The restaurants, hotels, and other businesses that make up the hospitality industry serve as the site of our first jobs, first dates, and the bedrock of our communities. These establishments are near and dear to our hearts, making it hard to look at just how deeply inequality is ingrained in the hospitality industry. The pandemic's impact on working women and the 2020 civil rights protests across America brought essential conversations about racism and inequity into the mainstream. Broken systems and implicit bias affect hiring, firing, and who moves up the ladder of professional success. Businesses with the best intentions can (and do) fall into these traps, which is why two non-profits, Beloved Community and Made in New Orleans Foundation, are partnering up to present the inaugural class of Equity at Work: Hospitality.
"Ultimately,
we believe that People Change Systems and supporting the New Orleans
hospitality community in developing Equity Work Plans which will lead to
consistently centering their employees with the most marginalized experiences,"
Rhonda Broussard, Beloved Community's founder and CEO, said in the press
release about the new initiative.
Beloved
Community's Equity at Work cohort in Memphis has already shown that change is
possible. Equity at Work: Hospitality will
build upon that existing program with a focus on the "inequities rampant in the
hospitality industry."
Twenty
New Orleans-based restaurants and hospitality organizations will be accepted
into the inaugural class of Equity at
Work: Hospitality. Business leaders interested in learning more can register for an info
session
on March 22, as well as April 5 or 19 from noon to 1 p.m., or email programs@minofoundation.org.
The
first step in the two-year journey will be to conduct an equity audit for the participating businesses.
An equity audit is an online tool created by Beloved Community to examine the
areas of governance and leadership, supplier diversity, resources and finance,
pedagogies and curriculum, and talent and adult culture. Schools, non-profits,
for-profits, and agencies have already used it to aid in assessing their
practices. While a general report is made available to all free of cost,
Beloved Community offers fee-based services that expand your takeaways.
From
there, businesses will learn how to implement changes by taking part in
nationally acclaimed workplace training sessions, consultations, and management
coaching. Each company's personal equity data will lead to a personalized
desired action roadmap, which will take the form of a three-year Equity Work
Plan. And along the way, business leaders will be in a supportive community of
like-minded owners and executives.
"We
are building a movement so the future of New Orleans Hospitality Industry works
for everyone, not just some," Made in New Orleans Foundation's Executive
Director Lauren Darnell announced in the press release. "I am excited about the
unprecedented possibility of what this will create for the industry as a whole.
This work has been a long time coming. We are hopeful that with the work of
these selected few, we can begin to address the deep-seeded issues of racial
inequality in this industry. If you are over wishing the problem away and are
open and willing to work towards a future of this industry so that all thrive,
I invite you to join us. We are ready—are you?"
For more information, visit minofoundation.org/equity-in-hospitality.
