14 Pros and Cons of Working for Marriott

Just two years before the Wall Street crash that brought on the Great Depression, J. Willard Marriott opened a root beer stand.

Despite the financial turmoil going on around the country, the stand was a success.

It was so successful that it grew into a chain of restaurants.

Eventually, the business pivoted into what we now recognize as the international hotel brand, Marriott.

Today, there are over 130,000 people across the world who call Marriott their work home.

Let’s take a deeper look at what it’s really like to work for Marriott.

Table of Contents

Pros of Working for Marriott
Cons of Working for Marriott
14 Pros and Cons of Working for Marriott – Summary Table
Should You Work for Marriott?

Pros of Working for Marriott

1. Room Discounts

What’s the point of working for one of the largest hotel chains in the world if you’re not getting a sizable discount when traveling?

Employees get 30% off on rooms, sometimes more.

This percentage is also good for retail purchases made on location.

What’s the best part of getting such a discount?

Being able to share it with friends and family, of course.

All one needs is to have their name registered with the employee with a signed form.

The form gets turned in at check-in.

Forgot to print?

Use one of the computers in the lobby!

2. Benefits

Along with cheap rooms, there are plenty of benefits to be excited about.

Marriott offers several types of insurance.

Starting with vision, dental, life, disability, accidental death, and long-term disability.

After a time, employees are able to opt into profit sharing, 401 (k) plans, and a pension plan.

There are also educational incentives.

More benefits are presented differently throughout an employee’s time at Marriott.

Fun and immediate perks include free beverages and food on the clock.

3. Career Opportunities

If you’re going to work at a company all over the world, it might as well be enjoyed.

Employees can take a look at the internal hiring board and find out more information about any location.

At that point, they are free to apply for any position of their choosing.

Getting a transfer is pretty easy once you’ve established yourself at one location.

Be sure about the move, though.

It takes six months before you can move somewhere else.

This is also a good reason to take advantage of educational benefits.

You can get on a whole new career path and never leave Marriott.

4. Diversity

If you interface with a Marriott employee, there’s no need to ask where they are from.

It says so, right on their badge.

Without asking anyone anything, you can see the diversity.

Not only do employees have the chance to be from all over, but so do the guests.

No matter what department you work in, it’s highly likely to come across people from every corner of the globe.

Exposure to so many people from so many places is a great way to learn.

Most guests are happy to share tidbits about where they are from.

Employees might be too busy.

5. Flexible Schedule

One great reason to get involved with Marriott is it’s a 24/7 company.

The benefit of always being open is that there are always shifts that need people.

Hospitality is a helpful field to get into when it comes to flexible schedules.

This type of setup is particularly beneficial for students and families who have time constraints.

For anyone looking to soak up extra hours, this is also good.

Someone with an open schedule can get tossed around the shifts a bit but it can be a learning experience.

6. Customer Service Skills

After working in a hotel, you probably will come under the belief that most people pay no attention to what they’re doing upon reservation.

So often, guests get annoyed and even irate because they improperly booked online.

Anger is often taken out on the front desk as if it were their fault.

A sour attitude can follow guests beyond the check-in.

It’s not uncommon to have someone complain about every little thing in and out of a room.

Being professional when dealing with unruly guests is a skill that takes time and patience to obtain.

7. Training

Marriott tries to be as thorough with training as possible.

What they want is to get you securely set up so that when the program is over, you’re ready to fly off on your own.

The more the company works, in the beginning, to get you familiar with their systems, the less maintenance is required of skills over time.

After the intro training comes the skill building with one-on-one support.

The management works closely in the early days with new hires to ensure they not only know company policies but the specifics of their position.

Cons of Working for Marriott

1. Obnoxious Guests

Looking on the bright side, terrible guests are a great way to improve customer service skills.

Being realistic, they are also a great way to ruin a whole day, or week, depending on how long they stay.

No matter how crazy the requests are or how rude the comments come off, employees are required to be courteous and professional.

That’s a lot easier than it seems.

Help often won’t be there unless things get violent.

2. Crazy Hours

Always being open means lots of shifts, but it also means schedules can get insane.

Some positions prefer 10-hour stays, others have employees working overnight.

There are always employees who prefer overnight shifts.

However, there are some that these kinds of shifts are thrust upon and they struggle.

When a department is low on employees, there can be a crunch about who is available.

3. Lack of Support

If an employee quits, it’s not uncommon for the department supervisor to take their time replacing that role.

They use the guise of making sure everyone has an adequate number of hours.

What’s happening is the company is saving money by redistributing the duties.

The hope is that the position can remain empty with others picking up the slack.

While that may seem economical, it puts a strain on whoever is left.

Of course, management can’t be bothered to step in and help with those duties, either.

4. No Holidays Off

Another downside of never closing is that holidays are meaningless in the work setting.

As festive as an interior may be, it does not reflect on anyone’s schedule.

To successfully get a holiday off, one would have to request it months in advance.

An employee would also have to cross their fingers that no one else beat them to the punch.

Because people travel every day of the year, every day is the same.

5. Management

A majority of Marriott employees are in favor of the CEO, but they aren’t fond of management in general.

As previously mentioned, it can be tough to find managers who are willing to step in to get things done when needed.

On top of that, it seems like they don’t spend enough time planning out weekly schedules.

All companies should keep in mind how long shifts are and that employees have lives outside of them.

It seems, in hotels, that logic is also on vacation.

6. High Turnover

Wild schedules, long days, and oblivious people help push people out the door.

To be fair, hospitality isn’t for everyone.

It can be tough to keep up with the needs of a hotel, especially when there are several hundred rooms.

Getting overwhelmed would be easy, especially if the department is down by one.

Depending on what you do in the hotel, the whole atmosphere can be taxing.

High turnover is tough on those who need to quit and those who stay to pick up the pieces.

7. Overtime

It’s not surprising that over time happens a lot in hotels.

Following the outbreak of the pandemic, thousands lost their jobs at Marriott.

When travel began picking up steam again, hiring was not fast enough.

Employees were getting overtime but not necessarily getting paid correctly for it.