Understanding the barriers faced by females in entering management roles within hospitality

Abstract:

This paper discusses the gender inequality of women in the tourism and hospitality industries. Women account for a higher percentage of the total workforce; however they are highly underrepresented in senior managerial roles. This paper examines the barriers faced by women in progressing to or entering these roles through both primary and secondary research.

Keywords: Gender, inequality, tourism, hospitality, executive roles, barriers, progression, management

Discussion:

Long shifts, anti-social hours and agitated customers - all in a day’s work within hospitality (Baum, 2007 in Manwa, 2014); however all can be expected in a customer facing, non-standard 9-5 role. Indeed, tourism and hospitality sectors are very diverse, featuring a range of both skilled and unskilled roles, with many jobs within hospitality described as dirty jobs (Baum, 2006) and are generally lower skilled roles. Statistics demonstrate that females are overrepresented within lower skilled roles and underrepresented in managerial roles (People 1st, 2010; Equality in Tourism, 2013; People 1st, 2013; Women 1st, 2010). Statistics from Women 1st (2010) reiterate this with majority of females within elementary roles (49%), which is said to be a result of certain roles being heavily female based such as housekeeping (95%), cooks (72%) and waiting staff (70%)(People 1st, 2013). Furthermore, Women 1st’s (2010) survey revealed that 52% of female employees believed that it was harder for them to enter management roles than males.

As a whole the U.K tourism and hospitality industries accounted for more than 2 million jobs in 2011 (People 1st, 2013). However, when looking at a gender breakdown there were more females (57%) than males (43%)(People 1st, 2013). Despite a high proportion of females “numerical representation is not mirrored in (…) managerial leadership” (Baum, 2013: vii). Despite the second largest category of employment being ‘managers, directors and senior officials’ (16%), only 17.7% of females are within this category compared to 24.9% of males (Women 1st, 2010).

Due to the low entry barriers “people can start (...) with little experience and develop into higher skilled management positions” (People 1st, 2013: 23), however, research suggests that women face barriers in achieving top executive roles. The invisible barriers have been coined as a ‘glass ceiling’ (Cotter et al., 2001; Morrisson et al., 1988 in Manwa, 2014). The two main barriers in the literature and the primary research, conducted with a female part time hotel receptionist, were the challenge of combining working at a senior level with caring responsibilities (Women 1st, 2010; Opportunity Now; 2000; World Economic Forum, 2010), and the stereotyping of certain roles which women are expected to fill (Opportunity Now, 2000; Women 1st, 2010; Baum, 2015).

Examining the first barrier, the work-life balance; according to WTO (2011) “women experience greater difficulties than men when it comes to balancing work and private life”. This is noted to be due to the demanding nature of roles which are challenging to undertake alongside childcare arrangements and other commitments. Especially seens as though many managerial roles require long anti-social hours (Baum, 2007 in Manwa, 2014), and a hotel manager's life is “expected to revolve around the hotel” (Bronwell, 1993 in Manwa, 2014: 5938). Women 1st (2010) discovered that an even distribution of males and females within management can be witnessed up to the age of 25, between 25 and 45 there are more males, and post 45 it is even again. This may be due to women being within child bearing age, thus suggesting that having dependents and caring responsibilities is a barrier for women in entering management roles, and women are waiting until their children have grown up to pursue their career goals.

The second barrier; stereotyping, is a result of both horizontal and vertical integration, as there is an “uneven distribution of men and women in different functional areas [and] among different levels of responsibility” (Manwa, 2014: 5937). The result of this is that women mainly occupy lower skilled roles, and are often subjected to work similar to their homely duties to “use their female attributes” (Clevenger & Singh, 2013 in Manwa, 2014: 5937). Stereotyping is evident within management, aided by a dominant masculine culture (World Economic Forum, 2010; Women 1st, 2010), as men are seen as ‘taking charge’ and women as ‘taking care’ (Opportunity Now, 2000) and certain roles are also seen as “more appropriate for women” (Women 1st, 2010:35). Thus, gender inequality has played a vital role in preventing women from accessing management roles (Baum, 2013).

Other main barriers include a lack of networking (Opportunity Now, 2000; Women 1st, 2010), and the lack of role models in senior positions (Women 1st, 2010; Opportunity Now, 2000; Baum, 2015). Both of these have been overcome at Accor Hotels who have introduced a networking programme which pairs female employees with a mentor, and Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd’s talent management programme which guides and trains employees through the process to management (Baum, 2013).

Conclusion:

To conclude, barriers are still present for women wishing to enter managerial roles within the tourism and hospitality industries. Gender inequality changes will not happen overnight as it will be a slow process, and further research is needed to understand the barriers in more depth and to come up with solutions which could reduce the gender inequality within the industry.

