UNITED STATES—Needing to grow its sales workforce to keep up with rapid expansion but finding a shallow talent pool, Hilton Hotels Corp. decided to look beyond the traditional applicants to its call center. Its reservations and customer care division has launched a flexible work-at-home program known as Hilton@Home, designed to attract job candidates who cannot commit to a regular commute, such as caregivers or older adults.

The program has drawn applicants that are more educated and mature than is typical for the positions, says Russ Olivier, Hilton’s senior vice president for reservations and customer care. Customer satisfaction scores have increased noticeably since the launch of Hilton@Home. “There is a high-quality labor center out there that is really untapped,” Olivier says.

More than 800 Hilton employees are participating in the work-at-home program in four states: Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. About 80% of new call center hires this year have been through Hilton@Home, and Olivier expects that the bulk of his employee base will eventually be at-home workers, especially considering the rising cost of fuel.

Hilton is weighing the possibility of taking the program international. “This has really become a cornerstone of our strategy going forward,” Olivier says. “Finding talent is really the biggest deal for us, and this is the way we think we’ll be able to grow.”

From a technology standpoint, the infrastructure needed for at-home call-taking already was in place. Workers simply dial into the switchboard just as they would if they were on-property at a call center, and calls are routed as appropriate. At-home workers are required to have a dedicated workspace and to silence background distractions, and they must have access to high-speed Internet and, of course, a telephone.

Hilton@Home lets workers select their own schedules online, and training and support services also are Web-based. Some classroom training is still required, but it will be entirely online by next year. Additionally, Hilton coordinates Internet chat rooms and social activities to let at-home workers interact with coworkers to create an environment of connected team members. Team meetings and monthly meetings with management are held virtually.

Besides growing the pool of available workers, Hilton@Home has other benefits. It saves money on payroll—at-home workers take a reduced salary in exchange for the flexibility and convenience—and the reduced employee commuting has also had a positive environmental impact, lowering the carbon footprint for call centers by approximately 10%. “It’s a win-win from a company perspective and an employee perspective,” Olivier says.

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