One of the biggest global industries and the hub of globalization in international trade is the hospitality sector. With a wide range of services and employment opportunities across numerous industries, it is currently the largest employer in the world. The industry's most important segment is the food and beverage selection, which is present in all major hotels and eateries. Entertainment and lodging are the two main segments of the sector. Clubs and bars make up the entertainment industry, whereas inns, homes, resorts, campgrounds, hostels, and hotels are among the many types of lodging (Paul, 2105). Another major part of the hospitality industry is tourism that entails commercial activities such as sightseeing and travel agencies. The industry is a great source of revenue for many economies all over the world. Despite this, the industry is faced with many challenges due to its complex nature of management and the constant state of change in consumer needs and preferences. These issues include, cost of labor and operating costs, increased competition, issues regarding technology, integration and globalization, increased guest sophistication and managing cultural diversity.
The hospitality industry is very labor intensive and the demand for an ethnically diverse workforce has been on a constant increase over the past few years ( Michael and Shruti, 2013). Although employing a diverse workforce has its benefits, doing so comes with many challenges for the sector and this has become one of the major issues of concern in many countries globally. The paper will discuss the various challenges of employing an ethnically diverse workforce in a family owned hotel business. Alternative solutions to the problem will be discussed and practical implications of the issue will be offered. The paper will further suggest solutions for future Improvements and dealing with the problem.
This paper will further tackle diversity and multiculturalism as one of the major issues facing the industry, particularly a family owned hotel. Family owned restaurants face many challenges as they go through the various stages of growth and expansion. Such issues include the fact that family problems will tend to affect business and the presence of informality due to the lack of clear policies and strategies in place (Paul, 2015). The issue of cultural diversity in family owned restaurants has grown increasingly over the last twenty years due to the fact that these businesses are prone to employing people from the same cultural background, particularly family members.
Cultural Diversity
Diversity entails differences in culture, gender, age, ethnicity, social background, education, religion, sexual orientation, skills and disability among people who work together for the purpose of attaining a common goal. There are various secondary and primary differences that can be used to distinguish people in the workforce. Primary differences include factors that define personality and that can easily be identified by individuals. Such include age, gender and race. On the other hand, secondary diversity involves factors like religion, educational background and class. These are factors that cannot easily be established physically (Choi, Kwon and Kim, 2013). Globalization has resulted in more interactions among people from diverse backgrounds and hence many industries have become more diversified so as to become competitive. Managers need to take into consideration of the fact that the workplace structure is changing and evolving and adapt the various skills necessary to deal with the challenging issue of diversity. Today, diversity has become a critical determinant of success in organizations due to the changing era in which flexibility is highly valued.
Diversity has had a great impact in many industries around the globe and the hospitality industry is the most affected by this issue as managers are faced with the problem of managing effective interactions between employees and people from different parts of the world. These guests and clients have varying needs and tastes and will want to be served based on what they are used to back in their homes. The issue of effectively communicating with guests from all over the world has become a major concern due to the differences in backgrounds and ethnicity. Managing diversity in hospitality has become a great force influencing competition in the industry and managers should understand that effectively managing a diverse workforce is more than just acknowledging differences in people. It entails training workers on how to embrace each other’s cultures and learning to serve people with different languages, attitudes and beliefs (Veera, 2012).
Globalization has facilitated more hotels and restaurants to realize that they are not only competing at the local level, but with other hotels in all parts of the globe. As globalization has become a major trend in the hospitality sector, the need to employ a diverse workforce has been on the rise as this has become a great determinant of competitiveness among many businesses. Today, more and more organizations in the hospitality industry have put in place measures to deal with the issue of cultural diversity, including offering language training programs to deal with communication barriers and other corporate diversity programs.
Research related to cultural diversity
Over the past twenty years, the issue of diversity in hospitality industry has attracted the attention of many scholars and researchers alike. According to Clarke (2007), globalization has resulted in cultural diversity in many industries all over the world and the hospitality industry is the most affected due to its multicultural nature and dealing with people from different backgrounds and countries. In the United States alone, more than 50 million people from all over the world visit annually and these people are hosted by the various sectors of the hospitality industry. Managing workplace diversity is a major issue and concern facing many hoteliers and accommodation facilities worldwide. Moreover, a family owned restaurant is affected by diversity the most since it is locally owned and employing people from different parts of the world can become quite a challenge due to the changes in the existing processes and structures.
