Jackie Moody-McNamara, Founder of Brilliant Women and Turn-the-key Ltd and John Higgins, Research Fellow at FT Award winning Gameshift Leadership Consultancy, have co-authored a new, independent report into changing the balance of gender power for the good of the hospitality industry and its customers. The report, ‘How to Unlock Potential and Create a Talented Pipeline of Senior Women Leaders in the Hospitality Industry’, launches today and gauges the scale and scope of the challenge of ensuring equality across the workforce. It identifies a roadmap for change as well as highlighting, and building upon the positive developments that are already underway.

The 35-page report is based on three months of confidential interviews with 32 women and men, who are rising stars from across the hospitality industry, sharing actual experiences and insights from over 35 businesses from all parts of the sector. The framing questions focused on: What’s the business case for having more women at senior levels in the hospitality industry? What are the things that enable women to move up the ranks? What are the things that get in the way? The research identified seven themes that stood out as barriers to overcome. These included the consensus that there’s ‘a boys club’, that women are frequently ‘undervalued’ and ‘undermined’, that ‘having kids derails careers’ and that people ‘need to believe the business case for gender, and other, diversity at senior levels.’

Jackie Moody-McNamara explained: “Women are gaining the confidence and ambition to succeed, I liken it to a second coming, grabbing all they’ve learned and deciding enough is enough, pushing for the recognition they deserve – seeking promotion is the next phase of their career. And if we can crack it for women, we’ll be well on the way to levelling the playing field for every group currently not being given the chances they deserve.”

The research, carried out in 2019, identified seven critical success factors (CSFs) that need to be worked on to develop a pipeline of senior women leaders, including; ‘silence endorses the status quo’, ‘seek out the unintended bias’ and ‘don’t treat family life as unexpected noise.’

Its conclusions highlighted that a lack of diversity is alive in many workplaces. Where it is most persistent it is connected to unexamined and unchallenged habits of mind which sustain the status quo, preserve inflexible working practices and don’t question why women don’t get ahead.

John Higgins explained: “I’ve been involved in this area of research for around 20 years and arrived with informed ignorance; I know about patterns of what silences people and what enables people to speak up, but I know very little about the sector itself, which meant it was all new and fresh for me.” John added: “What I loved is where you heard about things going well, where women were bubbling up and people were putting in place the necessary long-term planning and flexibility. The thing that made my heart just drop was the persistence of ‘the boys club’ and how people who have only seen the world from their perspective are so advantaged. They think they’ve achieved everything through their own brilliance and recruit in their own image. They can’t see how the dice are loaded in their favour and don’t see that they are sustaining a deeply biased game… meanwhile their customers just don’t look like them, which in the long run will be useless for the customers.”

The findings showed that whilst there are some notable exceptions, there are large areas of the industry where there are simply not enough women coming through the ranks to deliver the numbers that will achieve a good gender mix. It is also noticeable that there are fewer women coming up though the operations route and they are falling away as they progress.

Jackie Moody-McNamara said: “Positively there are green shoots all over the place. What is not lacking are examples of innovative practice being put in place that allow for people (especially women) to step outside the strait-jacket of taken-for-granted, one size fits all, career paths, work schedules and ways of doing things. Not all businesses, however, are making the same effort and the gaps between them are plain to see.”

Prior to carrying out the research Jackie Moody-McNamara found herself working with a lot of women who felt frustrated, misunderstood and overlooked. She explains: “They were delivering stretching results but their careers were stalling while the men around them were flying high.” Jackie added: “To change the balance of power for the good of the industry and its customers it’s necessary for the industry to take an honest look in the mirror and see how things really are – not how people wish they were. This research is a positive step towards making the changes at board room level.”

Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UK Hospitality, who sponsored the report stated: “The lack of female representation at senior levels is widespread and the country, as a whole, must do better. Hospitality must also play its part and work harder. With resources such as this we have a means, and no excuse, to make this change.”

 Philippa Hardman, Co-Founder of GameShift said: “Companies can’t properly manage risk or genuinely re-invent the future without a rich diversity of talent in their teams at every level, particularly in the executive team. We threw our effort behind this research because we want to see women flourishing in their careers, and we want to see their companies being better for it. This is excellent research, and we want it to be read in every boardroom.”