IHG Hotels and Resorts operates across multiple brand segments in India, from essential and premium to luxury and lifestyle, with a workforce that spans frontline associates, culinary teams, corporate professionals and senior leaders. That breadth creates a people challenge unlike most sectors: a single hotel may have five generations working side by side, employees arriving from almost every state in India, and a 24-hour operating rhythm that makes standard learning and development approaches difficult to apply. The HR challenge is not just managing that complexity. It is finding ways to make it a competitive advantage.
Deepali Bhardwaj leads people strategy across Southwest Asia for IHG. In conversation with HRKatha, she explains why skills can be taught but curiosity cannot, why the back-of-house experience should be every bit as good as the front-of-house experience, and why nearly 28 per cent of IHG India’s frontline hires last year were people who had worked there before.
Come here to build a career
Hospitality increasingly requires both human warmth and digital fluency. How are you redefining future-ready talent, and are you hiring for existing skills or for the ability to continuously learn?
Do not come to IHG for a job. Come here to build a career.
That is not a slogan. It reflects how we think about hiring. Rather than asking whether someone can perform the role today, we ask whether that individual can grow within the organisation, across functions and over the course of a career. Technical capabilities remain important, but their shelf life is shortening as technology evolves. Skills can always be taught. Curiosity, resilience, empathy and the willingness to keep learning are harder to develop and create far more long-term value.
Today’s workforce, particularly Gen Z, is naturally curious and often self-taught when it comes to technology. Our role is to complement those capabilities by strengthening what is harder to teach: empathy, collaboration and sound judgement. Those qualities are foundational in a service industry and they do not become obsolete.
We see AI as an enabler rather than a replacement. We want our people spending less time on repetitive administrative work and more time creating memorable guest experiences. The same philosophy applies internally. When employees feel genuinely valued and cared for, they deliver that same experience to guests. That is where the real value lies.
“Sustainable business performance comes from sustained investment in people.”
Five generations, one purpose
With multiple generations working side by side in a single hotel, how do you create a culture that is consistent in values but flexible in how those values are experienced?
Hospitality’s greatest strength is the diversity of its workforce, and our guest base reflects the same diversity. The multiple generations working in our hotels closely mirror the people we serve.
Managers themselves entered the workforce in very different eras. One of our biggest responsibilities is helping them combine their own experience with a genuine understanding of what today’s workforce expects. Many organisations try to create identical employee experiences for everyone. We do not believe that is the answer.
Our focus is on consistency in values and flexibility in how those values are experienced. Respect, inclusion, integrity and service excellence remain constant. Learning needs, career aspirations and leadership expectations vary significantly across generations. What creates value for one employee may not create value for another, but the underlying values remain the same.
Our diversity extends beyond generations. In a single hotel, employees may come from almost every state in India, bringing different cultures, languages and lived experiences. That makes it even more important for people managers to understand individuals rather than manage everyone in the same way. Managers are trained to build careers, not simply allocate work. Every generation contributes something unique. If even one were missing, we would lose valuable experience, perspective and knowledge.
“Global programmes provide the framework. Local initiatives create the relevance.”
What high performers say when you ask them to stay
Beyond compensation, what are the less obvious reasons people choose to stay or leave in hospitality, and what insights emerge that do not show up in engagement surveys or exit interviews?
Compensation certainly matters, but it rarely explains long-term commitment.
People stay because they feel seen, heard and respected. They stay when they believe someone genuinely cares about their development, when they trust their managers and when they can see a meaningful future within the organisation. People leave when career growth stagnates or when they no longer feel valued.
In hospitality, respect shows up in everyday moments. Consider a food and beverage associate dealing with a difficult guest. How the organisation supports that employee in that moment leaves a lasting impression far more than formal policies do.
Some of our most valuable insights do not come from engagement surveys or exit interviews. They emerge through informal conversations, stay interviews and continuous listening sessions. We have created multiple channels where employees can connect directly with HR and senior leadership, through formal forums and informal conversations alike.
Importantly, we do not only ask employees why they leave. We also ask our high performers why they stay, and what might eventually make them leave. Those conversations help us identify issues before they become problems. This proactive approach has contributed to a reduction in attrition of nearly 25 to 30 per cent.
