Pros
Fast pace, fun people, very little boring downtime and good pay, especially for service jobs. Issues or problems are usually quickly and appropriately addressed. The corporation is usually good about helping employees to move to other jobs and/or other cities. There are reasonable benefits, vacation and sick time for full-time employees, but they can vary from hotel to hotel; the same goes for 401Ks with contribution matching. An employee in good standing is usually eligible for cross-training and may be able to work in more than one department. Most larger hotels have an employee cafeteria where employees can eat for free as long as they are clocked in for a shift and are in uniform. Most larger hotels also have locker rooms where uniforms and personal belongings can be stored safely and where you can shower and change for work.
Cons
Physically demanding, very long hours, training can be sketchy if you happen to start during a busy period. You may run into the occasional manager who is difficult, extremely snotty, or just plain sadistic. The Hyatt Corporation does not manage every single property that operates under the Hyatt brand; some hotels are run by other management companies that are likely to be less desirable employers. In some hotels there can be friction between departments that will make your job a misery, although this is pretty rare, and as with any large organization being able to get along with co-workers from every department is key. Recently the Corporation has been outsourcing departments that have previously been handled in-house, such as laundry, valet dry-cleaning, and in some cities even house keeping. This frightening trend does nothing for morale and causes a flurry of paranoid rumors with each new instance of departmental dismantling. Workers are never informed of drastic upcoming changes and as a result always feel clubbed over the head with the news when it finally hits the proverbial fan. In older properties, food service equipment can be so old and decrepit as to constitute an actual health hazard, and getting major pieces of equipment replaced is always an extremely lengthy process. Such delays result in a vastly increased workload for those employees who must develop a work-around and contribute to a concurrent decrease in hourly pay. An hourly employee must carefully track his or her own hours. Accounting does make occasional payroll mistakes, and without documentation these will be next to impossible to correct. Most hourly employees work in uniform and these can be extremely uncomfortable and unflattering. Many perks such as dry cleaning and complimentary rooms for hourly employees have dried up and disappeared during these difficult economic times and are not likely to be replaced in case of economic upturn. Entrenched Hyatt "Lifers" can be very inflexible and unwilling to change with the times, even when older policies and procedures no longer work. Men are promoted about 4 times faster than women and are plainly more highly valued by the corporate culture than are women, no matter how talented and effective these women may be. For employees of either sex, there is a saying: KHOBONA=Kiss Head Office Butt Or Never Advance.