MFHA and CorVirtus Join Forces to Change the Face of Hospitality

Two organizations formalize agreement to work together to build a more diverse workforce in the restaurant industry.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 26, 2007 – The Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance (MFHA) announced today an official partnership with Corvirtus, a top corporate culture, Human Resources, and leadership consulting and research firm based in Colorado Springs, Colo., to work jointly on realizing their goal of improving diversity and inclusion in all areas of the restaurant industry. During the last decade, the industry has made efforts to improve the representation of women and minorities among employees, customers and suppliers, but there are still notably low numbers of minorities in management or executive positions and even among front-of-house hourly ranks. The need to increase diversity in the industry will become even more crucial as the predicted workforce shortage makes it necessary to maximize the pool of qualified candidates.

“Too few companies are willing to share their data on diversity, particularly the number of minority or women owned businesses they patronize, making it difficult to measure the industry's progress in attaining full inclusiveness,” said Gerry Fernandez, founder and president of the MFHA. “If MFHA cannot measure our progress, we cannot share our success. By working with Corvirtus we will be able to create comprehensive assessment tools for our efforts in all of these areas. And in years to come, I can offer a report of substance on whether we are making progress or not." A key focus for Corvirtus will be in assisting MFHA in acquiring reliable data for their annual progress reports for member companies regarding their progress in improving diversity among their workforces, customers, communities and suppliers. To that end, Corvirtus will develop and implement an online self-assessment that restaurant operators can complete to see how they stack up in these four areas. Corvirtus will then work with the  MFHA to put tools and resources in place for those companies – that decide they have room for improvement – to learn how they can accomplish even more with their diversity initiatives. “We have long admired the MFHA’s passion for making a difference and helping people advance within the restaurant workplace, and we are excited to join them in making the industry as culturally inclusive as possible,” said David Hyatt, Corvirtus president. “We are uniquely prepared to assist them in that goal, given our extensive work supporting a diversified workforce, providing equal opportunities to all job candidates, ensuring that only qualified candidates are hired, and the creation of our recently released Standards of Excellence for Culturally Inclusive Hiring.”

Corvirtus will be working with the MFHA on a number of additional fronts. The firm will work to optimize MFHA’s very successful “Showcase of the Stars,” the long-running program that provides a platform for minority professionals to promote careers in the lodging, foodservice and manufacturing industries for minority students across the country. Corvirtus will develop surveys for the students to gauge the impact of the Showcase events and provide an informational database of students who have expressed interest in working in these industries. Corvirtus has been working for decades to research and develop hiring assessments which ensure that restaurants can find quality job candidates to perform at the highest levels within their ranks and fit within the company culture in a way that encourages them to stay. At the 2006 NRA Show, Corvirtus unveiled their Culturally Inclusive Hiring Standards for the hospitality industry, giving hiring managers simple guidelines on how to increase diversity in the workplace and enlarge their pool of qualified candidates at the same time. Just this month, the company introduced a specially designed Workplace Aptitude Test, which levels the playing field for minorities during the hiring process. During the field testing of the assessment in restaurants across the country, the screen showed a 10-20 percentage point increase in the number of minority candidates successfully passing this new cognitive ability test.  “For anyone who cares about people, this industry is a great one for employment, considering that you get paid to take care of people, make them feel good about their experience, and basically ‘throw a party every day,’” said Hyatt. “We want to make sure that companies have a road map and set of resources for doing the kinds of things that make a difference and make incredible business sense.”

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