Sexual harassment issues in the hospitality industry

Abstract

Sexual, racial and other forms of harassment may create a devastating impact on individuals affected and can lead to severe loss of morale and efficiency. Examines issues surrounding this sensitive area which relate to legal definition, organisational policies in general and the hospitality industry specifically. Provides evidence of the current views on sexual harassment of hospitality industry personnel directors. Examines issues of hospitality service staff, encouraged to sell “sexuality” or “flirt” as a job requirement.

Metamorphosis in hospitality: A tradition of sexual harassment

“…In a study of hospitality personnel directors, Gilbert et al (1998) found that 39% did not allow female staff to wear trousers, 7% thought flirting was part of the service, and 29% considered sexual jokes and teasing a minor issue. Several (19%) also reported that staff had left because of harassment, and 10% had been involved in legal cases following sexual harassment incidents.…”

Service unseen: The hotel room attendant at work

“…Hospitality employees are in social contact with customers whom their managers exhort them to please but if appropriate behaviour conventions are transgressed by guests this can make staff vulnerable to unwanted attention (Gilbert et al, 1998). In a study of harassment in hotels by Guerrier and Adib (2000) incidents involving female room attendants were found to be highly prevalent.…”

Sexualisation and harassment in hospitality workplaces: who is responsible?

“…Although early studies on harassment show that some hospitality organisations trained staff to flirt (Gilbert et al, 1998), and in a recent study, participants complained of sexualised hospitality uniforms (Kensbock et al, 2015), evidence that management explicitly sexualises labour is scarce, and employees may have a different view of organisational expectations than management intends (e.g. Jiang et al, 2015).…”

“…Some managers try to enhance customers' experiences by dressing frontline staff in uniforms that accentuate their sex appeal (Folgerø and Fjeldstad, 1995, Gilbert et al, 1998, Warhurst and Nickson, 2009). Seymour (2000) found that uniforms distinguish staff from customers, but are often in degrading styles, particularly in housekeeping, where frilly aprons and caps were once commonplace.…”

“…Hoel and Einarsen, 2003), where female workforces are often sexualised (Wijesinghe, 2009) and power structures explicit (Kensbock et al, 2015). Some theoretical approaches to understanding harassment acknowledge that sexual behaviour is natural (Tangri et al, 1982), and difficult to prevent in a working environment (Gilbert et al, 1998), and there is an implicit assumption that management is solely responsible for eliminating harassing behaviours. This study challenges this assumption by examining employees' experiences of and responses to sexual behaviour in hospitality workplaces, to determine their roles and responsibilities.…”