We need to bring women into better positions in the hotel industry
The hotel industry is a fast growing sector, with an average female participation nudging 55%, globally. Women are employed in a variety of roles, including as housemaids, kitchen and restaurant staff and front-line customer care agents. However, despite women representing a majority of the workforce in several countries, the positions they fill are not at the executive level (barring perhaps Housekeeping) and, in fact, women have a very poor showing in executive positions in the hotel industry.
The Castell project – Women in Hospitality Leadership report 2017 discovered that 1-in-9 Presidents and 1-in-20 CEOs in the hospitality industry were women. And this was in the US. How bad must it be in the rest of the world? Even those females who make it to the top have to battle gender-based disparities. The path is not easy, nor is the rewards. Women earning 20% to 30% less than men in high profile full time jobs are not uncommon. Other obstacles faced by women include certain masculine related laws and cultures that in effect prevent females from progressing up the ladder.
While several hotels are genuinely working on increasing the number of women in the workforce, It would appear that hotel operators are actually doing very little to provide women better opportunities to rise up the ladder.
Speaking on the ‘Women in Hospitality’ panel at Hotelier Middle East’s GM debate 2019, Laurent Voivenel, Senior Vice President, Operations & development for the Middle East, Africa & India, Swiss - BelHotel International said that there are few hotel owners who don’t want to hire women. He explained “some owners have told me that they don’t want to hire female staff at the property, because if they are upset they won’t be able to express their feelings to a female staff member, because they find it difficult to yell at them. This is the reality that the industry is facing”.
Talking about the need to provide women better opportunities, Voivenel remarked: “46% of the world’s workforce is female, the hospitality industry has 53.7%, so my real concern is not the female percentage. What are we actually doing to give women better opportunities?"
Commenting on the pay gap in the industry, Voivenel explained how it is evident in the industry, “As soon as the payroll budget is dropped, very often people tend to hire more women, it’s the same sad situation around the world and it is something we need to change”.
In a society which fails to encourage women to become leaders in the workforce, only leaders in the household, it’s time for the hotel industry to take the lead in recognizing that the lack of women in leadership positions means that female talent is being underused (even abused) and human capital wasted.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex - Hotelier
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