A few weeks ago, we and Nation’s Restaurant News asked, why aren’t there more women in leadership? “It is a conversation worth having since, despite these promises made a few years back, only 38% of restaurant leadership is female compared to 65% female workers on the frontline,” we wrote in our previous blog post on the subject.
More recently, Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) has more to add to the discussion, and takes a look at what’s been happening with the Women’s Hospitality Initiative (WHI), a non-profit organized in 2020 to “accelerate women leaders in the hospitality industry.”
The story begins with Elizabeth Blau, a James Beard Award nominee whose years of experience “includes Buddy V’s Ristorante [in Las Vegas], Crown Block [in Las Vegas and Dallas], Honey Salt [in Las Vegas], and more, with additional openings on the horizon.” She was surprised to discover that only “less than 7% of women ever advance to an executive chef or restaurant owner role, even though women make up over 50% of enrollees at hospitality and culinary schools,” as the NRN article states.
These shocking statistics are where the Women’s Hospitality Initiative comes in, seeking to close these outdated gender gaps in the restaurant and hospitality industries. In 2020, Blau “collaborated with other women she knew in the industry – including Mary Choi Kelly from MCK Leadership and Jolene Mannina from Secret Burger – and they came up with the idea to form the Women’s Hospitality Initiative.”
One of the primary functions of the initiative is to establish a communicative system of balance, monitoring and connecting what’s happening with gender roles within the industry. “The group reached out to various organizations that help women in the industry, including the Women’s Foodservice Forum, to make sure what they were creating was aggregative to the industry and went from there.”
This became especially important in 2020, when pandemic-related shut-downs forced many women out of their careers to care for children and aging parents, exacerbating what was already an issue of disparity in the industry. “The restaurant industry has typically presented even more challenges when it comes to parental flexibility, given off-hour and weekend shifts. All of this inspired the WHI to focus heavily on education,” NRN acknowledged.
So, the Women’s Hospitality Initiative began work creating programs and networking opportunities for women currently in the restaurant and hospitality industry and to tackle the gender discrepancy in the industry from the inside out. They have worked with major two- and four-year post-secondary colleges and universities and the National Restaurant Association to develop curriculum for students looking for industry-related careers, hoping that a revised education at the ground floor will mean changes in the industry’s future. Blau is proud of the programs and educational systems the Women’s Hospitality Industry has been able to implement, but she wants to take the programming further.
“The past three years has been incredibly devastating for our business and watching so many colleagues leave or lose their business,” she told NRN. “We think there is a need and are ready now for the next phase, which is to morph more into mentoring. Mentoring is so crucial in this industry – I know it was in my journey – and it will help us focus on achieving measurable change.”
Richard Weil, principal and owner of National Restaurant Consultants, has a deep appreciation for the WHI. “The food service and hospitality industry must continue to evolve to promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and that is why our consulting team is active with multiple organizations that support and sponsor these industry initiatives.”
National Restaurant Consultants is proud to support gender-equality initiatives and are happy to work alongside many influential women in the industry. To learn more about the Women’s Hospitality Initiative, visit their website.