Is working from home actually hurting women?
The work-from-home revolution, The Great Reset, the dawn of the age of flexible working – all the grandiose terms that emerged from our pandemic working shift were united in one core consequence: the benefits for women. The move to a more adaptable way of working has long been viewed as an inarguable boon for all employees but especially women, who infamously disproportionately carry the burden of caring responsibilities.
So, comments made by Nationwide chief executive Debbie Crosbie this week may have come as a surprise to many. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s the Today programme, Crosbie suggested that the main casualty of working from home is, in fact, the career progression of women.
“One of the only good things that came out of the pandemic was the fact that people got much more comfortable with working flexibly, working from home – and I do think that's very useful,” she said. “What we find, certainly at Nationwide, is that men are more likely to come into the office than women and we need to be really careful that we don’t prevent women from accessing ‘development-watching’. I benefited enormously from watching some excellent leaders and how they navigated challenging problems.”
Nationwide has a 60% female workforce (of their 18,000 employees) and recently changed its “work from anywhere” policy to mandate that workers come into the office at least two days a week. This is largely in keeping with the rest of the country: 28% of the workforce operate under a ‘hybrid’ structure of work-from-home days and days in the office, while 13% are working from home and 44% are back in the office every day.
The statistics for working parents show that they are far more likely to favour a fully flexible or hybrid set-up than those without children. Crosbie herself lauded the impact of working from home on her own parenting balance. She had her daughter at 32 and she has observed that, as women have children later and later, this is typically at a stage in their careers when they are in line for promotion.
Besides the peer-to-peer learning Crosbie notes, many experts cite that the biggest block to promotion that working from home presents is a lack of actual face time with senior management. The transformation coach – and Bazaar’s career coach – Jo Glynn-Smith believes that a lack of presence can create a unfortunate ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ mentality. “The late Queen always said, ‘I have to be seen to be believed’, and I think that resonates for so many women today,” she tells me. “It was hard enough for women to get on to a board before Covid, it’s even harder now when you’re not actually in the room. This is something I hear from female clients a lot. The boy’s club is alive and kicking!”
She notes that most of the businesses leaders she speaks to would prefer their teams to come in at least four days a week – claiming it is “better for communication, equality and team building, and better for business”. Gabriella Braun, an executive leadership expert and coach, sees the same yearning in her clients, yet interestingly notes that many leaders think flexible working is “something for the employees only, and worry about control over staff they cannot see working.”
This insecurity on the part of employers must, Braun says, be tackled, yet employees must also realise they have a responsibility to “consider the organisation’s needs as well as their own, and think about opportunities for ‘development watching’ visibility and ways of overcoming obstacles to these”.
Glynn-Smith notes that, as much as leaders may wish for a four or even five day week in the office, we are no longer in a reality where this can – or should – be mandated. The will of the workforce is simply not there. “Flexible working has become the norm,” she says. “Flexibility is often listed at the top of a job spec these days because it’s become a deciding factor for the majority of applicants – especially when you consider that childcare costs in this country are criminally high, and travel costs and accommodation in cities expensive and small.”
So, if the appetite for a return to the ‘norm’ is no longer there among the workforce and, in fact, if the cost of living crisis – stagnating wages, soaring childcare costs and a perilous housing market – is conspiring against a ‘return to the office’, how should businesses respond to the threat that flexible working may pose to female progression?
The key is to tackle the issue in the spirit of flexible working. Namely, to think refreshingly differently about work. Braun believes this rethink on the part of employers should include a more thoughtful and bespoke approach to their teams. “They should consider their staff’s individual needs as well as the organisation’s needs,” she says. “They should create working practices that suit as many staff as possible, broaden the accepted norms about what is valued, and expand opportunities to see people and notice their development – as well as be diligent about unconscious bias.”
“Communication is key,” agrees Glynn-Smith. “They need to have greater awareness and pay more attention to what people are doing, even if they’re not in the office. Just because you’re in every day, doesn’t mean you work the hardest, or are the best choice for a leadership role. Stats actually show that people who work from home tend to work longer hours, with fewer breaks and distractions.
“Instead, reward people for positive results, strong teamwork, inspiring leadership and employee satisfaction; these are tangible metrics that don’t lie. If you remove the idea that the only way they can get ahead is by being in the office all the time, you level the playing field and make room for hundreds of incredible women who would otherwise be overlooked.”
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