“Literally we went from markets where occupancy at a hotel might’ve averaged between 80 per cent to 90 per cent, to single digits. So, it was devastating.”
David Rodriguez is Chief Global Human Resources Officer and Chief Diversity Officer for Marriott International. In a new report from Oracle, Mr Rodriguez is one of ten business leaders offering insights into the importance of diversity and inclusion in their company post-Covid.
Marriott says that D&I is essential to the success of the organisation after the devastating effects of Covid in the hotel industry.
“Everybody in the company is focused on business recovery, and within human resources, our business recovery plan is captured in what we call the CTO plan— the Culture, Talent, and Organization plan. Holistic human wellbeing continues to be at the center of that, and our progress in DE&I is central to what we want to do there,” says Mr Rodriguez.
“Regarding our priorities in 2021 for DE&I, these are actually part of a broader business recovery, because as you probably know, our industry was decimated in 2020. You’d have to add up the effects of the great depression, the great recession, and 9/11, and then you’d start to approximate how 2020 affected the business.”
The 10 companies interviewed for this report include Marriott, DHL, Schneider Electric, Co-op, Marks & Spencer, Boston Scientific, Nielsen IQ, Anthem, General Motors and Siemens Energy.
The report is called Addressing Diversity and Inclusion: Going Beyond the Benchmark: Insights from Workplace Intelligence’s Panel of HR and Diversity Leaders.
