Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the executive ranks has long been a challenge for the hotel industry. To be sure, there are plenty of minorities and women working in lower-level jobs, such as housekeepers, valets and doormen, but the concept of moving up the ladder of success hasn’t come to fruition for this group, save for a few instances.
How does that change? Have the DEI initiatives put in place by many companies started working? Or, will it be up to those already in high-ranking positions to step up and make things happen?
The panel looks on as NABHOOD’s Andy Ingraham (second from left) speaks during the session.
During a recent Hotel Business executive roundtable, “DEI: Checking Boxes Isn’t the Answer,” hosted and sponsored by Valley Forge Fabrics (VFF) at its Fort Lauderdale, FL, headquarters, industry executives offered their opinions as to why the industry struggles to attract minority applicants, and shared their thoughts on best practices to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.
Moderated by Christina Trauthwein, VP, content & partnerships, Hotel Business, the panel included Aaron Anderson, founder, The 26 Co; Pamela Bristow, procurement category manager, IHG Hotels & Resorts; Diana Dobin, president/chief sustainability officer, Valley Forge Fabrics; Gina Goodin, associate principal, CRTKL; Nina Grondin, partner/cofounder, Curioso; Andy Ingraham, founder/president/CEO, National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers (NABHOOD); Dionne Jefferson, VP, design & project management, premium brands, Marriott International; Ashli Johnson, executive director, Howard University School of Business, Marriott-Sorenson Center for Hospitality; Catherine Josey, principal, Studio South Design; Jason Rosewell, VP, facilities, Mandalay Bay | Delano Las Vegas | Luxor | Four Seasons Las Vegas; Steve Schrope, director, project management, CBRE; and Bashar Wali, founder/CEO, This Assembly and founder/CEO, Practice Hospitality.
During a round of introductions, Ingraham shared that his mother didn’t want him to work in hospitality because “she had never met any executive who looks like us in the hotel industry.” This was the perfect segue into the first question posed to everyone by Trauthwein: Why doesn’t a more diverse pool of candidates look to the hospitality industry as a career path and a path of growth, and why should they?
Josey agreed with Ingraham’s mother’s thoughts. “It is not an industry [we]really know about because no one looks like you,” she said. “You don’t see that often.”
Roswell didn’t even know there was a career path for him in the industry. “A lot of us grow up knowing about the traditional jobs—nurses, doctors, things like that,” he said. “You don’t really have access to more nontraditional jobs, and you don’t know anything about them. We all know that there’s someone who makes a bed, parks a car and checks you in. But you don’t know all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to make that happen.”
During the session, Jason Rosewell (right) said that minorities need cheerleaders and advocates during their career journey.
Wali said a lot of people of color view working in hospitality as servitude “because they only see themselves as servants to the customer. They don’t see anyone who looks like them at the top.”
He added, “Unless we see more people who look like all of us around the table at the top, it’s always viewed as, ‘Sure, you can clean toilets [at a hotel], but you can never own or build [a hotel].”
For Ingraham, in order to get past this mindset of servitude, Black executives must tell the story of how great the industry is. He added, “We also have to find partners who are committed to changing the paradigm. When I sit in boardrooms, I find that the only time people want to change is when I’m buying something from them.”
While there is a distinct difference between service and servitude, Johnson pointed out there’s also a difference between the delivery of service and the business of service.
“A majority of us sitting here at this table are engaged in the business of service, and that is what has historically eluded a lot of Black and brown folks who are interested in hospitality because the opportunities that are traditionally afforded to them are entrenched in the delivery of service, not in the business of it,” she said. “From a historical lens and perspective, why families may not be as supportive of Black and brown people pursuing careers in hospitality is because the frame of reference is that your grandfather was a bellman at a hotel that he couldn’t even lay his head in for 30 years—and that’s what perhaps [pays]your college education. That’s what made all of these opportunities available to you.”
She continued, “While most people would agree that hospitality is such a great industry, historically, it has not been great for everyone. So, when we hear people say, ‘Hey, this is the best business in the world and the only business that you can start as a dishwasher and end up as CEO,’ I am quick to correct people to say, ‘But that’s not applicable for Black folks.’ We really have to keep it real in identifying what has been created as an opportunity of exposure traditionally for people of color and women in this business.”
