Workforce Planning

How Ascott is growing its business through employee development

16 September 2025

Ascott is opening over 300 new properties - and its people strategy is evolving in tandem to drive this business expansion.

The Ascott Limited’s plan to open over 300 new properties by 2028 hinges not on capital or real estate, but on its ability to cultivate 1,500 new leaders from within. To meet this human capital challenge, Ascott is positioning people development as the central engine of its growth.

Bolstered by a period of exceptional financial performance, including a third consecutive year of record fee-related earnings in 2024 at S$343 million, the company is channelling its success into a sophisticated ecosystem designed to build its future workforce from the inside out.

The strategy treats talent as a core asset, creating a self-reinforcing flywheel where investment in people directly powers business expansion.

Also Read: Skilling and the new frontier in employee development

From financial success to a people imperative

Ascott’s asset-light growth model focuses on management and operational expertise as its primary product. The model’s success makes the quality of its people paramount.

The company's financial health, demonstrated by a 20% surge in Revenue Per Available Unit (RevPAU) in 2023 and continued growth through 2025, provides the fuel for this people-centric strategy. The company's financial success has created both the need and the means to invest heavily in talent.

The strategic challenge was clear: attempting to recruit 1,500 leaders externally would be slow, expensive, and culturally risky. Instead, Ascott recognised the need for an internal supply chain for talent, a system that could consistently produce leaders steeped in the company’s culture and operational standards. Recognising this need was the genesis of a global, multi-layered development strategy.

The foundation of this strategy is the Ascott Global Academy for Excellence (AGAX), launched in 2024. AGAX globalises the company’s proven Singapore-based training arm, the Ascott Centre for Excellence (ACE), into a centralised platform for learning and development. The academy’s goal is to ensure every associate across Ascott’s network in more than 40 countries has access to the same high standard of training.

AGAX functions as a scalability engine for the company. It solves the immense logistical challenge of onboarding thousands of employees in new markets by providing a single, standardised source of training materials. Its new digital learning platform, rolled out in 2025, offers tailored content on everything from guest services to finance, allowing employees to upskill at their own pace.

A standardised system is crucial for maintaining brand integrity during a period of hyper-growth, effectively creating an assembly line for the skilled talent required to operate a rapidly expanding portfolio.

Also Read: How digital leaders can enable employee development

Forging leaders with the ‘Accelerate’ programme

While AGAX builds the foundation, the Ascott Accelerate programme is the company's targeted solution for its most pressing challenge: leadership.

Launched in 2025, the initiative is designed explicitly to build a robust internal pipeline for the 1,500+ future leadership roles needed by 2028. The programme features a progressive, three-tiered architecture that creates a clear career pathway:

Aim: For supervisors, focusing on foundational leadership skills
Advance: For department heads, strengthening management capabilities
Aspire: For future general managers, providing hands-on learning and strategic acumen

The three-tiered structure creates a predictable internal market for leadership talent. By systematically identifying and nurturing high-potential individuals, Ascott reduces its reliance on a competitive external market, lowers recruitment costs, and mitigates the risk of cultural mismatches. For employees, it provides a tangible path to advancement, fostering loyalty and turning a job into a career.

The cultural glue: Purpose and wellbeing

Developing skills is only half the battle; retaining that talent is what protects the investment. Ascott has woven a strong cultural fabric through initiatives focused on purpose and wellbeing.

The company’s sustainability framework, Ascott CARES, is deeply integrated into its identity and training.

Through a partnership with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) and an in-house curriculum delivered to over 15,000 associates, sustainability has become a core competency. Focusing on sustainability resonates with a modern workforce that seeks purpose-driven employment, creating a powerful non-financial incentive that strengthens employee loyalty.

The sustainability framework is complemented by a focus on holistic wellbeing. The company's “Unlimited Freedom” initiative provides programmes for physical and mental health, while high-profile events like the biennial Ascott Global Conference celebrate employee achievements with the 'Stars of Ascott' Awards.

Such investments are a strategic defence against burnout in a high-pressure industry, ensuring the workforce remains engaged, healthy, and capable of delivering the high-quality service upon which the brand is built.

A sustainable competitive advantage

Ascott's strategy demonstrates a clear understanding that in an asset-light business, human capital is the most critical asset. The company has created a virtuous cycle: strong financial performance funds ambitious talent development, which cultivates a skilled and engaged workforce.

A skilled and engaged workforce delivers the operational excellence that attracts property owners, fuelling further growth and generating the fee income that restarts the cycle.

The integrated talent system is Ascott’s true competitive advantage.

While competitors can imitate a property design or a marketing plan, replicating a global talent development engine and a deeply embedded purpose-driven culture is a far more difficult proposition.

By investing in its people, Ascott is building a resilient, scalable, and sustainable platform to support its next 300 properties and its future as a global hospitality leader.

Topics

#Talent Management

Author

Patrick Rowell Quintos