Let's Bring 'Women's Programming' To All in Hotel Industry

Some Companies Do it Right

costar.com

Hotel News Now Blog

By: Stephanie Ricca

Throughout my career, I have always gotten twitchy at the notion of “women’s programming” at industry conferences — things like special conference sessions aimed at women, special awards only recognizing women, that sort of thing. It’s not that I don’t think that type of special call-out is important or good in terms of highlighting great women doing great work. It’s more that the programming often tends to fall flat.

There's amazing stuff happening out there. I’m not talking about the real and excellent work being done to promote and amplify women and other minority voices as executives in companies, into leadership roles and into high-barrier-to-entry career paths.

I’m talking about the tack-on programming and gratuitous panel sessions with titles like, “Women in Leadership Discuss Work-Life Balance” and so on that are always held during lunch or some other inconvenient time like 7 a.m. before the "real" event starts.

For years I’ve attended those extra sessions and covered those panels, and for years I’ve questioned why it’s always women in this example being called on to do the extra work. Leadership development is directed at us so we can adapt our management styles to the problematic people on our teams. Work-life balance discussions are designed to give us tips on having the difficult conversations with our companies about flexible schedules and taking time off to deal with family.

Useful, sure. Just more stuff to add to our to-worry-about lists? Absolutely.

Why, I’ve always thought, don’t men get sessions on how to adapt to different management styles? Why aren’t they specifically directed to an extra half-day of hug-it-out sessions that let them know there are other working dads trying to balance everything and that it’s not “bad” to request time off? I know a lot of men who would enjoy and benefit from those.

We all are living and working in a different world these days, and I commend the companies and organizations large and small that acknowledge that and talk about it. It is not up to the women to figure out how every person on a team can work together with fully realized communication skills. It’s not up to the Black people to educate everyone else in the room on social justice. It’s up to all of us to acknowledge we live in this world/work in this company/exist in this room together, so we all need to hear the messages about change and put in the work.

I loved with all my heart hearing Larry Cuculic, the president and CEO of BWH Hotel Group, speak in a genuine and authentic way about how he shows up as a leader, at the company’s national convention last week here in Cleveland, Ohio.

He admitted that he hadn’t always been there for his son while he built his career, and everyone in the room could hear and appreciate the sentiment.

But the best was when he said this: “What I have learned in the past year is the importance of work-life balance. You can be driven, but you have to have balance. Your people are entitled to work-life balance, so they can take care of everything they need. This isn’t just for women; it’s for men and dads, too. We have to take care of our children.”

This isn’t just for women; it’s for men and dads, too.

Let’s talk about these surfacing issues of work-life balance together. Let’s bitch and moan about how tough it is together. It’s not up to just one group to solve.

Cuculic spoke at the BWH Women in Leadership Forum as part of the national convention, and BWH really did this right. This was not a tack-on day dedicated solely to telling women how we need to get better and work harder if we want to succeed; it was a day highlighting women in well-earned leadership roles around the company and industry by letting them speak about their expertise, be it ownership, financing, ESG and more.

Communication skills and work-life balance were on the agenda as well, but having Cuculic set the stage for those discussions by speaking about how he managed them was a great legitimizer.

The only way I would have liked that day of programming better is if there had been more men in attendance to hear the messages because they would have benefited as well.

I challenge event and conference organizers to re-think how they offer traditional “women’s” programming. Maybe we’re at the point where we recognize that everyone can benefit from hearing about what may have been traditional women’s programming topics, and we integrate them better into mainstream programming, or change how we refer to them?

In the meantime, here's another challenge for everyone out there who attends an industry event, large or local: Go to the panel or programming that isn’t directed to your age, race or gender. Men: Sit in on that Women in Leadership panel. Gen X-ers and older: Check out the session showcasing recent grads talking about what they’re looking for in a career. And white people: Get yourselves to an event geared toward minorities. It may not be easy; you may get uncomfortable and that’s fantastic.

Remember the rallying cry of the pandemic? We’re all in this together?

We really are.

I always love to hear from you. Email me, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.