Identity-conscious vs identity-blind: Hotel managers’ use of formal and informal diversity management practices

Increasing ethnic diversity in the Australian workforce has attracted the attention of both hoteliers and academics, raising awareness of the need to better understand how to manage an ethnically diverse workforce effectively. The current study investigated the views and practices of managers responsible for an ethnically diverse workforce in order to explore the nature of identity-conscious and identity-blind management structures currently operating in Australian medium-sized hotels. Using semi-structured interviews with 27 hotel general managers nationally across Australia, the study examined the human resource management strategies that the participants have adopted for dealing with diversity. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and it can be argued from the findings that hotel managers often use informal identity-conscious practices to deal with ethnically diverse employees. The paper emphasizes the need to formalize these informal identity-conscious practices and offers suggestions for how hotels may benefit in the long term.