A number of multinational companies are struggling to match needs with people internally, leading to a growing skills gap. In the survey, nearly three quarters (72%) of respondents said that many organisations are inadequate at placing the right individuals in the right jobs.

Hilton Worldwide, one of the world's largest hotel chains, is implementing a new global applicant-tracking and recruitment management
system to support internal job mobility. Documenting every employee’s specific skills, including languages, education and experience, allows Hilton to present opportunities to their team members first and find the skills they need within their own organisation. “The system will align our team members to high-impact tasks, assign the right development activities, reward the highest performers and build deep bench strength and talent pipelines”, says Matt Schuyler, chief human resources officer.

Annual team surveys have shown that Hilton employees see training as key to their career development. And so Hilton are developing a global framework which delivers just-in-time learning and development opportunities to employees. This development programme is part of Hilton Worldwide University, which offers an extensive training curriculum, through classroom training, e-learning, social networks and apps.

Providing training opportunities to team members has had a direct impact on Hilton’s business success. “At our properties we’ve seen that, following training delivery, there is measured improvement in customer satisfaction scores”, says Mr Schuyler. A majority of respondents to our survey also said that customer satisfaction and employee productivity are the areas which would most benefit from a more efficient and better trained workforce.