Key references:

Baum, T. (2013) International Perspectives on Women and Work in Hotels, Catering and Tourism. [Online] Geneva: International Labour Office. Available from: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/-dgreports/-gender/documents/publication/wcms_209867.pdf [Accessed 13th March 2016]

Baum, T. (2015) Women in Tourism & Hospitality: Unlocking the Potential in the Talent Pool. [Online] Available from: https://www.diageo.com/Lists/Resources/Attachments/2706/Women_in_Hospitality___Tourism_White_Paper.pdf [Accessed 13th March 2016]

Women 1st. (2010) the case for change: women working in the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism sector. [Online] U.K: People1st. Available from: http://www.women1st.co.uk/system/assets/files/000/000/076/original/Women_1st_Case_For_Change_Full_Report_November_2010.pdf?1446131629 [Accessed 13th March 2016]

The reason why I make a commentary on this paper is because of the common interests in female empowerment and inequality in tourism and hospitality industries. This topic is also similar with my conference paper about female empowerment and gender segregation in tourism industry. The premise of the work to achieve gender equality is the elimination of fender discrimination. It has a solid foundation of practice. The most difference between this article and mine is that this paper mainly focused on the barriers faced by females in promotion. But mine is the importance of gender equality and gender segregation.

This conference paper begins with a clear introduction, which presented ‘tourism and hospitality sectors are very diverse and are generally lower skilled roles’. In my conference paper also mentioned that employment in the tourism industry is for the most part connected with lower nature of job opportunities than different commercial enterprises. Low pay rates, brief contracts and part-time working environment and the need to cover every minute of everyday working hours (Lu and Adler, 2009). The author provided two main barriers to stop women to achieving top executive roles, which are the work-life balance and stereotyping. Firstly, the harmonization of job and family keeps on being a molding element that recognizes females from males on the working environment. So that females often hold bar and restaurant employments yet are under-spoken in sales-related exercises, with lower capabilities necessities and poorer working environment. The second point is that gender stereotyping and separation imply that females essentially have a tendency to perform employments, for example, cooking, neighborliness and cleaning. In the hospitality industry, because of the “ housewification of work”; actual missions are connected with females’ conventional part (Gentry, 2007). A number of studies showed that those barriers do impact on women’s career development. The author also mentioned that some of the famous companies have already started some plans to overcome those problems to maintain the gender equality and protect female employees.

To summarize, this paper give a good view of female promotion barriers in tourism and hospitality industries, mainly focused on two key barriers and also mentioned some other barriers, in the end the author appealed to reduce the gender inequality within the industry. With the more and more females enhanced awareness of gender equality, female would understand more about the barriers and break the routine. All in all, this is a very good discussion paper.



Lu, T. and Adler, H. (2009). Career Goals and Expectations of Hospitality and Tourism Students in China. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 9(1-2), pp.63-80.

Gentry, K.(2007). Belizean women and tourism work. Annals of Tourism Research, 34(2), pp.477-496.

I decided to comment on this discussion paper due to the same interest in occupational gender segregation in the tourism and hospitality industries. As well this is a major issue in the industry which makes it very interesting to me as it may be possible to a worker in a hotel industry. Although my discussion paper focused on the occupational gender segregation in the hotel industry, especially women who work in the housekeeping department, we share some same themes, such as occupational gender segregation.

The paper aims to examine the problems and issues that women have in the tourism industry. Especially this paper concentrates to the issues of women entering to senior manager roles.

This paper has a clear range of barriers that complicate women to move forward on their careers. The first barrier; the work-life balance is also discussed in my paper that women take part-time and seasonal jobs more easily to balance between home and work (Campos-Soria et al., 2015). The second barrier; This was also highlighted in my conference paper, a both horizontal and vertical integration. Because of those women mainly work in the lower skilled roles, and often those roles that are for women, such as housekeeping. Even though there may be skilled and valued workers, the managers (mainly men) do not appreciate those skilled workers, which makes it difficult to move forward on their careers. By this the workers are stuck on those sectors they have started (Sinclair, 1997).

To meet the needs of the future skills and productivity requirements of the sector it is clear that there is a need for a change from the occupational gender segregation to more equal workplaces. In today’s world both men and women should be able to work in same positions, and this idea of gendered workplaces should not exist anymore.

To conclude, the author discussed a range of different barriers of women who work in the tourism and hospitality industries, especially the problems on moving on to senior manager roles. This paper is well-written and a really interesting piece of work.

References
Campos-Soria, J. A., García-Pozo, A. and Sánchez-Ollero, J. L. (2015) Gender wage inequality and labour mobility in the hospitality sector. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 49 7382. Available from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/ [accessed 24 April 2016].

Sinclair, M.T. (ed.) (1997) Gender, work and tourism. London: Routledge.