When my youngest child was three months old, I was preparing to return to my job as a content lead at a marketing agency when my manager called. After reconfirming my start date the following week, he paused. “Oh,” he said, “And the whole work-from-home thing is going away.”
My stomach dropped.
I’d worked from home at least one day a week for the past four years, since having my first child. That one day without an hour-long commute each way was everything to me — and now that I had to drop two kids off at different places before catching the train, the trip would be 90 minutes one way. That equated to 15 hours per week in transit — not working, parenting, or doing the dishes.
Just when I needed more flexibility, a unilateral policy change gave me less.
This happened months before COVID-19 forced a surge in telecommuting, and the memory highlights a fact that we’d do well to remember in the months to come: The demand that employees commute to the office five days a week is undesirable to most Americans, and especially damaging to mothers.
The structure of the modern five-day work week was formed long before women comprised a large part of the workforce, when most American families had one full-time breadwinner and one full-time caregiver. That structure is incompatible with being the primary caregiver. Mothers who work outside the home still do more childcare and housework than their husbands, handling the lion’s share of dishes, cooking, cleaning, and meal planning, not to mention the coordination of doctor’s appointments and extracurricular activities. Add a long commute and inflexible hours to that already-heaping plate, and the result is a hellish, Sisyphean schedule—especially for moms with infants who don’t sleep through the night.
It’s no surprise that many mothers leave the workforce if they can. Nearly a third of women who left jobs after having kids said they did so because of a lack of flexibility that made parenting too difficult, according to a recent survey. Those who remain in the workforce are often sidelined for promotions because they opt for part-time schedules. After I was told I could no longer work from home on Fridays, I requested a six-month transition period and was denied. So, I switched to a four-day schedule. While I was grateful for the time with my daughter, it cost me 20 percent of my salary and all of my benefits.
The company had rescinded the weekly work-from-home option not because of productivity problems, but out of concern that offering it only to mothers was unfair. When I asked why they didn’t extend it to all employees, the president said not everyone could be trusted to work remotely. This anti-flex bias also extended to advancement. If I wanted to work on a large client account, my manager hinted that I would have to return full-time, on-site. I would have preferred to remain a full-time employee on track for greater responsibility, if my employer would have met my need for flexibility.
This is not only bad for mothers, it’s also bad for business. The benefits of having a substantial number of women in leadership posts include higher profits and more innovation. Since more than 80 percent of women become mothers, offering schedule or location flexibility is a sure way to increase leadership diversity.
COVID-19 has only worsened the loads of working mothers. Attempting eight hours of work while nursing infants, chasing toddlers and homeschooling older children is a special kind of hell. And yet, the fact that people are still getting their work done refutes the claim that working from home isn’t working at all. Research shows that people are more productive, not less, when allowed to work from their preferred location.
Let’s leave the obsession with office “facetime” behind us—not only for mothers, but for fathers, too. At least 33 percent of both mothers and fathers said in a survey by the consulting firm Werk that workplace structure prevented them from being the parents they want to be.
So, do we extend remote options to everyone who can work from their dining room tables? Yes. As long as parents have childcare, more flexibility means happier, more productive workers and less turnover. A woman I know owns a company that offers a variety of part-time schedules and weekly remote work options for full-timers. Her company has 3 percent turnover compared to a whopping 25 percent in her industry. In whatever passes for the new normal, let’s hope more companies choose that route.
[Read the Full Article at Business Insider]
Originally published on www.businessinsider.com, July 1st, 2020.
