Wanted: more women please
If you're employed at floor level in any UK high-street or contract-catering restaurant or in any hotel, chances are that nearly two-thirds of your work colleagues will be women. If you are a manager in any of those same establishments, it's likely that only a quarter of your classmates will be of that gender.
According to an e-mail survey conducted by Caterer.com, only 22% of hotel general managers, catering managers and restaurant managers in the UK are women. This compares with the figure of 61.6% (of women) working at all levels of all sectors of the hospitality industry in general. The Hospitality Training Foundation's Labour Market Review 2002 states that female staff dominate every sector of the industry, with contract catering leading the field, employing a workforce that is 70% female. For hotels it's 57.4%, restaurants 54%.
Where the balance begins to swing the other way and the division widens is in the managerial area. Too many women are stepping off the managerial ladder before they reach the top.
Mind you, although the figure of 22% sounds bad, it's pretty good compared with other occupations and industries. In agriculture, women hold only about 15% of managerial jobs, in transport it's the same, and in manufacturing the figure is less than 10%.
The reasons why women don't make it to the top are common across most of these industries. Sometimes it's down to old-fashioned prejudice, but usually it's because women interrupt their careers to start a family. Because of their family commitments, they often want to return to work only part-time, and most managerial positions are advertised as full-time. This means women are put off their career stride until their families have grown up, by which time it is too late to catch up.
We like to think that sex discrimination is no longer common in hospitality, and there is usually a willingness to promote women into managerial positions. The problem is that there is still an inflexible attitude to how those managerial jobs are done. The outdated premise that managers always have to be on duty when their staff are working persists. Management structures and practices are often too hierarchical and don't allow delegation of decision-making. And company cultures still favour the full-time worker prepared to "live the job".
This needs to change. If 22% is to increase to the ideal of 50%, part-time work, job-sharing and flexible hours need to be considered more seriously for jobs at a senior level.
Contract catering has set the pace in the drive for employing part-time workers, and 68% of the sector's workforce is now made up of part-time employees (HTF's Labour Market Review 2002 again). But the trend needs to filter upwards and outwards. Hotels employ only 25% part-timers and restaurants 37%.
Sex discrimination may be on the wane, and legislation is forcing businesses to take account of the work-life balance with the introduction of Working Time Directive and parental leave. If hospitality is to continue to encourage women to pitch for managerial positions, however, the mind-set of employers needs to be much more flexible. But maybe this won't happen until more women become managers.
FORBES MUTCH
Editor,
Caterer & Hotelkeeper
