Gender Discrimination in Hotel Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Gender Discrimination in Hotel Industry - Essay Example A hotel provides a carefree atmosphere for its customers. It is a very sociable industry; its employees have a very high exposure to the customers. Looking at its contribution to the economy we can say that it is one of the most fast growing and biggest industries of the world.. Almost 10% of the gross national product is due to this hotel industry. In 2005, it gave revenue of almost 27 billion. After 2000 there was an increase of almost 4.5% in the hotel sector. In 2004, it gave almost 11.5 billion revenue. This huge increase shows that it is one of the fastest growing industries. In 2002, there were almost 280 000 employees in almost 40 000 establishments. London is the hub of hotel establishments in United Kingdom (Data Monitor, n.p, 2005; Hotel Research, n.p. 2006). In recent years we can notice that the hotel sector has been growing very fast. The main reasons for this are mergers and acquisitions. Sheraton Park Tower Hotel, Marriott London Park Lane, The London Hilton on Park Lane, Intercontinental etc are all five star hotels in the UK. Though we can see that there are many big names in this sector of the hospitality industry, but there is almost nothing being done in case of human resource management. Employment opportunities in the hospitality profession abound all over the world. In the majority of West European countries women predominate in the hotel staff but unfortunately, only a small number of women are in management positions. Though it might provide employment to many individuals but certainly does not provide equal opportunities to the women. A research was done by Purcell which revealed that women in the five star hotel sector of United Kingdom are horizontally segregated into particular jobs while being vertically segregated (Purcell, 18, 1996). Many researches have investigated the problem of equality rights and gender prejudices in the workplace. Many claim that because of the established dominance of males in the vast number of areas of public life, women are often placed in a disadvantaged position from the very beginning; Recruitment is considered to be one of the major issues in equal opportunities for women. However, statistical data shows a considerable increase in the percentage of women who are engaged in some kind of professional work. This increase has been in the lower level of the hierarchy, but as we go up we will notice lesser and lesser number of females. The Five star hotel sector of the hotel industry has conventional employment model. It has a linear path of progression (Boaxall & Purcell, 47-70, 2003). The top four positions in a five star hotel are General Manager (GM), Financial Director, Director of Sales and marketing (DSM) and Food and Beverages Manager (FBM). The general manager has the top most positions and other positions are mere steps of getting to the top. Other positions like house keeping and human resource are usually confined to women. These positions are less attractive to men as they usually have lesser pay. So, women are confined to these low paying jobs. It has also been investigated whether the level of education has any effect on this discrimination. It was found that female hospitality graduates were at least three

A working zone versus a distracting zone Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A working zone versus a distracting zone - Essay Example I thought that I had done pretty well up till then, when I begand attending English 848 classes at the College of San Mateo. That was when I discovered, through the pie chart I had drawn up for my weekly activities in class, that I was actually spending a great deal of time procrastinating. This discovery led me to wonder as to what was causing me to procrastinate and what else I could do in order to use my time more effectively. It was around this same time that I began reading the book â€Å"Distracted† by Maggie Jackson. In the book Ms. Jackson writes; â€Å"attention is a process of taking in, sorting and shaping, planning, and regulates one’s impulses, which carries us towards our highest goals (24)†. It was the perfect accompaniement to my parents own beliefs about planning daily schedules in order to use time more efficiently. So I began to look to my past in order to explain why I was procrastinating in the present. I was led to the discovery that I spent too much time in my room, lying in bed either procrastinating or just being distracted. That was the main reason that I was now far from being an ideal student. Therefore, I needed to overcome this shortcoming somehow. Perhaps by spending more time at school studying. However, looking back on my planning methods, I found that I was mainly to blame when it came to falling short of performing my scheduled activities. Due to the distractions caused by my always wanting to relax in bed, I failed to develop my ability to concentrate on my planned tasks. Professor Christof Koch, an American neuroscientist known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness, defines attention as â€Å"the ability to concentrate on a particular stimulus, event, or thought while excluding competing stimuli.† Therefore, I needed to learn to stop distracting myself by going to bed everytime I had a task on hand. Looking back on my childhood experiences I knew that I did not always procrastinate in bed. In fact, I disliked my classmates and friends who spent more time in bed sleeping or relaxing when they could be doing more productive things with their time. Tracing back to my high school years, I could almost pinpoint the exact moment when I became what I despised the most. When I was in my senior year of high school, my parents and I had already set our sights on my coming to America to attend university studies at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Since we wanted to ensure my acceptance to our university of choice, my parents developed a rigorous academic schedule for me. One that constantly left me physically and mentally exhausted every day. In an effort to help my body recover, I began to extend my leisure and sleeping time. I now realize that giving in to the whims and caprices of my body was the wrong thing for me to have done. My approach was a typical way of shifting stress on a new event. According to Amisha Padnani, an author of New York Times, c ites Dr. Teresa Lesiuk, an assistant professor in the music therapy program at the University of Miami, â€Å"When you’re stressed, you might make a decision more hastily; you have a very narrow focus of attention.† In this case, I chose relaxation time on my bed to shift my attention from the rigorous schedule that I had agreed to fulfill in the first place. But I began to enjoy relaxing to much and began to lose sight of my main goal, acceptance into UCLA. Needless to say, my lack of focus and other missteps resulted in my denial by UCLA. Having realized