Work‐life balance initiatives: implications for women
| Pages | 433-452 |
| Published date | 01 August 2004 |
| Date | 01 August 2004 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450410544524 |
| Author | Liz Doherty |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Work-life balance initiatives:
implications for women
Liz Doherty
The Business School, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Keywords Equal opportunities, Diversity management, Work study, Gender, Women,
Hospitality management
Abstract This article uses evidence from a piece of action research conducted in the UK
hospitality industry to explore the effectiveness of work-life balance initiatives in helping women
progress to senior management. It explores the main barriers to women’s progression and
highlights the long hours associated with managerial roles as a major problem. The article shows
that the business case which underpins diversity management and a voluntary approach to
work-life balance may only deliver positive benefits to women when the labour market is tight, and,
even then, the benefits for women in management are far from demonstrated. A stronger equal
opportunities approach is also shown to be problematic as it draws attention to women’s
“difference” to men and their need for special treatment. Given the contingent nature of the
business case, it is argued that a strong floor of rights is still needed to protect the most vulnerable
employees, especially in an industry where trade unions have virtually no “voice”. It is further
argued that more work needs to be done with male managers in order to humanise the workplace
for men and women who wish to lead rounded lives.
Introduction
There has been considerable debate over the last decade or so about the relative merits
of equal opportunity (EO) and diversity management (DM) initiatives for tackling
gender inequality in the workplace. The EO approach has a longer history and it
underpins much of the legal framework aimed to achieve equality at both a European
and UK level. DM, by comparison, is associated with a more individual, liberal
approach to the management of people and it has much in common with the ideology
and management practices which characterise “human resource management” as
opposed to “industrial relations” and “personnel management” (Storey, 1992). DM is a
well established concept in the USA (see, for example Kossek and Lobel, 1996; Thomas
and Ely, 1996) and in the UK (Kandola and Fullerton, 1994a, b), and although it is less
well known in continental Europe, the rhetoric surrounding DM is beginning to take
hold even in Scandinavian countries (Hagedorn-Ramussen and Kamp, 2002).
Most studies of gender inequality in the workplace demonstrate quite clearly that
much of women’s disadvantage can be tracked back to their dual role. This goes a long
way towards explaining their concentration in low paid, part-time employment and
their absence at the most senior levels of management where “commitment” to the
organisation (generally translated into working long hours and acting in a way which
indicates that work is more important than family) is seen as an essential requirement
(Dickens, 1998). Efforts to tackle this central issue based on legislative mechanisms
form part of the EO agenda whereas voluntary work-life balance initiatives, such as
those encouraged by the UK Government’s Work Life Balance Campaign, are examples
of DM.
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Work-life
balance
initiatives
433
Received August 2003
Revised March 2004
Accepted March 2004
Employee Relations
Vol. 26 No. 4, 2004
pp. 433-452
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450410544524
This article uses the context of the UK hospitality industry to explore the barriers to
women’s progression to the most senior management jobs. This industry is typical of
other service industries in that women predominate in lower level roles but fail to
penetrate senior management to any great extent and, as Purcell (1996) has observed, it
can be seen as a “microcosm of women’s employment”. The article discusses EO and
DM approaches to dealing with disadvantage and under-representation and then
relates these to the action of the hospitality industry’s professional body in tackling
equality issues. This has included a recent project on work-life balance which is
presented here as one strand of DM. This project took the form of a piece of action
research, and evidence from the project is used to demonstrate the positive impa ct that
voluntary DM methods can have in achieving change. It also shows the limitations of
DM which is dependent on the construction of a “business case”. The article arg ues
that the business case which underpins DM and a voluntary approach to work-life
balance may only deliver positive benefits to women when the labour market is tight,
and, even then, the benefits for women in management are far from demonstrated.
However, the EO approach is equally problematic as it draws attention to women’s
“difference” to men and their need for special treatment. This simply reinforces their
position as primary carers restricted to slow track careers.
Women in hospitality
Women make up 67 per cent of the total UK hospitality workforce and two thirds of
them work on a part-time basis (Hospitality Training Foundation, 2001). Previous
studies (Crompton and Sanderson, 1990; Doherty and Stead, 1998) have clearly shown
that women predominate in the least well paid jobs as canteen and kitchen hands,
domestic staff and cleaners. Whilst they are under-represented in management, women
do hold 53 per cent of posts as hotel/accommodation managers and 42per cent of posts
as restaurant/catering managers (Hospitality Training Foundation, 2001). This
compares well with the situation for the private sector as a whole where women only
comprise 28 per cent of all managerial employment (Equal Opportunities Commission,
2002). Moreover, a fairly recent survey shows that the situation in other European
countries is rather worse than in the UK – for examp le women only hold 39 per cent of
managerial jobs in French hotels, 37 per cent in Spain and 24 per cent in Italy (Burrell
et al., 1997). Despite this relatively positive comparison, a recent qualitative study
suggests that women are not breaking into the most senior management jobs to any
great extent. This study was comprised of 29 in-depth case studies of mainly large
hospitality organisations from across the whole industry (hotels, restaurants , contract
catering, licensed retail, non-commercial catering and leisure). It showed that men and
women progressed more or less equally up to the level of unit management, but that a
problem occurred at higher levels, either in multi-unit management or as general
managers in hotels (Doherty et al., 2001). To take the hotel sector as an example, the
company that considered itself to be the most successful in recognising the problem
and in actively promoting women had only achieved a female representation of just
over 20 per cent at general manager level (Guerrier, 2001).
There are a number of explanations for women’s relatively good representation in
middle management in the UK hospitality industry by comparison with the situation in
other industries. Apart from the culture in commercial kitchens which is characterised
by vulgar jokes and sexual banter (Burrell et al., 1997), the general culture in
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