Dobin explained that the tools we have today can make it easier to get the word out that there are opportunities out there for minorities and people who can help them on their path in the industry.
“I do think that we’re living in very different times today, and I really see the connections between people and the networking that people do—everybody pretty much has a phone, people are all using social media—and this can be used to drive this change today in a way that it couldn’t in the past,” she said.
As an example, she told how Trauthwein pointed her to Ingraham as someone who could find a Black-owned restaurant to hold the roundtable dinner the night before (it was held at Canyon restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, owned by Thompson Hospitality). “I had to find somebody because no matter how I looked online, I could not find the information,” she said.
But when is the right time to use these tools to communicate to young people the benefits of a career path in the hotel industry? Goodin believes it would be smart to reach out to them early on.
“How many kids don’t have exposure to architects and interior designers and don’t know that it’s more than what they see on HGTV?” she asked. “I came from a rural area where nobody knew what a designer was, and I’ve designed hotels for some of the best companies in the world and traveled all over the world.”
Wali said that, in order to help young people understand that the hotel industry is a viable career choice, those in the industry must take to them and share their own story,
“There’s not a directory that says, ‘Here are the successful people who have done the work,’ he said. “So, mentoring at the high school level, at least for us in the organization that we work with, has been really successful. And it seems like the right path to get them started thinking about it earlier.”
Anderson agreed, noting that there has to be a “boots-on-the-ground” approach to reaching out to underserved communities and teaching them about the industry.
“I think about my story,” he said. “The only thing we knew about a hotel was that we were driving eight miles outside of where we live, and it’s a vacation. We were staying at this Embassy Suites, and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we made it.’ And that’s all we knew. I was 10 years old and didn’t have a clue if it was a franchise. The only thing I knew was there’s free breakfast in the morning and there’s Mickey Mouse pancakes.”
Roswell brought a case where a boots-on-the-ground outreach approach was used for a project he worked on in Massachusetts.
“We had a union project were we had some personnel requirements and goals, and in order to meet those goals we needed to get percentage of minority, women and veteran participation,” he said. “We were struggling because a lot of people didn’t want to join the union. What we did was we went to churches and into the community; put flyers on people’s cars; and met with people and had forums.
And we brought people in and told them about some of the benefits of joining the union. So, it’s not just putting that goal out there. You’ve got to have a plan and facilitate to get there.”
However, if young Black people choose hospitality as a career, there are roadblocks, Ingraham pointed out. “We find more Black people leaving the industry today because they can’t get jobs, and if they get a job, they get stuck because they can’t get promoted,” he said. “I’ve never ever seen an African-American at an executive-level position, with exception of Thomas Baltimore, switch from one company to another because we say in this industry if you are a Black executive and you lose your job, you’re out. Period. End of story.”
But, in order to provide a positive picture of a hospitality career, there must be more examples of minority success stories to tell, noted Johnson.
“While I agree that we do need to be focusing on sharing career opportunities with students at a very young age, we’ve got to start closing the gap from the other end of the spectrum as well,” she said. “So, when we talk about it’s such a dreamy type of opportunity to be working in hospitality, I would question, is it a dream or is it a nightmare? Because right now, we literally are selling kids a dream that you can be and do and operate at the highest levels of this business, but how many examples do they actually have of that? Those examples are few and far between at this juncture. So, if we are solely focusing on the entry point of that pipeline, that means that we’re still going to be talking about this 40 years from now, just as we were talking about this 40 years ago.”
She added, “So, part of this conversation has to be focused on the retention and the elevation of Black executives who have already been in the business. If you’ve been at the same organization for 30 years and maybe you’ve only gotten promoted once or twice, that doesn’t seem very appealing to me. You’ve got to start them early, but you actually have to give somebody something to aspire to.”
But why aren’t minority employees being promoted up the ladder? Is it a matter of not stepping out of one’s comfort zone and trying something new, or perhaps not making the right connections with the people who can help them along the way?
