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Case Study

Education and training at Accor: A worldwide challenge

By Philip Rosenzweig

18 pages

June 2000

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Reference: IMD-3-0941

Accor was the world’s leading hotel and leisure service company, with well-known brands including Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, Formule 1, and Motel 6. It operated in 140 countries around the world, and had a workforce of 120,000. Accor’s success depended on outstanding service delivery. It had long placed great emphasis on employee education and training, and was among the first European companies to establish a central education and training center, the Acadimie Accor. By 1999, with Accor continuing to grow rapidly throughout the world, there was a growing need to review the company’s approach to education and training. The Acadimie reached only a small fraction of Accor’s activities worldwide, and managers were concerned about the lack of a consistent worldwide approach to education and training. This case examines the nature of Accor’s global workforce, identifies its challenges regarding education and training, and asks what group management should do to ensure outstanding service delivery in a dispersed global company.

Keywords

Global Human Resource Management

Settings

World/global
2000

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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