Kunze, in 2011 studied the extent to which diversity has affected the industry and the results were that cultural diversity has both opportunities and challenges and it is up to managers to make use of the benefits and minimize the challenges that come with diversity. One major benefit that diversity in the sector brings is the fact that it is used to increase an organization’s competitiveness in today’s highly changing environment. Since the hotel industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world, the need to employ a diverse workforce is on the rise, as customers will judge an organization based on its embracement of ethnicity. Companies in this industry have to serve a variety of customers who come from all parts of the world and who have varying needs and tastes (Paul, 2015).The ability of organizations to discover these customer expectations is a great factor influencing competitiveness. For instance, employing African workers in Indian or USA hotels increases the chances of diversifying products to suit different areas and hence attracting more clients from Africa. Managing cultural diversity successfully increases a company’s competitiveness by increasing its service and product quality.
Another benefit associated with diversity is building organizational images. Organizations in the industry should focus on recruiting more employees from diverse areas especially the minority groups that are not well represented. Today, customers are keener on purchasing from ethically responsible organizations and cultural diversity is regarded a form of ethical responsibility. This will build an organization’s image and attract more customers from all parts of the globe. Managing cultural diversity will make employees from diverse cultures to feel appreciated and will end up performing to their level best (Kunze, 2011).
Diversity results in stimulation of new innovations among the employees since workers from different background have different ideas experience. The importance of as diverse workforce cannot be underestimated. Each member of the workforce has his own skills and capabilities. The hospitality industry involves serving different dishes to people and using a diverse workforce will result in a variety of meals that can be served to people from all parts of the world. For instance, a big international hotel is expected to serve meals from different countries such as Spanish, French and Chinese dishes. Having workers from these countries will help prepare these meals due to their experience. Pooling of these ideas and innovations from diverse workforce will result in more creativity and new ways of doing business among the workforce. Employers should understand and employ all kinds of skills from people and take advantage of the benefits brought about by differences among workers (Veera, 2012).
Challenges of diversity in family owned restaurants
The various challenges of ethnically diverse workforce or dealing with clients from different backgrounds include communication problems such as lack of English fluency, intercultural issues, discrimination and operational problems. These challenges include:
Communication problems
One of the major challenges that come with employing a diverse workforce is the difference in communication and inability to understand each other fluently. Diversity entails employing people from different backgrounds, races, ages, gender and languages and this can cause a problem in communication. This challenge does not only involve language barriers, but also differences in interpreting signs such as body language. Another difficulty in communication arises from difference in cultural expectations as different cultures have different beliefs and customs and draw different expectations. For instance, different actions will draw different reactions from different people, whether negative or positive. Some actions are considered inappropriate in certain cultures while in some, they are the norm. If certain actions from different cultures are overlooked, there may be overwhelming damage arising from miscommunication. In some places, serving pork or beef is considered a sin as these animals are considered holy. If people from such cultures go to a place where these foods are served, it will result in miscommunication that may lead to conflicts.
Failure to manage conflicts
Presence of different cultural backgrounds in hotel organizations is likely to result in conflicts as people derive different meanings and interpretations from different cultural actions. A family owned restaurant will be affected the most by intercultural conflicts since there will be a dominant group in the organization, comprised of close friends and family members. it takes a lot of skills for the management to successfully manage conflicts in organizations since they will be inevitable as long as the workforce is composed of diverse cultures. Conflicts regarding religion, gender, age or race can be difficult to manage and this has become an issue in family owned restaurants.
Group hegemony
Group hegemony refers to the dominance of a certain cultural group over the others in the workplace. This results in discrimination of minority groups, where colleagues from some cultures do not have a say and their opinions not taken into consideration. Professionals from a minority group may feel uncomfortable airing their ideas in the presence of a diverse brain power in the organization work place. Hegemony leads to tension between different cultural groups and the minority cultures my find the need to assimilate unwillingly to the dominant cultures.
Issues of discrimination
Discrimination entails treating some people in an unfavorable manner because they share a difference in cultural background or opinions. It is human nature for people to want to be with their own kind as this creates a feeling of social belonging. People take note of differences in others and tend to be with those they share similarities with as they use this basis to strengthen their community or ethnic group in the work place. Although discriminating against people based on their culture, race or background is prohibited by law, it is still major issue of concern in the hospitality industry due to the fact that it accommodates people from all over the world.
