- Only if we perceive it extra broadly can flexibility assist sort out deep-rooted points equivalent to workplace discrimination and women’s lack of illustration in top-level positions.
- Flexibility includes a extra basic rethinking of the that means of work and the contract between employer and worker.
- It begins with leaders aligning their groups and establishing boundaries from the high down.
Since the pandemic, many employers and workers have come to worth higher flexibility in working preparations. Flexibility is commonly framed as a women’s subject: when the insurance coverage agency Zurich included the phrases “part-time”, “job-share” and “flexible working” in its job adverts, for instance, the quantity of women making use of for administration roles elevated by almost 20%.
I’ve even seen individuals beginning to speak about flexibility as if it could possibly be a cure-all for the systemic points that maintain again women in the workplace. This is a myth. Flexibility can not, alone, sort out deep-rooted points equivalent to the gender pay hole, workplace discrimination and women’s lack of illustration in higher-level positions. It may also help – however provided that we perceive it extra broadly.
Work-life steadiness
I usually hear “flexibility” used as a synonym for preparations equivalent to working a four-day week, or mornings solely. But I see it as involving a extra basic rethinking of the that means of work and the contract between employer and worker – one which creates a real capability to manage your schedule in accordance with your private priorities.
Perhaps this implies you need to exclude conferences earlier than 9:00 AM, or after 6:00 PM. Perhaps it means you need an hour off each day to stroll the canine. Everyone is totally different, and it isn’t solely working moms who need time to themselves – all of us have our personal set of circumstances. If workers and employers have a belief relationship, work-life steadiness might be custom-made like by no means earlier than.
At my earlier firm, for instance, I labored with a husband and spouse who occurred to have comparable {qualifications} and who efficiently shared a job, working alternate six-month intervals. Of course, that’s uncommon – but it surely illustrates how firms can profit from exhibiting creativity in response to distinctive conditions.
Implicit bias
When discussing flexibility in relation to gender, we should be cautious to keep away from implicit bias. It is a tragic actuality that the burden of care for kids and elders falls disproportionately on women, however by framing flexibility particularly as a women’s subject we danger backhandedly reinforcing this norm.
Similarly, we must always keep away from equating versatile working with the type of task-oriented, low-responsibility, low-pay jobs historically related to part-time work. Across the EU, women staff are nearly 4 instances extra probably than males to be part-time. Interpreting “flexibility” as creating extra part-time roles for women may inadvertently strengthen the glass ceiling.
Image: The Adecco Group
To keep away from this, we must always work to make even the most senior roles extra versatile. I occur to get pleasure from being full-time, however in precept there isn’t a cause why my job couldn’t be shared. With platforms to collate emails, workflows and paperwork in the cloud, it’s extra possible than ever earlier than for one job-sharing colleague to get rapidly on top of things on what one other has been doing.
As extra firms convey individuals again to the workplace, we have to make sure that new patterns of hybrid working don’t drawback women’s profession development. Women are twice as probably as males to need to work remotely, and it’s tougher to handle interactions in an equitable approach when some persons are collectively bodily and others are distant, than it’s when everyone seems to be distant.
We are presently seeing a rising want to educate managers in getting issues performed by way of hybrid work whereas guaranteeing that distant staff aren’t marginalised by their extra versatile preparations, given the historic development for promotions to go to people who find themselves extra current and visual in the workplace.
The World Economic Forum is working with Cabify, Deliveroo, Grab, MBO Partners, Postmates and Uber to enhance working requirements for the tens of thousands and thousands of individuals who earn a residing or high up their incomes by way of digital work/service platforms.
The chief government officers from the six firms have signed The Charter of Principles for Good Platform Work, committing to make sure that platform staff obtain truthful situations, remedy, advantages and coaching alternatives.
By collaborating with companions, the Forum is creating a complete strategy to offer readability on platforms’ duties to the staff who use their platforms, empower platform staff, promote their dignity and well-being, whereas supporting flexibility, innovation and the worth supplied by the platform economic system to customers and purchasers.
The Forum is trying for platform firms, regulatory our bodies, staff’ organizations and impartial specialists globally who’re dedicated to advancing working requirements in the platform ecosystem, to collaborate on the subsequent stage of the Promise of Platform Work initiative. Contact us to be taught extra.
This longstanding workplace tradition of presenteeism is a component of a vicious circle: when males really feel strain to remain late in the workplace, they’ve much less time to take part in the life of their family, including to the home care burden on women. Changing workplace tradition may break this cycle, and everybody has a job to play.
Clear targets and particular person boundaries
It begins with leaders aligning their groups and establishing boundaries from the high down. As instructed by the Zurich instance, small variations in job advert wording can draw in a brand new type of applicant. Recruiters might be extra sympathetic in the direction of candidates who’ve had profession breaks. Leaders have to outline clear targets for workers, and methods of evaluating them on how properly they meet their targets – not on what number of hours they spend at their desk.
Individual staff can play their half by talking up. The concept of “leaning in” has fallen out of style for seeming guilty continued gender inequality on women themselves – however the core perception, of encouraging women to advocate for their pursuits at work, stays sound. That consists of being agency about the boundaries you set for your self.
But deep-rooted systemic points of gender inequality in the workplace additionally want authorities motion. Nordic international locations, to take only one instance, are main the approach in legal guidelines that allow parental depart to be equally shared, relatively than maternity depart for moms solely.
Flexibility alone can not shut the gender hole – however it could actually assist, if we recognise that it isn’t a gender-specific subject, and take extra critically its potential to radically reform how employers and workers work together and the way work is completed.