Running head: THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION

IHMN455 Assignment 1 The Glass Ceiling & Occupational Segregation Team 2 Royal Roads University

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION Introduction In todays globalized marketplace, many organizations are realizing that their greatest resource lies in the people that make up the face of their business. These people, or human capital, are becoming increasingly diverse as a result, in part, of economic development and globalization. As part of this progressively collaborative workplace,

certain norms and patterns begin to shift and one example of this is the increasing role of women in the workplace. However, throughout the world, women may still face significant challenges in their career progression paths. The hospitality industry is no exception to this standard as issues such as occupation segregation is still an issue and may affect the trajectory of many womens careers. There are many concerns within the industry that face women in organizations, but often these challenges are not the same from business to business. Different organizations can be fraught with a dynamic set of issues in various states of visibility and are unique to that organization. Additionally, the research seems to suggest that too often women are grouped into one large, homogenous classification while in reality it is individuals facing unique sets of problems and issues and therefore there may not be one generic solution (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). Body Gender equality encompasses a large set of issues, which can be further classified into more specific problems that women face in hospitality organizations. This subject involves many different facets and therefore there is a significant amount of research dedicated to the subject. For this reason, there are four significant sources that are utilized

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION in this paper to best explain some of the issues with a specific focus on occupational segregation and the glass ceiling. Glass Ceiling As with many industries throughout the world, women in the hospitality industry face a number of challenges their male counterparts do not (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). These issues are often dynamic and can create many barriers that impede the career development and progress of women. This issue has long been referred to as the glass ceiling because there is an invisible, intangible obstruction that makes the professional lives of women in the hospitality industry more difficult. The glass ceiling is not static however, as it can be different or not be experienced to the same degree from organization to organization, or from woman to woman (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). The barriers than contribute to the feeling of a glass ceiling includes the feeling of an organization to be an old boys network where a woman may feel out of place or ostracized. This process is prevalent to some degree in the hospitality industry as the upper levels of management in some hotels are still very much an old style bureaucracy with a much more prevalent male dominance. This is often very frustrating for many women because their work may be undervalued and underappreciated simply because there are out-dated beliefs that have been showed to be completely false (Marco, 2012). This therefore implies that there may be human capital that is underutilized because the views of management throughout the organization are misinformed. Another issue that may contribute to the barriers that make up the glass ceiling are organizations where long hours are the norm making the job quite inflexible (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). Women face proportionally high levels of personal, family pressures that

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may make the long hours culture in some organizations or positions very hard to justify or realize without making significant personal sacrifices. In our culture, these pressures are increased in women relative to men. Additionally, the demands of career development can necessitate geographic mobility and in many cases, these increased family responsibilities and pressures can vastly limit women in this area (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). All of these challenges represent significant issues to women in todays hospitality organizations and are often all aspects of women trying to find the right mix of their work-life balance. Often, businesses are cognizant of work-life balance issues and list it as an organizational goal and priority, but the reality remains that there are many systematic practices that make it impossible for women with family responsibilities to survive easily within the company (Mooney & Ryan, 2008, p. 206). These issues while obviously detrimental to many women in the industry can also be disadvantageous to companies. This is because there is evidence to support that old ideas of female underperformance are unjustified and in fact, may be the complete opposite (Marco, 2012). This implication seems to suggest the glass ceiling is limiting the potential of many companies throughout the hospitality industry, as women are a very valuable resource that may be currently underutilized. Furthermore, by not providing career development support specific to the unique issues facing women, companies may be losing these assets as women leave the industry completely. An initial remedy could be to offer more employment opportunities for women. This may attract highly skilled female employees, which could positively impact the performance and productivity of the tourism and hospitality industry (Pinar, McCuddy, Birkan & Kozak, 2010, p. 79). This issue is significant and is one of the major