Failure to expand globally
Family owned restaurants may tend to employ only form close friends and family relations and from the local community. This is a major challenge since the hospitality industry today is faced with the constant need to expand into many countries as a way of attaining a competitive edge. Failure to embrace diverse cultures in family owned restaurants will result in lack of growth and development and in the long run, competition from other established global restaurants my force them out of business. The lack of global expansion is caused by failure to accommodate different communities from different cultural background. Another reason for this is the fact that these hotels are used to being run by the same people from the same community and expanding to other foreign places becomes challenging due to the issue of being managed by people who do not share the same cultural background.
Interview with a manager of a family owned restaurant
To gather further information and research on the issue of diversity in the hospitality industry, an interview with a manager of a family owned restaurant was done to gauge the extent to which diversity has affected this particular sector in the industry. A hotel manager is the most appropriate candidate to interview due to the many years of skills in the business. The interview was conducted in person.
Interviewer: What drew you to the hospitality industry?
Interviewee: the hospitality industry has huge potential for growth and one of the fastest growing industries in the world. It has a wide variety of sectors to focus on which all bring a significant amount of revenue.
Interviewer: How many years have you been in the industry?
Interviewee: I have been in the hotel business for twenty three years. I started off as an intern in 2001 in a huge restaurant. I was then employed to work in a family owned business, where I worked for ten years. Promotion after promotion later, I am now the manager of one of the best restaurants in town.
Interviewer: What are main issues facing the industry, especially the family owned business sector?
Interviewee: family owned restaurants face many challenges especially competition from large and established firms. Other challenges include lack of a wide finance base, cultural diversity among the workforce causing problems such as language barriers and increased guest sophistication.
Interviewer: How does the issue of cultural diversity impact your organization?
Interviewee: How do you deal with the challenge of having a diverse workforce? We have implemented a training system that includes language training. This training is conducted every month to help the workforce learn how to deal with people from different backgrounds. The training is also aimed at targeting new guests from all over the world to make them feel at home. We have also updated our recruitment and hiring system to be fair and equal to all those willing to work in our hotel.
Interviewer: What benefits has your organization experienced from diversifying the workforce?
Interviewee: We have had more customers over the last couple of years mostly due to mixing a variety of dishes from different cultures. The revenues have also gone up and we are actually competing with the best in this industry.
Criteria to evaluate alternatives
To select the best alternative solution, the options criteria matrix will be used so as to come up with the best strategic alternative. The issue of cultural diversity in family owned restaurants can be solved using various alternative solutions which include global expansion, fairness and equal employment opportunities and diversity training management programs. The Options Matrix Tool (OMT) is a strategy that evaluates decision strategies by allowing managers to list and weigh different alternatives and attach weigh to each decision and finally rate them to see which will have more weight (Cathy, 2013).
Due to the competitiveness of the hospitality industry, the criteria used will be quality, costs of implementation and employee motivation. These criteria will address workforce diversity by enhancing competitiveness of family owned businesses. Weights will then be assigned to each of these criteria and the scores will be rated to come up with the best alternative solution to deal with the issue of diversity.
Possible alternative solutions
Family owned restaurants are the most affected by the issue of cultural diversity mostly due to the rise in globalization of restaurants and the need to maintain the family business. The issue of cultural diversity and discrimination in family owned businesses can be solved by coming up with alternative ways to deal with the challenges of discrimination, communication problems, group hegemony and conflict resolution. The challenges are acknowledged to exist and various approaches and processes should be put in place to effectively manage cultural diversity (Choi and Kwon, 2013). The alternative solutions include diversity management training programs, expansion into unexploited market segments, building employee relationship management systems and overcoming cultural stereotypes by practicing fairness. Language training programs should also be put in place to enable people to learn different languages and embrace diverse cultures.
Diversity management training programs
Family owned restaurants should put training programs on cultural diversity so as enable the workforce to become sensitive to other people’s cultures. These businesses are faced with stiff competition from other hotels and putting a diversity training program in place will help them achieve competitiveness in the industry (Clarke, 2007). Initiating a diversity training management program in organizations will be useful for managers to interact with different cultures and appreciate their values. Important skills and knowledge will be learnt from the training and knowledge on different cultures will be gained. In fact, diversity training program will help overcome the fear of employing people from other cultures in family owned hotel and it will help them appreciate that with diversity comes more knowledge, skills and capabilities. Employees will be able to show more respect to other people and work together as a team for the overall wellbeing of the organization.
