Making an unpopular change palatable

Marriott Vacation Club launches broad communication program to gain employee support before ceasing full-service HR

A couple years ago, Marriott Vacation Club workers operated with little, if any, HR systems information.

“In essence, [employees] had to go to our HR contact person to get information on even the basic HR issues,” explains Karl Sweeney, who was then chief administrative officer with responsibility for HR, information systems and law. The basic information Sweeney refers to were salary, performance ratings of direct reports, personal 401K, medical plan information and number of exemptions claimed for withholding.

The company, a timeshare program by Marriott International, planned to launch an Internet-accessible HR system entitled “myHR” that allowed employees to “own” their HR data; it would also give managers access to the HR data for their staffs.

This was a fundamental shift in the way the company operated—from a “let us do it for you” approach to a self-service model—and communicators realized they had a hard sell in front them.