Hospitality Daily Podcast How Hilton Cut 6-12% in Labor Costs Across 600 Hotels While Improving Service and Staff Satisfaction - Michael Escalante
In this episode, Michael Escalante, former Global Vice President of Hilton’s Center of Operational Excellence, shares how his team delivered 6–12% savings on labor across more than 600 hotels, while improving both guest service and employee satisfaction. Michael explains the methodology behind Hilton’s approach: observing processes instead of people, quantifying human behavior, and modeling work as a function of volume. He also shares how Hilton overcame the hardest part -- change management -- by building transparency, securing buy-in from teams and unions, and creating a culture of efficiency with technology.
A few more resources:
- If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here.
- You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestions
- If you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.
- Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
- If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.
If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!
Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands