WORTH’s founder Joanna Jagger takes a look at our 2023 achievements and shares what milestones lie ahead for 2024.

WORTH Association is pleased to welcome Sandman Hotel Group, Destination Vancouver, and Gordon Food Service into our Leadership Circle. These partnerships demonstrate commitment to supporting initiatives that elevate, educate and empower self-identifying women in our industry. Learn more about the commitment these organizations are making to elevating women in their organizations.

The weather is getting warmer and restrictions in BC are lifting. While we might be ready for a hot girl summer, the industry is definitely not. Many women of WORTH have shared they are unsure if they will ever return to the business they once loved. The tourism and hospitality sector is bracing for perhaps the worst labour shortage ever, which will slow the recovery efforts and further hurt this hard hit industry.

“Leave it at the door” was a common management expression in my early restaurant days. It was implied that once in uniform, any personal problems should be bottled up in preparation for a stressful, fast-paced shift. These words were even posted on the staff bulletin board. It was understood you were to keep quiet about your personal issues and get to work.

My inbox is full, I’m missing deadlines and cartoons are blaring in the background. I can’t focus on that report, I didn’t attend the webinar and I made another mistake on that document. I can’t be reached and won’t return your text because my five year old is playing games on my phone. Our kids are out there learning about kindness, but we need a lesson in being kind to ourselves. Motherhood is a demanding gig, and handling a global pandemic was not in the job description.

At WORTH, we’ve been listening to your stories. Stories of layoffs, job loss, or changing roles. We witness you grieving your old life. We empathize with the feelings evoked by the question, “what do you do?”. Like you, we are hurting and sharing in this loss, unclear on how to move forward. Who are we supposed to be now? What is our worth?

Fucking Bitch.

Profanity thrown around on a regular basis, meant to demean, humiliate and undermine women. Words that intimate and harass. Words we’ve all been accustomed to hearing in our industry.