executive lunch
Travel Weekly Women in Travel Executive Lunch: Blogger Anna Whitehouse
Jo Rzymowska, Celebrity Cruises; and Rachel O’Reilly, Kuoni
Blogger and Heart FM radio presenter Anna Whitehouse
Mike Bonner, Rosewood
London; Alison
Page, Global; and Anna Whitehouse
Rzymowska: Travel workplace diversity
still has way to go Te industry still has a long way to go to create a truly diverse workplace, according to Celebrity Cruises’ Jo Rzymowska. Te line’s managing director
for the UK, Ireland and Asia, said: “Te good news is that diversity and inclusion, and gender equality in particular, are far more on the radar of the travel industry than they have been historically. However, we still have a way to go. “At Celebrity Cruises, gender
equality and diversity have been a keen focus for a long time, and we have increased the number of female officers across our fleet from 3% to 22%, including four female captains. “Tere are still very few senior
women at the top [in travel]. Companies such as easyJet are really making a transformation but we have a long way to go.”
‘Flexible working helps fir T
ravel companies have been urged to take a fresh approach to flexible working by
allowing employees to come up with creative solutions on how to work differently and increase productivity. Speaking at Travel Weekly’s
Women in Travel executive lunch, Anna Whitehouse, founder of blog Mother Pukka and a Heart FM radio presenter, told industry leaders to work with staff to find ways to improve their work-life balance. Whitehouse, who is behind a
campaign for flexible working called Flex Appeal, suggested firms put the onus on employees by tasking them to come up with ideas. She said: “Trust your workforce.
Tink about how you can get the best out of people. I hear about swathes of frustration among women who want to work and yet are consistently told they cannot [work flexibly].”
14 31 OCTOBER 2019 I hear about swathes
of frustration among women who want to work and are told they cannot [work flexibly]
Bringing in more flexible working
does not mean businesses need to make wholesale changes to working policies, she stressed. “It doesn’t have to be a huge shiſt;
it can be small and incremental. You can trial it and base it on productivity. Tis is also an opportunity in terms of sales; I now purchase based on how companies treat their staff,” she added. Te key is educating companies
on the need to change to atract and retain staff and ensure a beter way of working for future generations, she said. Whitehouse herself leſt her job at L’Oréal aſter the company refused to
travelweekly.co.uk
agree to her starting work 15 minutes earlier to finish in time to collect her daughter from nursery. “I was on the Tube and a guy
got his briefcase stuck in the door. Parents were looking at their watches, panicking about being late. I got to the nursery and my daughter’s key worker told me off for being 12 minutes late; there was a £1 a minute late charge. I asked if I could come
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