Treasuring, Managing and Rewarding people towards betterment

1. Treasuring, Managing and Rewarding people towards betterment
Kushal Kala: EIILM/PG_W/1-WT-024

2. The employee at Taj is viewed as an asset and is the
real profit center. The Taj People Philosophy displays
commitment to and belief in their people.
In March 2001, Taj group launched an employee loyalty
program called “Special Thanks and Recognition
System”.
The Taj group developed the “Taj People Philosophy”
to boost the morale of employees and improve the
service standards.

3.  The concept of TPP was developed in 1999 by Bernard
Martyris (senior VP,HR,IHCL)
 The Taj People Philosophy (TPP) covered all the people
practices of the group.
 TPP considers every aspect of employees organisational
career planning right from induction till retirement.
 Various leadership programs are conducted so to develop
strong, warm and professional work culture.
 The TPP offers benefits to the Taj group by conducting
training programs in Sales and Marketing, Finance, F&B,
FO management and HR in order to achieve professional
excellency maintaining the “Taj standards”

4. According to Martyris there are three major areas of
TPP. They are:
 Work systems and Process
 Learning and Development
 Employee Welfare
As a part of TPP the Taj group introduced a strong
performance management system called “Balanced
Score Card System(BSS)”. It measured the
performance of employees across all hierarchical
levels against a set of predefined targets.

5.  The concept of “Star System” was developed by
Martyris in accordance with Taj”s core philosophy that
“happy employees lead to happy customers” .
 It aimed to identify, recognize and reward those
employees who excelled in their work.
 Stars was promoted acros the group of 62 chain of
hotels and among its 18000 employees, 15000 were
from India.

6. STARS have 5 different levels:
 Level 1- Silver Grade(120 points in 3 months)
 Level 2- Gold Grade ( 130 points within 3 months of
attaining silver grade).
 Level 3- Platinum Grade (250 points within 6 months of
attaining Gold grade).
 Level 4- Chief Operating Officer's club (510 points or more
but below 760 points)
 Level 5- MD”s club (760 points or more).

7.  The points were granted to the employees on the basis
of integrity, honesty, kindness, environmental
awareness, teamwork, coordination and others.
 It led to motivation levels and increased customer
satisfaction.
 The STARS was not only successful as an HR initiative but
brought many strategic benefits to the group as well.
 Employees could earn points through customer
appreciation and suggestion schemes.

8.  The Taj group of hotels bagged the “Hermes Award” in
2002 for Best innovation in Human Resources in the
global hospitality industry.
 The Taj group of hotels planned to nominate the BSS
for the Hermes Award in 2003.
 The Taj group will make further investments in
Training, development, career planning and employee
welfare in future.
 The Taj group has a plan to set up hotels in Paris after
receiving the Hermes Award.