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Women face plenty of challenges in building a career.

In this column, I'll address some common ones and provide some solutions.

Bias

Women often face gender bias and discrimination at hiring, including the unconscious biases that can affect women's hiring, promotion and overall career advancement.

Among the solutions, employers should create and enforce policies and procedures in recruitment, performance evaluations and promotions, make data-driven decisions and advertise roles through new channels.

Little Development

Lack of representation and leadership development — when there are few women in top leadership positions — can make it harder for other women to visualize themselves in those roles and for organizations to create a pipeline of female leaders.

The solution requires women to identify their ideal future role and then go find women that have made it there so they could become examples. The hospitality industry has some excellent guidance from recognized leaders, such as:

There has been a revolution around communities that support women and provide empowering and learning resources. Consider these organizations as leaders for promoting women in hospitality:

Compensation

Women still earn less than men on average, and this gap is even wider for women of color. Ensuring equal pay and compensation for women is crucial to their inclusion and advancement in the workplace.

Try conducting a gender pay/benefit gap analysis to identify any gender-based disparities and take steps to address them. Perhaps all associations listed above could work on a benchmark together to provide context and guidance. Then take some action steps to put new policies into place.

Mentors

Mentorship and sponsorship should exist to provide guidance, support and opportunities for career advancement.

The associations above provide networking and mentorship opportunities as part of their regular programs. Here are some others:

A Healthy Balance

Work-life balance with personal responsibilities is a must for women who work.

Possible solutions include remote work and flexible hours, providing parental leave — regardless of gender — and family-friendly policies such as child/elderly care assistance.

Everyone Is Different

Intersectionality means we need to recognize that women have different experiences and face different challenges.

Take steps to offer training and education on diversity issues to help employees and leaders of any gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status and other factors, such as culture or background, to understand and address the challenges facing women and other underrepresented groups. This has to be a global training across all organizations.

An Inclusive Culture

Creating a culture that values diversity, equity, and inclusion is important for women to feel included and supported in the workplace. This includes promoting inclusive behaviors and creating opportunities for diverse voices to be heard.

Promote a culture of inclusion and respect and hold employees and leaders accountable. There are certain behaviors that should be simply not acceptable.

Fighting Stereotypes

There may be societal expectations and stereotypes that women should prioritize family and the home over their careers, which can limit their ambition and opportunities for advancement.

Be sure to regularly assess progress toward gender parity and adjust policies and practices as needed to address any areas of concern or improvement.

*This article was originally publised on Hotel News Now.

About The Hotels Network

The Hotels Network is an innovative technology company working with over 19,000 hotels around the globe. Boasting an international team of specialists with deep expertise in hospitality, product design and consumer marketing, the company offers clients a full-stack growth platform to power their direct channel. By leveraging a series of integrated tools and analytics, hotel brands can attract, engage and convert guests throughout the user journey.

In addition to price comparison, reviews summary and a full suite of personalization options, THN's Predictive Personalization product harnesses machine learning techniques to predict user behavior and then automatically personalizes both the message and the offer for each user. The company's recent innovation, BenchDirect, is the first benchmarking product for the direct channel, providing hotels with never-before-seen competitive data.

THN is proud to have been recognized for the company's product innovations, rapid growth, and unique workplace culture, most recently winning the Best Direct Booking Tool for 2023 in the prestigious HotelTechAwards.

For more information about THN, visit https://thehotelsnetwork.com/en or contact [email protected].