Challenging inflexible working structures for #IWD2021

For my colleagues based in the UK, this year’s International Women’s Day just happens to fall on the day when their kids are going back to school after the latest lockdown. For all of us at intO - but especially us women and mothers - the lockdowns over the past year have challenged us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. intO’s team works remotely and is distributed around the world, and each region has presented a unique context and situation. But no matter where we live and work, we’ve often felt exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious about our children’s mental health and education, and torn between our professional lives, our family lives and our own wellbeing. 

To support the mental health of working parents during the lockdown, at intO we addressed three crucial areas to combat feelings of overwhelm:

1. Caring for family (childcare, management of the household, homeschooling, sharing joyful moments)
2. Caring for your work (progressing, achieving, learning, connecting with the team)
3. Caring for yourself (connecting with friends, fitness, hobbies, fun, rest): this is an area that is frequently overlooked but between caring for their family and work, mothers were not being left with time or energy to care for themselves during the pandemic.  

intO has always provided flexible working hours, but during lockdown, we went beyond this. We subsidised 50% of additional childcare costs to improve the care for family and create the focus required for work; we rented ‘out of home’ desk spaces (in those regions where lockdowns did not prevent this) for those who needed to step out of the chaos of the home to care for their work, and we encouraged a 20% reduction of working hours (without any reduction in salary) to increase time for self-care. We assessed and implemented these on a 1-2-1 basis - and I am aiming to maintain these policies going forward. As an employer, you cannot only rely on the provision of flexible hours and situation-specificother parents and family’ to look after the wellbeing of your team members. I believe that every business has the responsibility to make a step towards equality. And the starting point is to empower your own employees by helping them to care for their family, for their work and for themselves. Mother Pukka, and it’s Flex Appeal campaign definitely informed and inspired my actions. intO was already a remote business that has always supported the flexible working requirements of families and I keep asking myself the following question: 

If myself and my colleagues have found this past year challenging, how did anyone without a flexible and supportive working structure cope? 

The answer, unfortunately, is that they probably didn’t cope well at all. Many mothers were already working a double-shift pre-pandemic (a full day at work followed by many hours of caring and work in the home. Or even worse, caring for family first and then doing night shifts to complete work responsibilities). The shutting of schools and requirements for home education placed utterly unrealistic expectations on women around the world. The stress fractures are showing; the Women in the Workplace report, released by LeanIn and McKinsey (2020) warns that a crisis is looming in corporate America, as over one in four women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce due to covid-19. As Sheryl Sandberg of LeanIn has said, ‘Some companies may think that worrying about employee burnout is a luxury they can’t afford right now. In fact, it’s mission critical. If companies rise to the moment, they can head off the disaster of losing millions of women and setting gender diversity back years.’ 

Corporate America might be facing a crisis, but what about other countries around the world? I’m reminded of a study conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), ‘Women’s’ work: mothers, children and the global childcare crisis.’ Its findings were poignant, sad, and yet not surprising at all. Across 53 developing countries, some 3.5 million children under five (that’s more than the number of under fives in Europe) were without adult supervision for at least an hour in a given week. The study’s report offered a perspective into the awful decisions that parents faced when it came to juggling their domestic responsibilities and love for their children with the need to provide for them economically. 

This is a human rights issue. 

It’s not only children who pay a price for the care gap. The widespread failure of social and economic policy to cater for the realities of how people care for each other means that adults are losing out with long hours, low incomes and lost opportunities. And, as much of the responsibility for childcare still falls on women and girls who as a result are often prevented from advancing in other areas of their lives. 

It’s staggering to me that, all around the world, we still struggle to even meet the fundamental standards that were laid out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - a milestone document that was proclaimed by the UN 73 years ago in 1948! Within it, we find declarations that include: 

‘The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.’ (Article 16)

And: 

‘Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.’ (Article 23)

But really, can these two scenarios ever coexist without significant change? We simply cannot have both these scenarios unless we commit to understanding the context of lives in the real world and commit to making changes. I want to emphasise that we don’t just have to wait until national policies change and employers are ‘forced’ to implement them. Every business who employs mothers and fathers needs to be ahead of the curve and show the policy makers what’s possible. 

Now is the time to flex. 

So much of the lockdown focus in the media - at least in the news I’ve seen from the UK, Europe and USA - has been on remote working, and we should be careful not to view enforced remote working as the same as ‘flexible’ working (the latter describing a context in which the demands of home and life can be respected and balanced). However, every crisis and disruption presents new opportunities, and the pandemic’s lockdowns have shown many businesses the world over that a more flexible approach to working hours and location really has the potential to raise productivity, increase loyalty, attract better talent and cut costs. A recent report by Flex Appeal, ‘Forever Flex: Making flexible working work beyond a crisis’, suggests that now UK employers have ‘flexperimented’, 72% want to retain home-working and 70% want to retain flexitime options. An important opportunity for change has been recognised. Let’s keep evolving in this direction!

Flexibility will benefit all. 

I’m conscious that much of this article has focused on women - it is International Women’s Day, after all - but the issue of the distribution of care responsibilities applies to all of us. The right to flexible work and parental leave applies to fathers as well as mothers. And ultimately, flexible working isn’t just about parents, it’s about all people. 

What to do next:

If you want to push for a more flexible working context, or if you’re an employer that wants to offer more flexibility, a great place to start is Anna Whitehouse’s website, Mother Pukka, and it’s Flex Appeal campaign. 

If you’re a business leader and you would appreciate an open discussion about the practicalities of shaping a supportive, flexible workplace, I’d love to connect. Just drop me a message and we’ll arrange it.