UK 
United StatesWith over 1,320 hotels to look after, it’s tricky to visualise the sheer scale of Radisson Hotel Group’s workforce.
70,000 workers are tasked not just with fluffing the covers and laying out the pillow chocolate, but collectively delivering a unique and memorable experience for every single guest, from booking to check-out.
To make this sprawling but sophisticated machine work, RHG’s staff have to constantly up their game and adjust as the company pushes forward. Now celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Radisson Academy was introduced in 2019 to achieve this continuous state of improvement.
In that time, it has offered more than 2,500 online, live, and virtual training programs; provided over 1.5 million hours of development; and ensured an increase in training completions of 27X from 2019 to 2023 with employees rating their satisfaction with the academy at 4.8 out of five – with a quick bit of rounding, we make that a five-star experience.
What is the Radisson Academy?
In 2018, following a change in leadership within RHG, the company established a new five-year plan which included the creation of a talent academy designed to nurture and develop outstanding talent, summarised neatly in its core cultural belief: ‘We grow talent, talent grows us.’
The first iteration of the Academy was introduced in 2019, made up of basic infrastructure including a learning management system for frontline workers, and with the key objective to provide educational opportunities for people with a variety of backgrounds.
Shwetal Randive, Global Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, L&D, and Internal Communications at RHG, says the first two years of the academy were all about setting the foundations. But with the hospitality industry so badly affected in 2020, the Academy quickly pivoted to become an engagement driver.
Shwetal Randive
Global Senior Director of L&D, Talent Acquisition, & Internal Communications
“We realised that the Academy was able to provide people with some comfort, and people who were usually constantly in service had time to dedicated toward training,” Randive recalls.
From weekly newsletters to mentoring sessions, RHG offered employees training and guidance on a spread of topics, including resilience and mindfulness. At this time, the company also moved its learning management system, partnering with a new vendor that could integrate its LMS into its HR systems.
Since then, the Academy has become multichannel, offering online, live, on-the-job, virtual, and certification-based training, and is described by Randive as a “melting pot of culture.”
“It’s the place where we bring people from various functions, roles, and different hotels together, as a way to live our culture united as a company,” she explains. “Creating an element of belonging was crucial for us, and the Academy gave us that particular platform wherein people from 20 to 30 different hotels and from different countries get together and there is a great cultural exchange over learning.”
