Bill Marriott , Jr . speaks to associates at the opening of the new Marriott headquarters .
just starting to provide a service for associates to pre-order dinner from the in-house kitchen , ready for pick-up on the way out .
BLENDING WORK , LIFE Managing flexible work patterns both inside and outside the office is still a learning process for Marriott , Breland said . “ We ’ re trying to find that right blend for the type of work and other commitments that we have with life ... If the pandemic taught us one thing it ’ s you realize very quickly that everyone has life going on in conjunction with work .”
That has made blending work and life even more important and flex scheduling is just starting to get rolled out . “ Sometimes you have to dial harder one way or the other , giving everyone a little bit of grace along the way to deal with life and work ,” Breland said , adding Marriott is getting a pretty good capture rate of associates wanting to come into the office .
Breland added that Marriott has very few of what he would call policies or rules about when associates need to be in the office because , “ by definition , that ’ s the opposite of flexibility .”
What he has seen is staff meetings and senior staff meetings predominantly taking place in the office if everyone is in town . “ When the senior executive team is in , you definitely see a lot more other individuals in the building ,” he said .
There is also more programming at the head office , bringing in outside speakers , and that has also had a net positive impact on office attendance . “ These are not big cost items . But it just gives that proactive shaping of ‘ it ’ s going to be a lot of value to me to be in the office that week .”
While it ’ s early to calculate how a new headquarters and postpandemic realities are affecting in-person work , Breland said average time in the office hasn ’ t changed at all with average time in the office at 7 hours and 58 minutes . He said Mondays and Fridays are a bit lighter , but mid-week attendance is very similar to pre-COVID times . “ I was a little shocked by the data ,” he added . “ But as I ’ ve had conversations with others and learned that they realize they ’ ve already made the commute and want to be as productive as possible .”
At the end of the day , Breland believes being responsible for these flexible work options has created this sense of empowerment . “ People want to show up and do a good job , and I think we ’ re seeing that across all of these offices .”
Breland added that while going through the pandemic was tough , the investment Marriott made in its headquarters and commitment to more flexibility is making an impact .
“ We just had a summit for our technical leadership development program , inviting some of our very best talent from around the world ,” Breland said . “ They were literally skipping in the hallways because they were so excited about this building . I ’ m quite confident they took that energy back to their part of the world . So , it ’ s a huge motivator . It ’ s a piece of something you can be proud of and people want to talk about it . There ’ s definitely a lot more swagger .”
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