Sexual harassment in tourism workplaces: focusing on the housekeeping sector

ABSTRACT

Sexual harassment has been a major problem in tourism workplaces over times, especially in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to create more discussion about sexual harassment in tourism workplaces in the hospitality industry and take a closer approach on the hotel housekeeping sector because previous research on sexual harassment in the hospitality industry shows evidence on that hotel housekeepers are the most vulnerable to incidents of sexual harassment.

Key words: sexual harassment, hospitality industry, housekeeping department

1. Sexual harassment in tourism workplaces: focusing on the housekeeping sector

To begin with, it is significant to comprehend what sexual harassment means. However, Collier (1995) argues that it is impossible to recognise types of behaviour that can be characterised clearly as ‘sexual harassment’. In turn, it is only possible to define the sorts of behaviour that women (and men) experience as sexual harassment towards them. Such actions can either refer to unwanted physical conduct (touching, physical sexual advances/assault and physical actions, which embarrass or intimidate etc.) or unwanted verbal conduct (verbal insults, threatening and verbal sexual advances, etc.) or unwanted nonverbal conduct (showing pornographic material and suggesting nonverbal gestures etc.) (Collier, 1995). After analysing the concept, the discussion can be lead to evaluating it in the hospitality industry, focusing mainly on the housekeeping sector.
In the hospitality industry women who work in service occupations are the most vulnerable to sexual harassment because their status is seen as lower than customers and due to this, some customers might see this as an advantage and abuse it without a fear of consequences. Hotel staff is also vulnerable to sexual harassment because they are continuously in interaction with customers, especially receptionists and waitresses, which are in a direct contact with customers. However, they work in public places and can easily receive help in a case of an offensive incident. Even though housekeepers are not employed to socialise with customers they might still end up to interact with them while cleaning hotel rooms, thus, in this respect they are the most vulnerable to sexual harassment because they often work alone and their working environment is isolated from public areas. Previous research has proved that sexual harassment is globally a major problem in the housekeeping department. It has been found that housekeepers are vulnerable to all sorts of sexual harassment: unwanted physical, verbal and nonverbal behaviour of a sexual nature. However, while hotel rooms are private areas, researching sexual harassment on housekeepers is relatively challenging. It is obvious that housekeepers’ working environment is highly insecure but there also exist other problems in the sector. For instance, previous research has showed evidence on that many housekeepers do not complain about incidents of sexual harassment and they rather tolerate them than complain to the manager for the fear of consequences, such as losing their job (Guerrier & Adib, 2000). Therefore, it is significant to comprehend that it is impossible to find out the extent of sexual harassment in a workplace only by looking the nature and number of complaints. Complaints might only describe the number of employees willing to report and due to that, many incidents leave unreported. Hence, the only way to find out how much sexual harassment actually occurs in a workplace is to carry out an anonymous survey of everyone in the staff (Collier, 1995).
It has been proved that incidents of sexual harassment are not reported mostly in such cases when a hotel does not have a sexual harassment policy (Collier, 1995). It is therefore vital that a hotel has a sexual harassment policy, which is protected by the law. The sexual harassment policy should involve at least the following methods in order to prevent incidents of sexual harassment in all of the sectors in the hospitality industry. Firstly, hotels should provide appropriate and continuous development in terms of encouraging employees to inform about incidents of sexual harassment without a fear of consequences. In practice, it is recommended that managers organise group discussion or one-to-one meetings with employees to uncover all the issues that employees wish to be taken into account. Employees should be encouraged to report immediately to their managers if they have experienced any kind of sexual harassment and managers should be prepared to take these incidents seriously. The responsibility of managers is to deal with an incident in a first place and if it is a serious matter, managers are in a charge of reporting it forward to head office. Moreover, it is essential that employees are provided with a company handbook, which includes advices for coping with sexual harassment problems and information about the current employment legislation (Ineson, Yap & Whiting, 2013).
In conclusion, it is important to point out that sexual harassment is a major problem in the hospitality industry, especially in the housekeeping sector, and it should be further researched in the future with appropriate and coherent manners. Creating an efficient sexual harassment policy is therefore recommended to all hotels in the industry in order to minimise harassment of any sexual nature in workplaces.



References:


Collier, R. (1995) Combating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Managing Work and Organisations, USA: Open University Press

Guerrier, Y. and Adib, A. (2000) ‘No, We Don’t provide that Service’: The Harassment of Hotel Employees by Customers, Work. Employment and Society, 14(4), pp. 689–705

Ineson, E.M., Yap, M.H.T., and Whiting, G. (2013) Sexual discrimination and harassment on the hospitality industry, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 35, pp.1–9

I have choose this topic because it is interesting and it is very common to happen to women in the hospitality industry. This paper outlines very clearly the issue and gives a good comprehensive explanation of behaviours that could be identified as sexual harassments. The author has not attempted to define sexual harassment as it is an incident which is impossible to refine (Collier,1995). The paper shows good evidence of research and discuss about possible recommendations that could help to decrease the danger for woman of being victims of sexual harassment. However, the author focused mainly in the housekeeping sector.


Many women who works in the hospitality industry are seen as workers with lower status. Many of them are immigrants who do not speak the local language and who are not aware of their own rights. The author have said that women who are victims of sexual harassment are mostly scare to loose their job, therefore many of them remain in silence rather than telling the truth to the hotel managers. In many cases the harassers are the managers (Giuffre & Williams, 1994), so it is very common that the victims would not report about these incidents. Research also shows that some employees enjoy sexual interactions at work (Giuffre & Williams, 1994, pp. 383), this might confuse some employees and managers to understand the real concept of sexual harassment.

Most housekeepers are from a poor background and do not have high education. Therefore many of the workers might not be treated equally which makes them vulnerable to sexual harassment. The author points out several reasons why housekeepers are more vulnerable to sexual harassment, for eaxample, the isolated areas and unsecured working environment. These women are mostly scare to report the happened incident because many do not have equal rights to complain about their job. The employers also tempt to give unusual work hours which makes the situation worse. The low payment that these workers receive is insufficient and generally women are working without contracts as well. The little money and working without contracts makes them vulnerable to sexual harassment.

The sexual harassment is a critical problem that must be taken seriously. Every housekeeping industry should provide standard training and information on sexual harassment. Is the responsibility of employers to reduce or avoid or prevent sexual harassment or any discrimination. Hotel employers should have a sexual harassment policy and try to implement at as fully as possible and monitor its effectiveness (European Commission Code of Practice, 1980; Australian Human Rights Commission Code of practice for employers (2008); Portuguese Commission for Equality and Women's Rights, 2002).


References

Guerrier Y., and Adib A. (2000) No, We Don't Provide That Service; The Harassment of Hotel Employees by Costumers. Work, employment & Society Vol. 14, No (4), pp. 689-705.

Oliveira I., and Ambrosio V. Sexual Harassment in hotel housekeeping department. International Journal of Management Cases, pp. 180- 192.

Giuffre, P. and Williams, C.L. (1994) Boundary Lines: Labelling Sexual Harassment in Restaurants. Gender & Society, Vol. 8, No 3, pp. 378-401.