Balance of the sexes is the only way to go

At last, some good news for hospitality. But, before that, here's an old riddle, often told at management seminars…

A father and his young son are admitted to hospital following a serious road accident. Both patients are unconscious, and the boy is in need of urgent treatment for severe head injuries. A consultant surgeon is called to perform the emergency operation, but, looking troubled and concerned, the surgeon says: "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."

How can that be? you ask. The father is unconscious. But, of course: the surgeon is a woman; she is the boy's mother.

In recent years, women have risen to positions of prominence in most professions and industries. In some cases this has been due to positive discrimination but, usually, appointments and promotions for women have been won entirely on merit. And the good news for hospitality is that the industry has been at the forefront of this new recognition.

According to a leading academic, speaking at the EuroCHRIE conference in Sheffield this week (page 10), hospitality is "highly feminised", with women making up 86% of employees in the catering services sector and 60% in the commercial sector. Although women have traditionally been admitted only to low-paid positions, there is a growing belief that they are beginning to take centre stage.

A recent Joint Hospitality Industry Congress report states that women have a growing importance at work and in the home, and their "expanding buying power will encourage an era more dominated by females and feminine values".

The EuroCHRIE conference will hear that, in general, hospitality employers believe women have better communication skills, handle interpersonal relationships better, and are better at dealing with complaints. Some employers even say that they like a balanced mix of men and women at all levels because this makes customers of each sex more comfortable.

The one area of the industry that remains male-dominated is the kitchen, where a macho culture, characterised by bad language and sexual innuendo, discourages women. But, with an increasing awareness of good recruitment practice, even this can be broken down.

One warning from Sheffield is that hoteliers who don't employ women in their senior management teams will lose out to competitors that do.

It is, after all, well established in management literature that most customers want to see people like themselves reflected at all levels of the companies whose products and services they buy.

That the hoteliers who "don't" are likely to be disadvantaged is encouraging, because it must mean that many hoteliers "do". And that can only be good news for hospitality. Let's keep up the trend.

Forbes Mutch

Editor

Caterer and Hotelkeeper