Job Title: Sales Assistant
Location: USA
Submitted on: 16-May-04
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Job Title |
Workplace
Survey |
| Sales Assistant |
Working for Marriot International is the most frustrating, infuriating,
and painful experience I have ever been through. My property was
flagged under another name and company and was transitioned into a
Marriott brand about a year ago. The difference between our former
company and this one is as different as night and day.
First of all, our whole sales, catering, and conference management team
was restructured. The Marriott corporate structure is one in which
you "share" leads with other hotels your city/region. Our hotel lost
about 40% of our former revenue when our smaller group (who were our
repeat customers) were parcelled out among the other Marriott hotels in
our city. The culture of the company is to do things the "Marriott Way"
but it seems to me that noone actually explains what that "way" is. Our
old company was European so things as far as dress code being corporate
are about the same as Marriott. Hours for the managers are, however,
extremely long (increasing from 40 to the "Marriott expected" 60 hours
per week) and the pressure to produce, even in a not so robust economy,
is constant, extreme, and intense. Our former company used to let the
managers try to book groups in any manager they saw fit. But with
Marriott, most leads are fed through a central system through corporate
sales. This may be in some cases ok, but it does lend the managers to
be extremely dependant on it.
The "Marriott Way" is also expected of the support staff. As an
assistant, you are expected to not just push paper. Your are expected
to call clients, take messages for all manager on the second ring, work
for multiple managers in multiple departments, and sound enthusiastic
on the phone, to the managers, and to executives even when you have
massive work on your desk. If you don't do this, you can be written up
with "verbal warnings" and "coaching sessions".
In addition, you are required to go to classes that teach you how to
speak to clients, how to answer the phone, etc. I was already in
hospitality 3 1/2 years before the takeover, so don't you thing that I
would know how to do that already?
As for advancement, only if you are proficient in the "Marriott Way"
can you advance. If you just do your job everyday without complaints
from anyone, you won't advance. If you become a "Stepford employee",
you may advance. If you become a "Hitler youth employee", you will go
far in the company.
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