Jefferson believes many employees aren’t trained properly to do their job. She also pointed to the fact that some people are just comfortable with where they are in the company.
“There are folks who think in two or three years time, they’re supposed to be promoted,” she said. “They have this trajectory in their mind that they’re supposed to grow in their swim lane where they are right now, and there’s a promotion that’s supposed to open up right above them so they can do exactly what they were doing just at a higher level. I’m constantly counseling people by saying, ‘I didn’t get here by sitting in one place.’” She added that she constantly tried new things because “I understand the trajectory is rarely straight.”
But taking that journey of trying new things year after year may not work for some, and Johnson noted that something has to change because hospitality is losing top talent to other industries.
“We can’t keep selling this story of ‘if you just put your head down and keep volunteering for opportunities, maybe one day somebody’s going to see the value in you, and they’re going to continually promote you,” she said. “Google is recruiting students out of Howard University. These kids are literally walking into six-figure jobs. Where’s all the talent for hospitality? The talent is working in another industry in which they didn’t have to wait to get paid. They didn’t have to wait for someone to acknowledge their value. They didn’t have to wait for someone to make an investment into their professional development.”
One way to make sure that the talent that is working in the hotel industry stays there is by stepping up to help someone along the way. “Whenever I’m speaking on a panel, I tell everyone in this room to find someone like Aaron [Anderson], who’s trying to buy his first hotel, and make a call on his behalf,” said Wali.
Rosewell pointed out that to make it in any industry, “we need advocates and cheerleaders,” adding, “A lot of Black people don’t know that you can ask for help. It’s looked at as weakness, especially as a Black male when you need to ask for help. But when you go to the person who’s one rung above you and you ask, ‘How did you get there, what were some of the steps you took and what advice can you give me?’ And, that person may become your mentor. That is also something that I don’t think we do naturally, and I think we need to make sure that we explain to people that mentors and cheerleaders are some of the biggest drivers in anyone’s career.”
The industry always has to nurture young talent because there are always employee turnovers, whether from a rash of retirements, an economic downturn or, most recently, a pandemic.
“It happens every 10-12 years where you lose a wave of talent,” said Grondin. “Folks retire out, especially on the design side and architecture side. People leave and a whole new batch comes in. We’re going to hit a serious gap about the talent that we bring in because they haven’t necessarily walked alongside mentors so that they can step into the roles. We want them experienced and ready to go.”
The pandemic took its toll on the hotel industry and its workforce, and during that time there were a number of employees who really went above and beyond their normal tasks. Is it time for those people to be rewarded for their efforts?
Grondin offered that “our workforce for two years was dwindled down to almost nothing, and there were people who had to really stretch and step beyond their job description and their means to be able to keep these hotels running. Are those people going to get promoted and recognized and seen as what they have done over the past two years to keep these properties open? Or do we simply hire someone to come in above them and forget that they were rock stars for the last two years?”
Because of the labor shortage resulting from the pandemic, “not only are we looking at the rock stars over the last two years to promote them, we’re [looking at anyone]who has even an inkling of desire for this industry and taking them as soon as they walk through the door and showing them the path and helping them get through it,” said Wali. “And it’s honestly out of necessity. But the end product is great because now someone who would’ve had to wait forever because there’s so many people above them is able to skip a bunch of steps on the ladder.”
Jefferson pointed out that the industry goes through cycles of labor shortages due to events beyond its control,
“Every eight to 12 years, we go through some major shifts in this hospitality industry where there’s tons of opportunity,” she said. “This one was a global pandemic that happened. The last one was an economic downturn. You best believe there’ll be another one right after this. We lose a wave of talent, and we’re going to hit a serious gap about the talent that we bring in because they haven’t necessarily walked alongside mentors so that they can step into the roles.”
Schrope believes that the industry should be celebrating the idea of a cyclical nature that offers opportunities every eight-to-10 years, adding, “If you look at the investment side of hotels, there are people who couldn’t wait to come out of the pandemic and buy distressed assets. And we need to be talking about that across the industry, as these are the opportunities. If you’ve been stuck [in one place]for a while, there’s a position over there that just opened up because that whole department got screwed up—and you should be jumping.”