Over the years, many organizations in the hospitality industry have found the need to initiate diversity training management programs in their businesses and structures as way to connect with more people from a variety of cultures. Family owned restaurants should also follow this trend to enhance their competitiveness in the highly dynamic hospitality industry (Gong, 2008).
Expansion into foreign markets
Another alternative to dealing with and managing the issue of cultural diversity is to expand into foreign markets with different cultures and employing persons from all over the world. Doing so will attract employees for the foreign country to work in your organization and this will encourage the workforce to assimilate other cultures into the team. Family owned restaurants should aim at expanding into unexploited territories where there are people from diverse background. Doing so will not only build the image of the organization, but will also attract more and more customers from different parts of the world into the company. Expansion into foreign markets is a way of showing appreciation of other people’s cultures and therefore diversifying the business and the workforce. Expansion into other global areas will also facilitate the diversification of products and services offered by an organization to suit a variety of customer tastes and preferences based on where they are coming from (Gong, 2008).
Fairness and equal employment opportunities
Another alternative to overcoming challenges imposed by cultural diversity entails offering equal employment opportunities and treating all workers fairly regardless of where they come from. All stereotypes such as ethnocentrism should be overcome and done away with. Ethnocentrism refers to the belief that a certain culture is superior to the other. In this day and age, people from all over the world are embracing fairness and equal employment opportunities and are using this as basis to select the restaurants they will be served in. Improving fairness and equal opportunities should be enhanced by recognizing that all people are equal, including the minority groups in the organization (Cathy, 2013). Fairness should be also facilitated during the hiring process by rationalizing job application requirements. The screening tools during the hiring process should be culturally sensitive to prevent and bias in culture
Best alternative solution
The issue of diversity in family owned restaurant can be addressed choosing from three alternatives that will see the organization improve its competitiveness while at the same time embracing diversity to increase its revenues. After evaluating the results based on the weights assigned to each criterion, the best solution to deal with the problem will be to initiate diversity training management programs. Although this solution is highly to incur huge costs, it will make employees and management embrace diversity and global expansion will be made possible. Training on diversity will reduce problems such as miscommunication and discrimination and all cultures will be embraced. In the long run, diversity training management program will result in high performance and improve organizations competitiveness.
Leadership implementation plan
Having an effective leadership plan in a family owned restaurant will make the organization stand out in the highly volatile hospitality industry. A leadership plan helps the organization to assess its strengths and weaknesses and deal with the major issues facing the business. The best alternative solution selected is implementation of a diversity training program. The program will be implemented in the following stages:
Initiating a diversity training
This will be done by identifying all the stakeholders affected by the program and conducting interviews to see who will be attending the program. All employees should be informed of the program and made aware of the importance the training will have in managing diversity effectively. Everyone should be included in the training and the trainer selected should have the various skills and capabilities necessary to see the training through. The dates for the training should be set and employees should be informed on the importance of attending the training program.
Defining goals and objectives
The goals of the training should be fully defined and clearly interpreted. Participants should be made aware of what the expectations for the training will be and proper communication channels to communicate should be used. Some objectives include recognizing cultural differences and treating everyone equally and fairly by appreciating outputs from all parties involved (Cathy, 2013).
Feedback and evaluation
The last step is to get feedback from the training and monitoring performance. The results should be evaluated to find out whether intended goals have been met. The training should be a continuous process that should be assimilated in all aspects of the organization.
Summary
This paper has looked at cultural diversity as one of the major issues affecting the hospitality industry, particularly family owned restaurants. Cultural diversity is an important issue affecting the industry and the various challenges it brings can be dealt with by training the workforce and management to embrace all cultures. The issue of diversity has been facilitated by globalization, which is a rising trend in the hospitality industry (HTrends, 2017). Although diversity in the workplace has its challenges, there are many benefits that it can bring and these should be fully embraced. These challenges have been facilitated by the rising demand for hotels to employ an ethnically diverse workforce. Diversity is an issue that many hoteliers are trying to solve and managers in the industry are constantly coming up with ways to effectively manage the issue of diversity (Cathy, 2013). Management in the hospitality industry is aware that the issue of diversity cannot be avoided and has to be fully embraced since the business environment and customer expectations are changing at a significant rate. Family owned restaurants are the greatest affected by the issue of cultural diversity due to their informal nature of employing from mostly close friends and family and these businesses should embrace the benefits and opportunities gained in having a diverse workforce.
References
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