Business 3 min read By Bethany Hadley
Hilton Tops World's Best Workplaces List for Third Time
Hilton has been ranked first in the World's Best Workplace list compiled by Fortune and Great Place To Work. The company received the award for the second year in a row, and according to the survey, employee engagement stands at 93 percent.
Hilton has topped the World's Best Workplace list, which is compiled annually by Fortune and Great Place To Work. This is the company's third win in the history of the ranking and its second in a row. The recognition is partly based on employee engagement data, and Hilton's figure is 93 percent among more than 500,000 workers who are employed at roughly 9,600 hotels around the world.
According to company leadership, a key element of Hilton's culture is building an internal talent pipeline. About 93 percent of property managers began their careers in entry-level positions. For those moving up the career ladder, the company offers training, social benefits, and rotation between different areas of work. The company believes this approach helps employees better understand the business and retain experienced staff.
The main architect of this strategy is considered to be Chris Nassetta, who has led Hilton since 2007. His task was to turn a fragmented hotel company into a cohesive organization with a unified culture, and, by his description, this took years. Nassetta emphasizes that investing in people requires a long-term view and that changing culture is a marathon, not a sprint. He admits that five years ago he would not have believed such a transformation was even possible.
Nassetta prefers to grow talent within the company rather than hire leaders from outside. He views artificial intelligence as a tool for frontline employees rather than a threat to their jobs. This position differs markedly from the model of technology companies, where leadership is often tied to the figure of the founder. It is this contrast that underpins the comparison of Hilton with Nvidia.
At Nvidia, the departure of founder Jensen Huang adds uncertainty around Anthropic's upcoming IPO, as the market assesses how management of the company will change without its key leader. Investor reactions to these events, according to available reports, have been mixed in different regions of the world. Against this backdrop, Hilton's stable personnel policy and its long-term investment in staff look to observers like the opposite of dependence on a single person.
The award itself confirms that Hilton's approach has been recognized before: the company has topped the ranking in the past, and a repeat win the following year has been cited as evidence of a consistent course rather than a one-off success. For a business with a network of nearly 9,600 properties, retaining staff and maintaining uniform service standards remain among the main challenges, and engagement data carries practical significance in this context.
Source: fortune.com
7
