Women in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure (WiHTL) has joined forces with McDonald’s to launch a programme to boost the number of ethnic minority leaders in hospitality, travel and leisure.
The Ethnic Minority Future Leaders in Programme (EMFL), launched just this week, is a “unique” cross-industry leadership programme designed to support high-potential ethnic minority future leaders to progress into more senior roles. While there is great ethnic diversity at entry level across the hospitality, travel and leisure sector, research shows that senior level ethnic representation does not reflect society or the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic working age population, confirmed WiHTL.
The 2020 WiHTL Annual Report – From Intention to Action found that a whopping 82.5% of companies have no Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic leaders at board level. Additionally, over 40% of companies in the industry have no Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation at all at direct report level; and over 80% have no Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic leaders on their Executive Committee.
BOOSTING ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN LEADERSHIP
The EMFL programme hopes to improve ethnic representation in leadership ranks through identifying and investing in existing high potential ethnic minorities employees. It also aims to create opportunities for participants to learn from inspiring ethnically diverse industry role models and work with leaders across the industry to support their career progression.
“We all know that we don’t have enough ethnic diversity at senior levels across most companies in the UK and McDonald’s is wholly committed to making a positive step change ourselves,” stated Paul Pomroy, CEO of McDonald’s UK & Ireland. “It’s important that our people see that the way in and the way up is accessible for all. I am very proud of this collaboration and would encourage as many companies to get involved as possible to make a meaningful difference. This is a really important area for me personally and I’m delighted for McDonald’s to partner with WiHTL to launch this ‘first of its kind’ programme supporting the development and progression of diverse talent across the industry.”
CHAMPIONING INCLUSION
Over 150 people attended the virtual launch of WiHTL’s EMFL Programme produced in partnership with McDonald’s UK & Ireland this week. Furthermore, 40 high potential ethnic minority leaders from nearly 20 brands in the industry have already signed up. They include Airbnb, Bourne Leisure, Compass Group, Elior Group, Hilton, IAG, IHG, Greene King, Nando’s, Paddy Power Betfair, ODEON, PizzaExpress, Scott Dunn, The Big Table Group, Virgin Atlantic, Wagamama and Whitbread.
Commenting on the launch of the EMFL programme, WiHTL Founder & Chair, Tea Colaianni stated: “Collaboration is at the heart of everything that we do and the inaugural, first of its kind Ethnic Minority Future Leaders Programme is the most impactful example of collaboration in action ever seen across the hospitality, travel and leisure industry in the D&I space. It was truly inspiring to see over 20 companies joining forces to develop our future talent from an ethnic minority background, engaging with line managers, senior executive reverse mentees and executive sponsors to create lasting connections, starting a change process for the good of our industry and broader society, and championing the cause for inclusion and challenge behaviours that exclude rather than include. Conversations about race are not easy. But together we can create a lasting positive impact on our industry.”
CREATING INCLUSIVE CULTURES
A unique feature of the EMFL programme is that it also includes multiple sessions for the line manager of each participant, as well as a Reverse Mentoring programme. This will enable participants to mentor a senior leader in a different organisation to their own in the hospitality, travel and leisure sector.
“The carefully crafted elements of the programme will help delegates to develop a peer network and learn through sharing, support and collaboration. But what will be truly special is creating a focus on the role that line managers, Executive sponsors and Senior Reverse Mentees play in creating a more inclusive culture which can only benefit the wider business and have a lasting impact,” commented Meeta Zakharia, Head of HR & Inclusion at McDonald’s. “The opportunity to be involved with the launch of this programme was an easy decision to make and complements our commitment to the BITC Race at Work charter. Thank you to WiHTL.”
Sign up for our newsletter
