Hilton Leads First US Hotels and Resorts Workplace Ranking as Employee Survey Highlights Career Growth

Great Place to Work places Hilton first among large hospitality employers, with high marks for belonging and pride alongside extensive internal development programmes.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Hilton ranks No. 1 among large employers in Great Place to Work’s inaugural 2026 US Best Workplaces in Hotels & Resorts list.
• Hilton reports 95% of its team members say the company is a great place to work, while 97% feel welcomed and 96% take pride in its achievements.
• The company says 63% of recently reported leadership vacancies were filled internally and it has created over 3.1 million learning and career opportunities since 2022.
• Programmes highlighted include hotel management development, BetterUp coaching, the LAUNCH rotation, Thrive leave initiatives and language learning.

Hilton has topped the large-company category of Great Place to Work’s inaugural 2026 US Best Workplaces in Hotels & Resorts ranking, putting employee experience and career development in focus at a time when hotels are balancing service expectations with changes in how hospitality work is performed.

The ranking, published by Great Place to Work, is based on confidential employee feedback about trust, management, workplace relationships and opportunities. Its methodology examines how consistently positive experiences are shared across an organisation’s workforce rather than relying solely on company-submitted benefits. Hilton ranked first in the large-employer group, while Turnberry Hospitality Management Group headed the separate small and medium-company category.

In Hilton’s announcement of the result, the group reported that 95% of surveyed team members described it as a great place to work, 97% said they felt welcome and 96% expressed pride in the company’s accomplishments. These figures represent staff sentiment rather than direct measures of guest satisfaction or service quality.

Career pathways behind the recognition

Hilton connects the recognition to a range of learning and mobility initiatives. The company said that 63% of its recently reported hotel and corporate leadership roles had been filled by internal candidates, a figure it previously reported in 2025. It also said it has created more than 3.1 million learning and career-growth opportunities for team members and community members worldwide since 2022. The latter figure counts opportunities, not unique individual participants.

Those initiatives span hotel-floor leadership preparation and corporate development. Hilton’s Management Development Program combines practical hotel operations with leadership training for early-career staff, while LAUNCH is a 24-month rotational programme exposing participants to operations and business functions at the group’s headquarters. Coaching through BetterUp is intended to strengthen management and communication skills.

Other schemes address different needs over the course of a career. The Thrive Sabbatical and Thrive Reset programmes offer selected employees paid time off and financial support for personal projects, community contribution or recovery time. A global language-learning programme provides access to self-paced lessons, group instruction and conversation practice, reflecting the importance of cross-cultural communication across international hotel operations.

Laura Fuentes, Hilton’s chief human resources officer and head of Hilton Supply Management, said the recognition underscores the importance of employees’ personal relationships and development as technology changes both travel and workplace practices. Kim Peters, executive vice president of Global Brand Insights and Growth at Great Place to Work, said the new hotel-specific list extends the organisation’s assessment of the employee experience across front-line and office roles.

What the survey measures

According to the ranking methodology, the research uses a Trust Index survey covering 60 statements alongside two open-ended questions. For the 2026 hotel and resort list, Great Place to Work received nearly 31,000 responses from employees at eligible companies. Applicants must meet certification requirements and employ at least 10 people in the United States, with separate categories based on size.

The industry’s scope is wider than hotel guest-facing jobs alone. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has described more than 200 possible hospitality career pathways and reported that three in four hotel employees reach a management role within five years of their first hotel job. Such industry-wide figures provide context but do not describe Hilton employees specifically.

Hilton’s new US sector placing follows other awards from Great Place to Work and Fortune, including recognition on global and regional lists. The company says it has received No. 1 workplace recognition in 21 countries in 2026, along with leading positions on regional lists in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Those distinctions reflect different competitions and should not be conflated with the first US hotels-and-resorts ranking.

For travellers, workforce recognition is not a guarantee about any individual stay. Yet hotels’ ability to train, retain and advance staff remains closely tied to how consistently they can deliver the human side of hospitality, from front-desk assistance to food and beverage service. Hilton provides further details of its programmes and vacancies through its career site.