Bristow, who has only worked in the industry for a year and a half, has noticed that people of color find it difficult to navigate up the corporate ladder.
“If you see there’s not a lot of diversity within a particular department or group, it’s almost like there’s only room for one [minority executive],” she said. “So, if there’s only room for one Black VP, and you’re ready to make that move—or you’ve been told that you’re ready to make that move—it’s like, ‘Great, I have to wait until that person is [gone].’”
So, how does that mindset change? How can an industry that has been slow on instituting DEI initiatives move forward and be more inclusive?
Ingraham believes it has to start from the top, and pointed out that the panelists have shown they have made a commitment themselves by taking part in the discussion.
But, Dobin said, it can also start by creating a sense of community within a company. “Our employees are often surprised when I walk over to them and ask them what matters to them and where they grew up,” she said. “I can tell you that Vanessa [Patino], our COO, meets one-on-one with every single employee—at every level—in rotation all the time, and part of our interacting with employees is also to coach them to do it with each other. So, it isn’t just from the top down.”
Bristow believes that things can change if companies create an atmosphere where people can be authentically themselves and “accepting people for who they are and not making people feel uncomfortable.” She added, “As a Black woman, if I see a room just like this, I’m going to [another Black woman]because she looks like me, and I know that there’s a safety there that I may not be able to find with someone else. So, I think creating that atmosphere of openness is something that’s really important in our culture.”
Wali thinks it’s tough to change the mindset because “we’re lazy, and it’s easy to conform. It’s just easy to follow whatever we do in the society we live in, and for us to change the narrative, we have to believe strongly enough to actually stand out and speak up. You have to be brave enough to stand up and scream loud, and say it matters.”
He added, “[DEI] is not a checkbox. It really is better for your company and better for society to be inclusive of everyone. Once you make that commitment, you’re brave enough to speak, and you will make the time to make a difference.”
Dobin brought up the concept of proximity, something Haile had discussed earlier. “When we have new employees, and it doesn’t matter the color of their skin, we have structured programs so that people get introduced to each other and start to feel comfortable,” she said. “But then the most beautiful part of it is that there is an organic thing that happens where people go and introduce themselves to whoever the new Valley Forge girl or guy is. They’re not working in the same space, but there are interactions happening via teams, and people are saying to each other. ‘I haven’t met you yet, but I’m looking forward to it.’ That just starts to happen.”
Johnson noted that the industry is slow to adopt DEI because “nothing changes unless something changes,” adding, “The leadership in this industry has historically always looked the same. They wear the same things. They all have on the same shoes, and they show up in the same suits to the same conferences.”
For something to change, the industry has to take action with DEI initiatives. The panelists offered best practices on how to get things moving on this important topic.
Ingraham said Black people are still at the bottom of the minority growth chain. “We’ve got to find a way to elevate the minority within the minority, and then we can all grow together,” he said. He added that he sees the younger CEOs—those under 60, like Hilton’s Chris Nassetta, Marriott’s Anthony Capuano and Hyatt’s Mark Hoplamazian—would “come to the hood and do things that wouldn’t have happened five years or 10 years ago. And I think what’s driving that is the economics of trying to change the model.”
Josey pointed out that there is a list of minority woman-owned design firms. “Are we seeing through that they’re getting rewarded these projects?” she asked, adding, “We have to do what we can to make sure that these firms are getting hired for certain projects.”
Dobin brought up the fact that minority-owned businesses can’t get funding from private equity if they make more than $20 million under 8(a) certification. Ingraham said that’s fine since “if I’m an 8(a)-certified firm and I’ve reached that threshold, I can now swim on my own.”
However, both Dobin and Ingraham agreed that the $20-million threshold is too low.
In order for a minority-owned business to get to that level of success, the principals had to be helped along the way, and Schrope said that when they start out, they need “someone like myself to pull them into that conversation, introduce them and then give them the opportunity to shine on their own. And then I’ll slowly back away and let them do their thing.”
Anderson learned that process firsthand, as he worked under Schrope at JLL. “Steve kicked me out there and said, ‘Go do your thing,’ and he promoted me like no other,” he said.
