Sun cannot set on flexibility and working from home

Opinion*: A Tale of Two Perspectives

CEOs stuck in traditional ways of working... vs supporting the workforce now and into the future

Two juxtaposing reports have been released recently which I find both fascinating and highly concerning.

In 3 years’ time, KPMG predicts we’ll all be back in the office full time. According to KPMG’s 2023 CEO Outlook, a massive two-thirds of all Australian CEOs see all white-collar workers returning to the office in the next 3 years. And a vast majority (75%) of Australian CEOs said they would reward employees who return to the office with pay increases, promotions and more interesting work. Yes, you read that right – simply for ‘making the effort’ to come into the office.

Olivia Cleal of Women's Agenda perfectly captured the crux of it in her article:

What would that mean for the majority of women??

Its not looking great for women, or for shifting the dial on women’s participation, advancement or pay.

As KPMG’s Global Head of People Nhlamu Dlomu explains “…the evidence suggests a one-size-fits-all approach to return-to-office could be detrimental.”

It certainly would.

It’s fascinating to read in the same survey that:

Two-thirds of global CEOs (66%) think that progress on inclusion and diversity has moved too slowly in the business world. A strong majority (72%) also say that achieving diversity in workplaces requires implementing a change across the senior leadership level.

Bingo.

What is needed to drive that change for women?

Flexibility at work matters. To individuals and to organisations and the economy. Numerous studies point to the fact that flexibility leads to greater productivity, engagement and overall contentment in workplaces. Women stand to benefit hugely from flexible work practices. For more on the benefits of flexibility, read this article about developments on workplace flexibility in the UK.

Rewarding and promoting people for their contributions and capabilities matters. Not only is this fair, but an organisation stands to quickly lose credibility with employees, prospective employees, clients and the market if it doesn’t.

Valuing the contribution of women matters (to those who need a reminder: women so make up 50% of the population!!). Thanks to many years of research, the myriad of people dedicated to advocating for equity and shining light on discrimination and inequality, and the voices of women in the workforce, those who have left, and those that cannot seem to make it back, we know the barriers women face.

Driving hard on addressing those barriers matters. Women certainly aren’t the problem, the system is. Common sense tells us to fix the system that is not working for so many, and ultimately, failing the broader community. If you need a brief reminder:

• Women are critically underrepresented in the workforce: Current global labour force participation for women is just under 47% (compared to 72% for men).
• In Australia, women’s workforce participation is only 48%. With less than half of women working, we are missing 2.7 million women from the labour force.
• Women are even further underrepresented in leadership: 91% of CEO Positions on the ASX 300 are held by men (yes, that's the top 300 listed companies on the Australian Stock Exchange, comprising 84% of Australia’s equity market).
• Globally, we are still 140 years away from achieving gender parity in managerial roles.
• Based on the national census data, Australian women still face a gender pay gap of 13% - meaning that for every dollar that men earned on average, women earned only 87 cents.
• The Workplace Gender Equality Agency 's employer census data (capturing organisations of 100 or more employees) found a worse gender pay gap of 22.8% – this has not budged at all over the past year.

And that’s from a place already very far behind the starting line in the workplace, across all roles. Not to mention the abhorrent discrimination, harassment, sexual assault reported in workplaces, the scourge of gendered violence in homes and in the community, and inequality in health access and outcomes, superannuation pots and other areas of financial and physical security.

Clearly a concerted effort is essential to bring women into, and support and retain them in, Australia’s workforce – that is the least that CEOs can turn their attention to.

And finally, leadership matters. In the interests of brevity, I won’t expand on this now – for the purposes of this article let’s take it as a given that leadership on matters relating to people, productivity, equity, diversity & inclusion (EDI) and culture is at least important.

So, to then expect - and to reward and promote - face time in the office, is not only non-sensical but also a huge step backwards from any advancements made towards gender equity.