One initiative that has had a particularly strong impact is our Heart of the House programme. Every year, our hotels participate in an internal competition focused entirely on employee experience. The programme assesses every part of the employee experience, from cafeteria food and locker rooms to rest areas, cleanliness and the overall work environment. Our aspiration is simple: the back-of-house experience should be every bit as good as the front-of-house experience.
We have also deliberately looked beyond hospitality for inspiration, adopting practices from organisations across sectors whenever we believed they would create a better employee experience. One example is our move towards a five-day work week, now implemented across more than 80 per cent of our hotels. It reflects our effort to respond to changing employee expectations while balancing operational realities.
The outcome is visible. Nearly 28 per cent of our frontline hires last year were former employees who chose to return to IHG, reinforcing our belief that culture, respect and everyday experience often matter more than compensation alone.
“Learning should not interrupt work. Work itself should become a learning experience.”
Learning in the flow of work
How do you embed learning into everyday operations in an industry that runs around the clock?
Learning can no longer be confined to classrooms. While instructor-led sessions continue to play an important role for functional and technical skills, learning has become far more flexible and continuous.
Through IHG University, our digital learning platform, employees can choose what they want to learn, when they want to learn and at a pace that suits them. Whether someone wants to deepen expertise in their current role or prepare for an entirely different career path within the organisation, the platform offers that flexibility. Because hospitality operates around the clock, learning must be available whenever employees need it rather than at a fixed time.
Beyond formal learning, we place significant emphasis on experiential development. As we expand our hotel portfolio, employees gain opportunities to move across properties and geographies, building hands-on exposure to different business environments. Digital micro-learning modules, peer coaching, mentoring, stretch assignments, job rotations and manager-led development conversations are all integrated into the everyday employee experience.
Some of the most valuable learning happens during day-to-day operations, when teams solve real guest challenges together. Our philosophy is simple: learning should not interrupt work. Work itself should become a learning experience.
“Some of the most valuable learning happens during day-to-day operations, when teams solve real guest challenges together.”
Global framework, local relevance
As part of a global organisation serving highly local markets, how do you balance global consistency with local relevance in talent, leadership development and employee experience?
Our leadership principles, values and people philosophy are globally aligned. Their execution is thoughtfully localised.
Our leadership development, recognition and well-being programmes follow global frameworks but are adapted thoughtfully for local realities.
Our Journey to GM programme identifies high-potential talent and prepares them for general management roles through structured learning, coaching, mentoring and cross-functional exposure. While built on global standards, participants gain practical experience within local markets. Many leaders who have completed this journey now lead hotels not only within India but across international markets.
RISE, originally designed to develop women leaders, has evolved into a gender-neutral leadership development programme. It identifies high-potential employees and provides development opportunities, job rotations and exposure to larger responsibilities.
One initiative that is particularly distinctive to India is Interoperability. IHG operates across multiple hotel segments, from essential and premium to luxury and lifestyle. Traditionally, employees often remained within a single segment throughout their careers. Through interoperability, we actively encourage movement across brands and business segments. Someone who begins in an essential brand can gain experience in premium and luxury properties, significantly expanding future career opportunities. That combination of global framework and local initiative has helped many of our employees build careers that extend well beyond geographical and business boundaries.
“Every generation contributes something unique. If even one were missing, we would lose valuable experience, perspective and knowledge.”
The conversation HR is not having enough
What will define successful HR leadership in hospitality over the next few years, and what conversation do you think the HR community is still not having enough?
HR leadership is becoming more central to business strategy than ever before. Today’s HR leaders need to be as comfortable discussing business performance, productivity and growth as they are shaping culture and talent strategy. They must understand technology, workforce analytics and organisational transformation alongside the human dimensions of leadership.
At the same time, empathy and sound judgement will become more important as technology becomes more embedded, not less. Technology alone cannot make complex human decisions. The leaders who will matter are those who combine digital capability with human understanding.
The conversation the HR community is still not having enough is this: sustainable business performance comes from sustained investment in people. When employees grow, guest experiences improve. Better guest experiences create stronger business performance. That sequence is not aspirational. It is how hospitality businesses win. HR’s role is to make that sequence as reliable as possible, and to make the case for it clearly enough that it shapes business decisions rather than following them.
We have never viewed external recognition as the destination. It is simply an outcome of the progress made. Our focus has always been on building an organisation where people feel proud to contribute, build meaningful careers and experience a workplace that genuinely supports them.
“Do not come to IHG for a job. Come here to build a career.”