As the session wound down, the panelists were asked for a key takeaway that they may take to their own organizations, and changes they will make in their own lives.
Ingraham went first. “My personal commitment is really to change the ownership paradigm and spend more time trying to find more Black owners and investors,” he said. “From an industry standpoint, we’re going to continue to challenge companies. If they want to do business with us, they’ve got to do a better job at making a commitment to diversity.”
Schrope mentioned two things. “As I look at next year and beyond, I’m going to push some of the folks on my team to take the next step and put themselves out there to promote themselves as a representative of CBRE and of themselves,” he said, adding, “I can’t mentor the Black people who work for me in some of the issues that they deal with, but I can try to help connect them to folks outside of our organization because I’ve seen a lot of really powerful mentorship relationships that are between two organizations, where the power dynamic is not there. I’m going to try to encourage some of my folks to make some connections.”
Bristow hopes that the industry “would create an open and truly transparent, inclusive culture and atmosphere for everyone.”
“I want to see more people of color signing the front of the check rather than the back of it,” said Wali. “All that that takes is commitment and time, and we all can make the time if we truly believe.”
For Rosewell, 2023 is going to be about mentorship and sharing his story. “I think one of the things that we don’t do is spend enough time sharing the steps that we took, the moves that we made,” he said.
Jefferson said she made a conscious decision this year to do things like the roundtable. “I’m not a shy person, but this takes another level of courage to share your personal story and to follow it up when you make connections with someone just to make sure that we can continue the conversation and then turn it into an actionable item.”
Dobin said she is going to “do one-on-ones with every employee in rotation constantly, which is different than me visiting them at their desks or calling them to have a structured conversation.” She added that she is going to work on getting local college students more professional coaching.”
Josey said, “I think what would be beneficial for me is getting out of my comfort zone and talking about my story. I have done this for a very long time and have done some really great projects. I just don’t speak about them, so that could be helpful for high schoolers or middle schoolers to just inspire them to let them know they can.”
Johnson plans to go to hotel industry leaders and discuss the importance of DEI.
“Most conversations about DEI happen in stages, and folks are scrambling to find somebody who is Black, brown, LGBTQIA+, etc.,” she said. “They’re looking for somebody else to sell the platform of equity and inclusion. One thing that I have certainly observed over the course of my career in hospitality is that white men listen to other white men, and it’s not until the leaders of this industry—mostly white men—are having the conversation about this then all of a sudden some of this is going to start turning around. My commitment for 2023 is to continue to have these conversations with current leadership in our industry, and coaching and encouraging them to be the ones to lead the conversation.”
Grondin noted that “one of the great things about the time that we’re in right now is that the conversation is open,” but that “gives a lot of people the latitude to say ‘This isn’t my responsibility because now we have a chief diversity officer,’ or they have somebody in HR who’s going to deal with that. We have to ask ourselves whose responsibility it is, and it’s actually every single one of our responsibilities on a daily basis.”
She added, “It’s incredible that we can sit here around this table, but let’s not wait until the next roundtable before we start doing something right. It can start at very micro levels.”
Goodin said she has to put herself in a position to “kick that door open for other people,” adding, “I’ve got a client who said, ‘We just want the leadership to present.’ That happens to be me—an older white woman—and an older white guy who leads our offices. No, I’m going to bring my middle-level designer, a woman of color, and she’s going to sit in this room, and she’s going to present part of this and they’re going to hear from her voice. if I can draw from different backgrounds and cultures, I can deliver a better product for my client.”
Anderson said he wants to connect more with the Black people in the industry. “I can’t believe I just met Jason—he’s in design and construction, and I don’t know another Black male in construction in the whole industry,” he said. “It’s just wild to not know who’s around you.”
He also wanted to keep telling his story to encourage Black people to look to the hotel industry as a career. “I come from a very tough background, and my grandparents had shelter for women and children,” he said. “So, I understand that zip code.”
The hotel industry has historically been slow in making changes for the better—DEI being no exception. But all it takes is commitment and time, as Wali put it—commitment to mentorship and helping minorities get through the door, and time to reach out to the community and tell stories about this great industry and why it can be a great career choice.
