As the hotel industry recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuilds its workforce, leaders are stressing the importance of diversity in hiring and prioritizing the advancement of Black employees.

According to a news release highlighting data from The Castell Project's Black Representation in Hospitality Leadership 2021 report, Black employees lost share of employment in the hospitality industry in 2020 and continue to be underrepresented "in spite of industry statements of support."

Websites of 801 companies were reviewed, and the study found that only 11% of the 7,243 people listed in jobs at the director level through CEO were Black compared to 16% in 2019, when 630 companies were examined.

"This indicates that advancement is not equitable for Black employees in the hospitality industry," the release states.

After a year of disruption caused by the pandemic and amid a labor crisis, the hospitality industry has an opportunity to build back with a diverse workforce, Peggy Berg, Castell Project chairwoman, said in the release.

“This is a time of remarkable opportunity, as virtually every company in the hospitality industry restructures at once. As McKinsey & Company reports, ‘diverse companies outperform industry peers over time, and the penalties are getting steeper for those lacking diversity.’ This is the hospitality industry’s rare chance to open opportunity to diverse employees and to rebuild equitably," she said.

To diversify the workforce, industry leaders will "need to be more accountable and choose to be accountable," said Tracy Prigmore, founder of TLT Solutions and She Has a Deal, which is an organization that helps women become hotel owners through education, networking and mentorship.

Providing more research and statistics on diversity similar to the Castell Project's report could help incentivize employers to hire more diverse candidates, she said.

"Innovation flows when you have diversity sitting at the table providing insights and making decisions that really do have an impact on your customers," she said. "When we show that there’s better performance results with the diversity of thought and experiences sitting at those leadership tables, then [companies] will be able to see it as value."

Thomas Penny, president of Donohoe Hospitality Services, agreed that there "needs to be a greater level of intentionality" in attracting Black employees to senior leadership positions.

He added that some Black mid-level managers who are considering leaving the industry might stay if they see "someone who looks like them in a position of senior leadership, and it may give them the confidence that if they stay in the business, things will come their way."

The hotel industry could also look to other industries for examples of proven success with hiring more diverse candidates, said Evens Charles, founder and managing principal of Frontier Development and Hospitality Group LLC.

For example, in 2003 the NFL adopted the Rooney Rule, which required teams with an open head coach position to interview at least one diverse candidate, he said.

"I can point to two of them that have won Super Bowls in the last 10 years or so," he said.

Programs within the industry have been created to promote people of diverse backgrounds, Penny said.

He said one initiative he's excited about is the Marriott Foundation's commitment of $20 million to start the Marriott-Sorenson Center for Hospitality Leadership at Howard University's School of Business.

"This initiative is bringing together some of our industry's brightest minds coupled with a rich history and legacy of our university to address an opportunity to provide a quality education to African Americans and others of diverse backgrounds," he said.

The program will bring "the network and the exposure and everything that's required to ensure that they have a pathway into senior leadership positions and they have the mentors and support along the way to help them advance into the C-suite as well as the ownership side of the business," he added.

Charles added that change starts with providing Black candidates opportunities to interview at higher positions and overcoming biases.

"A lot of times we find ourselves having to work harder because of the biases that have plagued our country historically," he said. "Speaking as an African American, we just feel like you have to open the forum in order to get looked at on an equal playing field with someone who is a non-minority."

Charles said as an employer he's not going to prejudge someone based on their ethnic background, but he realizes a person of color probably had to go through more to get to where they are. He added that he gets excited at opportunities to "work with or promote or to hire other African Americans."

"I am trying to equalize something that has been disproportionately disadvantaged toward a certain group, but outside of that, I wholeheartedly believe there's a significant amount of talent in the African American community," he said. "When I see it, I am probably way more open to providing an opportunity where other groups may walk in with some preconceived notion and it may be harder to get past a person's frame of mind to get certain opportunities."

Charles said opportunities for Blacks are especially lacking in his business on the investment manager side.

He said Washington, D.C., for example has a lot of blue-collar workers who are people of color contributing billions of dollars to pension funds, but "if you look at how many people of color are managing those investments, it's a fraction of a percentage."

"There are plenty of talented investment managers that could be granted opportunities to manage the trillions of trillions of dollars of pension funds and things of that nature that are available to investment managers that are primarily contributed by people of color," he said.

Prigmore said there's also a lack of Black owners in the industry, and once there are more Black people owning and developing hotels, "we'll see a change," she said.

"Blacks tend to understand and see the value of diversity, and therefore, if they are owning the companies who own hotels, then we’ll see greater diversity at the senior level," she said.

She cited RLJ Lodging Trust as an example of this.

RLJ was founded by Robert Johnson, "and if you look at his team, Leslie Hale is now CEO and the company is diverse across the spectrum, which is intentional," she said.

"You get people like Bob Johnson, like myself, we’re very conscious," she said. "I can’t compare myself to Bob Johnson … but the point is we know there are lots of Blacks who are talented and capable of getting the job done. By being a person of color, being a Black woman, I know the value of that talent."