WHITE PLAINS, NY— Starwood Hotels & Resorts seems to have stepped up the pace of an on-going “addition by subtraction” commitment in response to tighter market conditions, with the company’s most recent round of personnel cutbacks raising the number of employees and executives downsized to nearly 400… so far. It was confirmed that the mega-level lodging and hospitality organization is only about 20% of the way along in its cost-containment/revenue-enhancement efforts; efforts that include— but are not limited to— continuing to lower the company’s overall head-count. At this time, Starwood lists something in the neighborhood of 129,000 employees worldwide. According to SVP Dan Gibson, the latest spate of payroll parings constitutes part of “a 3% – 4% reduction in full-time equivalent management staff in Starwood’s North American operations,” with this trimming taking place across all the company’s brands. As he noted, the main idea behind this on-going initiative is “rationalization of costs, with an eye turned particularly toward flattening the organization [structure], eliminating redundancies and, in general, becoming more responsive.” Gibson went on to explain that these moves are being mounted in line with Starwood’s on-going commitment to “six sigma,” a concept defined as a productivity initiative tied to what the customer really needs. Along these lines, part of what this commitment translates to— vis-à-vis redundancies— are such moves as “positioning regional managers to operate from specifically assigned hotel sites, rather than being located at corporate headquarters,” thereby eliminating the need for an on-site manager at each of the affected locations. As Gibson indicated, such cost-cutting/revenue-enhancing measures are rarely easy or painless. “However,” he said, “they are something every company has to look at and live with…especially in tougher economic times.” Finally, while there was no official word on the identities of those caught up in this latest bevy of corporate layoffs, Gibson’s notable allusion to the fact that “franchise operations are expected to proceed seamlessly” makes one wonder if franchise-arena executives like Sam Winterbottom are among those whose necks have felt the bite of Starwood’s ax.