Women’s Ambitions

Fortunately, we also have timely research into women’s views on flexibility. The latest Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.org and 麦肯锡 demonstrates how supporting women (and others) to work flexibly also shifts the dial. As Madeline Hislop reported in her recent article, not only are women as ambitious as men at every stage of the corporate pipeline, they are also more ambitious than they were before the pandemic.

“Flexible working options are also fuelling women’s ambitions, with women who work hybrid or remotely being just as ambitious as women and men who attend a workplace.”

According to that report, flexibility has helped one in 5 women stay at their organisation or avoid reducing their hours. Women working remotely experience less fatigue and burnout whilst having more focused time and getting more done.

Those findings are readily applicable to women across Australia.

Seems a no brainer to me…

So why the fixation on return to office plans?

A huge proportion of Australian CEOs (including men making up 91% of those CEO positions mentioned above) want people to return to the office.

Why go backwards?

Traditional thinking and ways of working is both lazy, and outdated. Especially when it serves to uphold the patriarchy and deny equal opportunity in practice.

We all know who will stand to benefit from the incentives of returning to the office – overwhelmingly, working men at the expense of women. Particularly men who aren’t sharing the load equally at home.

Mandating or rewarding return to the office for those who have been successfully working remotely, at least for part of their week, is crazy.

Mandating office return is certainly is a way to keep the status quo and throw your diversity and inclusion plans out the window.

No consideration of the work-life juggle, or of individual needs. These are the elements that can make maintaining a career at best, difficult; at worst, unachievable. Childcare and eldercare needs. Special needs. Heath needs. The soaring (and often unaffordable) cost of care. The fact you often cannot get your kid(s) into suitable childcare, or that it is a substantial commute away. The school hours that don’t align with work hours. The near impossible attempt to juggle being there for your [choose one or several: kids, partner, family, friends, the elderly, voluntary roles]. The household decision as to how and how much women will work commonly based on after tax income (see the gender pay gap data above). The fact that the vast majority of the childcare load, household load, AND the mental load, still rests on women.

(Side note: Men who are stepping up and co-partnering, co-parenting and co-organising, I see you: thank you and please spread the word with your mates and go forth and rapidly multiply!!)

No thoughts about where you will possibly draw people from to meet the skills and talent challenge. The innovation needed to deliver on sustainability and business productivity. The lack of diversity and originality in thinking and the ‘we’ve always done it that way’ approach that got us into unsustainable and unproductive practices in the first place. The fact that a blanket approach to requiring everyone to forget their broader lives and commute to a single location to suit a traditional view of the world doesn’t work for many families and individuals, at different life stages. That for many it is simply not a feasible choice, for health or other reasons.

No consideration of the sustainability impact of asking people to do so. I’m presuming these businesses are not thinking about or accounting for Scope 3 emissions. Or maybe they are the same businesses claiming ‘that’s out of our hands, we can’t possibly control Scope 3…’

Essentially, a blanket return-to-office mandate is attempting to performatively ‘do diversity’ without any real understanding of your workforce and prospective workforce. No recognition of the link between hybrid or remote working and nurturing and supporting talent (contrary to KPMG’s recommendation for CEOs to take a long-term view when it comes to employee’s desire for such work arrangements).

CEOs must step up

We need organisations and their leaders to step up and move beyond performative EDI. As KPMG recommends we need CEOs to: “...make [EDI] a stated priority, set real targets, fund initiatives and appoint management to lead programs with clear accountability.”

Here’s a gem that will save those CEOs and their businesses considerable, time, energy and budget:

Don’t force people to return to the office.

Do reward people on their contribution and achievements – not whether they can warm the chair in the office on any given day of the week.

It doesn’t go far enough, but it’s certainly a positive start.

* Cathryn Greville is an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) specialist and Australian-qualified lawyer originally from Western Australia, now living and working in the United Kingdom. She provides this opinion piece on the latest research on leaders' views around flexible work practices and the impact on EDI in Australia.