Let's not go backwards...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is an exciting time from a work perspective and like nothing many of us will ever see again in our lifetimes. The last year has thrown everything at us - but now comes the decision point. What have we learnt? What do we take forward? 

Are we in revolution or evolution? 

Unlike what we have seen in the past, this change isn’t just about business. It’s about us as people, it’s about our families, our time and our lives. 

And it’s particularly pertinent to women. 

The last year

Working parents have seen the positives of home working. They’ve been around more to witness the daily goings on at home and be part of the routine. Of course it hasn’t all been a bed of roses. There have been gate-crashed conference calls, fights over the kitchen table and home school role resentment. 

But there have been some real upsides. 

An extra hour or two each day where we’re not commuting has given us time we didn’t have before. Children have spent more time with the parent that’s normally out of the house 14 hours a day. There has been the opportunity to share the school run, homework supervising and household chores. There has been more time to work out, to garden, to walk the dogs or to do whatever else it is that we do to make ourselves feel good.

Are we going backwards?

But as offices begin to open up again, it seems that some of us are going backwards.

Too many times recently I have heard female friends, That Works For Me members and colleagues talking about how their husbands are off back to the office. How things are going back to normal and how they’re back on the school runs, back preparing dinner, back organising everything. 

Do you hear the word ‘back’? 

Because it’s all I seem to hear at the moment. And it’s deeply disappointing. 

This is an opportunity for change

We’ve done a global pandemic now. There is a blueprint. People are working towards a best practice if something like this happens again. We have experience of it. And that means that we will never again be forced into a universal way of working that we’re not used to.

That means that this time is an opportunity like no other. 

The opportunity is being labelled as flexible working but it’s so much more than that. It’s how we work, where we work and when we work. Flexible working isn’t just about Mums and Dads sharing the load. It’s about so much more!

It’s about reducing skills wastage. It’s about keeping women in the workplace but on terms that work for them. And that in turn begins to address gender imbalance in leadership that so many companies struggle with. 

We have long since made the link between flexible working and gender equality but this is the first time we have had an opportunity to do something about it on such a global scale.

Changing how we work means the opportunity to be inclusive and to redress imbalance. 

Start talking

In the same way that we urge businesses to talk to their employees about what work looks like, we are urging women to talk to their partners. We’re urging Mums to talk to Dads. 

We’re urging everyone to have the conversation and break the archaic conventions that have seen women cast from the workplace and into the role of feeder, carer and taxi driver. We’re urging women to claim back their time and redress the balance. We’re urging men to support this change and move away from presenteeism and instead prioritising family life for themselves, their families and their colleagues.

So if you have a partner and things are ‘slipping back’, stop! 

Stop what you’re doing and have the conversation. Figure out how you take the good bits of the last year and keep them in your life. 

Speak to your partner, if you have one, about what will be different.

Speak to your manager about how to make your job fit your life a bit better. 

If you have a daughter, speak about what this time will mean for them. Think about how you have the chance to change things for the long term. Think about giving them the future where having children won’t derail their careers and stop them progressing. Think about the role you play in removing the so-called glass ceiling.

Then do something about it. 

There is no reason for things to ‘go back’, we should all be invested in moving forwards for the sake of us, our children and our society.

Not everyone will see change. But this is the time when we start the conversations. We open the floodgates and we enable a life change that redresses the outdated imbalance between man and woman that has for too long dominated our workplaces and our homes. 

That Works For Me is a B2B digital platform that connects exceptional proven talent with businesses that need it. We embrace and promote flexible working to combat the lack of gender diversity in the UK, which is estimated to cost ￡189bn in GDP.