Holiday Inn 2010 Annual Report Download - page 28

Business review continued
26 IHG Annual Report and Financial Statements 2010
We have continued to leverage technology through our learning
management system, which helps people learn flexibly and to
develop their skills in the workplace rather than attend courses
in classrooms.
Over 100,000 employees received some form of training and
development. We introduced a number of new online programmes
and our most popular training courses were around optimising IHG
channels and managing revenue.
IHG has a number of development programmes in place to support
managers in hotels and corporate offices. These include the
assessment of individual potential and capability, together with
clarity on expectations and business-related education.
The Leaders Lounge, an online leadership development system
for IHG senior managers, provides cost-effective and high-quality
development and communication to all of our senior leaders. This
forum provides input from the Chief Executive and the Executive
Committee on key issues and challenges for the business as well
as inputs from external business thinkers.
In 2010 we expanded The Lounge by opening a Leadership Academy
within it. The Academy gives leaders a curriculum of IHG-specific
e-learning modules on strategy, finance, coaching and other key
areas of leadership. The Leaders Lounge was recognised in 2010
with a Chief Learning Officer Magazine Global Learning Award,
an ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) citation
for Excellence in Practice and a Training Magazine Best Practice
award. Since its launch, over 3,000 ‘how to lead’ tools have been
downloaded from The Lounge by IHG leaders. 88% of Lounge
members use the site to develop themselves and their teams
at least once a month.
Room for you
In July 2010 IHG and our Owners’ Association, the IAHI, sponsored a
global event to recognise our people – Celebrate Service. For one
week we recognised those people in our hotels who deliver great
service to our guests and colleagues. Around 3,000 hotels participated
in this event along with all our corporate offices and reservations
centres. We gathered over 1,500 stories of great service, many of
which featured on our corporate intranet.
InterContinental Shenzhen, China
Feedback from employees suggest the event was very well received
and over 75% of employees responding to a survey said that they
felt recognised and thanked for their efforts. There is strong
support for Celebrate Service to become an annual event, and part
of the IHG culture.
Room to be involved
Great emphasis is placed on employee communication, particularly
on matters relating to the Group’s business and its performance.
Communication channels include global management conferences,
team meetings, informal briefings, in-house publications and
intranets. The Group has continued to improve the capability of
the corporate intranet site, ‘Merlin’, which now provides continuous
access to information about people, policies and news across all
hotels, corporate offices and reservations centres.
Regular employee feedback is obtained to ensure that IHG meets
expectations and delivers on its commitments. The Group conducts
a twice-yearly survey that measures employee opinion and attitudes.
This survey covers employees in owned and managed hotels,
corporate offices and reservations centres. We have not reported
the survey data on our joint venture partners.
Since the first survey in 2007, we have continued to achieve very
high response rates with over 96,000 employees participating in
the October 2010 survey.
2010 response rates 2009 response rates
Division/region % %
Americas hotels 92 90
EMEA hotels 91 89
Asia Pacific hotels 93 93
Corporate offices 91 89
Reservations centres 86 91
IHG’s key measure from the survey is the Engagement Index,
constructed from a set of questions which measure employee
advocacy, retention and effort.
During 2010, IHG’s Engagement Index improved by three
percentage points to 73%. The survey also highlights that 93% of
our people are proud to work for IHG, while retention and advocacy
have both improved during the year.
We have used our survey to track awareness and understanding
of Great Hotels Guests Love. Our October 2010 employee survey
results show that 91% of our people understand Great Hotels
Guests Love and that it has helped them focus on the right things
for the business.
Room to grow
To meet the demands of our growth and to deliver our Vision of
becoming one of the world’s great companies, IHG continues to
focus on developing talent.
During 2010, we again conducted our annual review of the Group’s
corporate managers and hotel general managers to identify skills
required for the future and how to develop individuals. The outcome
is to increase clarity around our talented individuals, their key
development needs and the ability to move these individuals into
the positions which will enable them to enhance their skills and
meet IHG’s key objectives. The succession planning process for
senior leadership roles has continued in 2010, enabling IHG to
manage changes in leadership.
During the year, IHG continued to place importance on the growth
and development of its people in the owned and managed hotels,
and within its corporate and reservations offices, and ensured
training programmes were available to all of its employees.
The Group’s internal survey indicates that 87% of employees agree
that IHG delivers training to assist with their current roles, which
is a two percentage point improvement on 2009.