Remember those early pandemic days when politicians and business leaders alike spoke of not wasting the opportunity of a crisis and using the lockdown to build a fairer, more equitable and environmentally inclusive society?
Well, how has that gone for our sector, the hospitality industry?
Undoubtedly, the hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic, both in terms of damage to business and the workforce, with some 62 million sector layoffs occurring worldwide.
But with the pandemic tide going out, the sector has had revealed its dirty linen: For the frontline worker, hospitality is not a particularly good industry to work in, much less to forge a viable long-term career.
Post-pandemic, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market has sent a clear message: People don’t wish to work in the sector on the historical terms and conditions offered.
It does not help that the hospitable standard of many guests has also declined in line with the standards of our political and civil discourse. It is today a hard, unappreciated job serving people —something which not everyone has the personality character, tolerance and fortitude to do.
Our industry likes to waft platitudes about how hospitality makes up 10% of global employment and gross domestic product, about the inherent grace and courtesy of hospitality, how it opens people’s minds to new experiences and cultures and is arguably the best value-for-money “soft”-foreign-power investment a country can make — one you get paid to do.
All of this is indeed true, but what about for the frontline staff who make this all happen?
As gainful long-term employment, how hospitable is the industry in enabling them to have a rewarding career and earn a decent living?
In many countries — particularly the developed ones — this is a “structurally dysfunctional” industry in that we cannot make the numbers work by employing a local workforce.
We engage in “wage arbitrage” by sourcing immigrant workers from poorer countries to produce our local product. In many countries, we then house them in labor camps — of a substantially lower-star rating than the hotels where they work — because their compensation is insufficient to afford local housing.
That these workers in many cases perform better and with more skill, style and presence than what we might source locally says something about the declining levels of culture and fairness in our societies.
It is indeed a cultural thing.
Executives give lip service to environmental, social and governance values while pursuing dogmatic acceptance of shareholder value and cost-cutting above all else, including the state of the workforce. Really, companies are just treating employees as bodies to fill positions rather than being essential contributors in producing the product.
When did it become acceptable that a 40-hour workweek cannot provide a sustainable standard of living? But our industry has readily embraced this.
Rather belatedly, many hotel-operator CEOs have acknowledged that the industry has failed its workers in terms of pay, working conditions, training and long-term career opportunities.
Such admission appreciated and self-acknowledged is the first step in recovery from any malaise.
But think about that. You lead a highly labor-intensive industry that is focused on people and treating them hospitably, and it takes a crisis — or more likely workers departing the workplace with their feet — to recognize that you have historically taken your workers for granted and treated them poorly. That is a pretty material dereliction of duty. Worthy of at least the offer of resignation? Have we heard any of that though?
Here is another example of indifference I have experienced from industry higher-ups.
I recall a senior consulting executive lamenting introduction and compliance with “living wage” legislation in the sector.
Just think about that for a second. Complaining about paying your people a living wage. Ask yourself if you want to work in an industry that resists paying its workers a living wage — enabling them to be not rich but merely economically sustainable.
Then, on the day of the World Travel & Tourism Council’s 2021 Global Summit, the New York Times reported a major hotel brand CEO’s 2020 compensation as $55 million.
This was reassuringly corrected by the company’s public-relations department as being a more reasonable $30 million, with the rest being “contingent” stock options.
One need not raise the ethics/morality of this juxtaposed against millions of industry job losses — “Res ipsa loquitur,” as they say in the legal profession.
What we should ask: Is this an efficient use of corporate assets?
We can outsource our workplace disparity by engaging third-party providers — often housekeeping and other low paid positions, typically comprised of immigrant single mothers. That pretty much ensures even lower wages and worse working conditions and accountability.
That doesn’t solve the problem, but it places the problem off the books and out of mind.
Our industry is able to camouflage many less-hospitable work conditions in the stylish appearance of our work surroundings.
There is of course nothing wrong with cost-cutting exercises, improving staff efficiencies through cross training, multitasking and similar exercises improving workplace productivity.
In theory at least, everyone should win. But to always try and balance the books by pressing on the weakest link of your line employees is hardly visionary executive decision-making. Shortsightedly, it has come back to bite the sector with workers no longer finding attractive the otherwise clean, industrially safe and modern work environment of hospitality.
Build back better should not be a doubling down on disparities as the post-pandemic reality seems to have delivered.
Our industry, given its less-than-stellar track record, requires a major revamp in how it values and treats its workers and the compensation, career development and work-life balance it provides.
That is only hospitable.
Scott Antel is a lawyer specializing in hotels and hospitality in emerging, international markets. With more than 25 years of experience, he has advised owners, developers and international operators in the Middle East, Russia/CIS, Africa, Turkey, the Baltics and the Caribbean.
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