Diversity in the German Hospitality Industry and how it affects Human Resources Management concerning women friendly working policies

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Tourism - Hotel Industry / Catering, grade: 77% First, University of Brighton, language: English, abstract: Due to changes in the society and globalisation, the workforce got more diverse. Especially the female labour market participation increased, due to lower fertility rates, better education and new expectations and possibilities for women. Particularly the hospitality industry is a very multicultural and female dominated industry. Hence managing diversity should be a current topic for hotel companies to use the full potential of their human resources. The aim of this dissertation is to identify how the German hospitality industry deals with the topic diversity, considering women friendly working policies and how it affects the human resource management. The meaning, importance and benefits of diversity and women friendly working policies are evaluated and the link of the topic to human resources management is shown. Research, based on interviews with Human Resources Managers of chain hotels in Frankfurt, Germany, show their opinions and perceptions about the topic managing diversity and women friendly policies. It was revealed that diversity procedures and policies hardly exist or are at a developing stage. More over they are often not considered as being crucial to think about since lack of demand is suppose to exist. Recommendations for future improvements are made.