is Kris Dunn, senior vice president of global talent acquisition and an HR Executive Top 100 HR Tech Influencer, who will speak at HR Executive’s HR Technology Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas next month.
Despite Marriott’s size, the hotel chain has not only consistently made it on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For over the past 26 years but has also ranked among the top 10 in the past two years.
Breland recently sat down with Human Resource Executive in a video interview to share his perspective on why Marriott consistently makes it on the list and how other HR leaders can position their organizations to do likewise.
