InterContinental Hotels Group: Developing Hospitality

IHG’s global LMS is accessible by all corporate staff and management-level employees at company-managed and franchised hotels. Its user universe is extended across more than 100 countries and territories. This LMS interfaces with the company’s intranet, providing employees with customizable desktop access to a wide variety of learning resources, including virtual classroom-led workshops, live and recorded webinars, telephone conference events, a 24/7 online library and a collection of e-learning offerings.

According to Gary Whitney, vice president of global hotel learning at IHG, the commercial savvy of its learning organization is a distinguishing factor. “We understand and contribute to IHG core business strategies, and our learning strategies, programs and priorities closely align to drive revenue, service and quality performance at our hotels,” he said. “I am also particularly pleased by our collaborative relationship with a range of IHG regional and global functions including sales, revenue management, brands, operations, channels and quality.”

However, Whitney said there is always room for improvement in IHG’s learning offerings, particularly related to retention and measurement, because there is almost always something to learn and improve to ensure learning sticks post-event. “We continue to advance our capabilities in change management, project management and participant communications within the learning organization as we work to create the right environment and support systems to embed learning tools, initiatives and programs at IHG,” he said. “We measure participant reaction, booking pace, behavior change, business results and everything in between. However, it is always an ambition to improve at measurement; not just straight ROI for a specific program, but to really understand and evaluate the impact of our learning organization to the IHG system of hotels.”