Does more women in F&B signal a change for the future in terms of GM recruitment?
Eleni: There are more women in F&B but you can have cross training into the F&B department, and GMs can come from other departments too.
Chantel: F&B used to be a real boys’ club but it has changed a lot, so it’s now more upmarket.
Anke: But to be honest, that’s a tough job — I’d prefer to be a GM!
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Debrah: If you go back years ago, general managers came up through the F&B sector. Now it’s a switch. People are coming up from front-of-house, and as years go on we will see a change because there are more front-of-house female managers, but where we have to bridge the gap is family. I think if someone chooses to have a family, it’s then the individual that has to make the choice. It’s not the employer, it’s the employee.
So do women have to choose between family and careerwhen pursuing a GM career?
Anke: It’s not because of the hotel industry; it’s because you’re a working mother.
Eleni: It is the individual. How many women stay home to raise kids nowadays? A lot of women just stay at home and choose to have kids.
Debrah: That sector is growing now.
Eleni: Yes so it’s the individual; the passion you have to have for a career. I always had the passion and I wanted to have a career but I have a child too. I have a six-year-old so I’m juggling both. I choose to have a nanny, I have to answer the question: ‘mummy why are you not coming home?’ And I say ‘because I have to work’.
Anke: We’re in a generation where people work more. We choose careers that we enjoy doing and maybe the generation before us had different priorities. I think women in our generation have a different mindset. Maybe in another 20 years it will be different again.
Debrah: I chose my career, but I also chose to have children. I knew that I wanted a career, I didn’t just want to be a stay-at-home mum. And a lot of females wouldn’t want to say that; they wouldn’t want anyone to think that they don’t want to be at home with their kids. And in 25 years I’m sure it will be the same. I think it’s what everyone has said around the table; it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female, it’s about career choice.
Eleni: I think here it’s easier to get a nanny.
Debrah: Yes childcare is cheaper here; not even a third of what you pay in the UK.
Chantel: Childcare is easier but what [expats] don’t have in the Middle East is family support. But yes, it’s definitely easier to have a child here if you want to work.
Debrah: If you think about it, around the whole world it’s the perception of the family, the hours of work, the bridge from getting married to having kids. If you look at the female and male gender the male was always the hunter who would go out and get the food. Yes there’s a new generation, but I’ve got female colleagues and friends and there’s no way they would go home after five. They’re successful in their field but they want to have a life outside of work. When you work in a hotel it becomes a lifestyle as well, it’s not just a job. I was very fortunate, my husband travels the world with his job and we agreed that I would do this.
Anke: I think we’re dramatising this a bit because we keep talking about long hours, and I know we all do long hours but there’s no problem if I say: ‘ok I’m going home at 5pm because I have an appointment’. That’s the beauty of our job. We work long hours, but we also have flexibility.
Chantel: I don’t feel that women that want to be a GM can’t be a GM if they’re the right person for the right job, and I’ll stick to that, and I don’t feel it’s to do with gender roles. With the people coming up now it’s different; it’s a generation thing. I think for Pam Wilby and Doris Greif it would have been a lot harder and it would have been like you said. I don’t feel I have to have a husband, have children or anything like that. I just feel it’s unlucky there’s not more women.
Eleni: I was a female and just married with a child, and there was a perception I could not move to the Middle East, Africa or Asia and be a GM from a person I knew in Europe. But I left, I went to Asia, I went to Africa, and then the Middle East. You can always have obstacles but what do you do? You can’t let someone destroy your dream. It’s determination; I’ve wanted to become a GM since I was 19 years old.
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