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION contributing factors to the glass ceiling that still exists in the industry and there are certainly positives that can be obtained by businesses by reviewing this issue and taking

steps to correct them in such a manner that accurately reflects womens needs within their organization. Occupational Segregation Another very significant challenge that women face in the hospitality industry is occupational segregation. Occupational gender segregation refers to the unequal distribution of men and women among different jobs (Campos-Soria, Marchante-Mera & Ropero-Garcia, 2010, p. 91). This issue can be widely observed in the hospitality industry as many departments or positions are quite often more dominated by one gender of the other. This problem is significant for women because it can negatively affect their career paths by pigeonholing females into gender specific roles within a hospitality organization. Occupational segregation largely exists in hotels as a result of out-dated gender role ideals, which included much restriction for the roles of women. Thus, in many hotels in North America women largely dominate many positions including housekeeping and human resources. These narrowed career paths serve to discourage many women from pursuing a career in hospitality. There are positions in hotels that are based on historical gender roles and an upper-level management positions may not be compatible, as they might not have been designed with the specific needs of both genders in mind (Mooney & Ryan, 2008). Given this fact, the management tract of many women may seem fairly daunting and may lead to women remaining in lower-level positions or leaving the industry completely. For this reason organizations that wish to fully realize the potential

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION of their human capital, effort should be put forward to expand the presence of women into departments that traditionally have been male-dominated (Pinar, McCuddy, Birkan & Kozak, 2010, p. 79). This increases the gender diversity throughout the hotels different departments instead of having concentrated gender roles unevenly distributed through the organization. This can be achieved in a number of different ways but first requires an organization that recognizes the issue and is willing to collaborate and work

towards a solution. One possible method is that hospitality organizations should promote educational opportunities for women to expand and enhance their competencies for working in a variety of responsible positions (Pinar, McCuddy, Birkan & Kozak, 2010, p. 79). Addressing challenges in this manner is important because a major issue within occupational segmentation is that the department in which an employee is a part of, plays a large role in determining job offer decisions (Pinar, McCuddy, Birkan & Kozak, 2010). Presently, in many hotels, there exists gender imbalances by department and if one or more departments are getting regularly passed over in hiring decisions, there are large portions of the organization that are at a disadvantage. This finding implies that management should work towards more gender balance throughout all the departments because this would be most equitable and fair with regard to the hiring process. While there may be levels of occupational segregation in all different types of hotels, it increases proportionally with regard to the age of the workers and the size of the organization (Campos-Soria, Marchante-Mera & Ropero-Garcia, 2010). Large hotels are therefore facing a proportionally higher challenge in rectifying the gender imbalances in order to achieve increased organizational success. Occupational segregation in these large organizations should be given special attention in order to effectively monitor that

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION women do not get trapped in specific functional areas with little chance of promotion

(Campos-Soria, Marchante-Mera & Ropero-Garcia, 2010, p. 101). This process will work towards ensuring that diversity exists at all levels of the hospitality organization and every employee is given an equal opportunity to develop their careers. Additionally, specific occupational segregation patterns with North America may be different in other cultures throughout the world (Campos-Soria, Marchante-Mera & Ropero-Garcia, 2010). Therefore, large hotel companies need to be cognizant of these patterns and ensure proper support exists for women in whichever department they are disproportionally represented. Conclusion In todays globalized marketplace, women may still face significant challenges that affect their careers within the hospitality industry. There are a number of these challenges that exist in hotels but the research suggests that there are two issues that most pervasive. These include the idea of the glass ceiling and occupational segregation, and both represent substantial challenges that many hospitality organizations will have to adapt to in order to work towards a collaborative solution. The glass ceiling has been a prevalent issue within the industry for many years but the issue has evolved in many organizations from blatant sexism to a more systematic problem. In many organizations there still exists a glass ceiling simply because many positions are set up in such a way that there still are many barriers for women to exceed and thrive on the whole. Another important issue, especially within hotels, is occupational segregation because there are many departments that are gender imbalances and this has created historical standards that do not reflect gender diversity. This issue is tough for organizations because a shift

THE GLASS CEILING & OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION of culture can be difficult. However, the evidence suggests that organizations would be

amiss if this segregation is allowed to continue because many business metrics are shown to improve when women are given fair and equitable opportunities to succeed.

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References Campos-Soria, J. A., Marchante-Mera, A., & Ropero-Garca, M. A. (2011). Patterns of occupational segregation by gender in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(1), 91-102. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2010.07.001

Marco, R. (2012). Gender and economic performance: Evidence from the spanish hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31 (3), 981-989. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2011.12.002

Mooney, S., & Ryan, I. (2009). A woman's place in hotel management: Upstairs or downstairs? Gender in Management: An International Journal, 24 (3), 195-210.

Pinar, M., McCuddy, M. K., Birkan, I., & Kozak, M. (2011). Gender diversity in the hospitality industry: An empirical study in turkey. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30 (1), 73-81. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2010.06.007