Let’s start with what we know: Flexible working arrangements – where bosses trust their employees to do their work in any configuration, wherever it makes sense for them – are almost always the the best plan for everyoneCompanies that do not take into account employees’ desire for flexibility, paid the price dearlyOver the last four years and more, flexible working has evolved from a Nice-to-have for requirement for many job seekers, especially care workers, low-income earners and women who more likely than men fall into both categories.
And then there’s something else we’re learning: No company can escape the impact of the shift away from distributed work and expect to be able to retain its entire workforce. Upwork, a freelance platform that connects companies with freelancers, recently published a series of reports examining the enormous impact of the return-to-office mandate on working women. The short version: For them, it was terrible.
“The system isn’t working for women, so they’re dropping out” and preferring alternative, flexible career paths, said Kelly Monahan, executive director of the Upwork Research Institute. Assets.
In fact, according to a new study by Upwork, nearly two-thirds (63%) of senior executives whose companies have mandated a return to the office say the measure has led to a disproportionate number of resignations among women.
About the same proportion of executives told Upwork they were struggling to fill open positions—and more than half agreed that the sharp decline in female employees had hurt company productivity. (They surveyed 2,500 workers worldwide, including over 1,500 top managers.)
The problem didn’t start with the telecommuting revolution of the 2020s. “We lost decades of female participation in the workforce before the pandemic,” says Monahan, who has a doctorate in organizational leadership. The U.S. lags behind other major economies in even building a workforce that works for women. “We still have a culture that favors the people who built it in the first place.”
America’s problem of working women
Do not be fooled by the news of Presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris distracts you from the disappointing state of women’s power in US workplaces. According to the Center for American ProgressOver the past 30 years, every G7 country has seen an increase of at least 10 percent in the number of women in the workforce. In the United States, this figure has remained largely unchanged, which the CAP estimates will cost the United States 5 percent of its potential GDP growth.
So the problem predates the Industrial Revolution, but the current situation – namely the return to the office – still disproportionately harms women. “I’m very optimistic about alternative career paths because we don’t have the same social safety nets as other G7 countries,” Monahan said.
Seeking more control over their careers, many women (more than half of Upwork’s respondents) have turned to freelancing. Nearly 30% of these women said that no amount of money in the world could convince them to go back to full-time work. (Of course, Upwork itself is a freelance marketplace that relies on a steady flow of new freelancers seeking contract work to remain profitable.)
The productivity paradox persists despite years of evidence
In her research, Monahan wanted to find out whether flexibility is “a benefit or a must in workplace design” and whether “remote work is a benefit or simply the way we work right now.” Both questions remain of paramount importance, even though it has been nearly five years since the global COVID lockdown.
“There is no correlation between more time in the office and better performance; quite the opposite,” she said. “It doesn’t mean working 100% remotely – and women don’t always ask for that – it just means making time for life outside of work.”
Employees’ desire for trust underlies all the new findings, Monahan said. “Our data has shown that leaders who allow some degree of flexibility — give people hybrid options — are much more likely to trust their employees.” (After all, the The best companies to work for have satisfied employees because trust and well-being are more important than salary or benefits.)
Monahan encourages leaders to think about whether their reluctance to embrace more flexible, distributed ways of working is, at its core, trust issues. “You can’t lead the same way you did when we were all working together in person,” she hopes bosses realize. “I encourage people in that gray area to have conversations with their teams and explore how asynchronous work might lead to better work.”
Actually Upwork Report 2023 The study found that there was indeed a wide variation among high-performing companies in asking their employees to return to the office. However, compared to other companies, they stood out in their commitment to flexibility and trust: 62% of these companies worked from home at least one to two days a week.
Research published by the software company Atlassian Earlier this year, Upwork’s report reiterated that one in three Fortune 500 and 1000 CEOs whose companies mandate some level of in-person work say it hasn’t changed productivity. Those same executives also overwhelmingly agreed that how work gets done is far more important than where the work gets done.
In general, today’s approach to performance management and measurement is “very transactional across the board,” Monahan said, with bosses focusing on what they can see. Often, measurable performance benchmarks don’t have a column for where work was done. “These are very micromanagement-focused philosophies.”
And employees notice. The majority of them told Upwork that their employer doesn’t have an accurate idea of their productivity; most say they would be happier and more productive if they had more say in the evaluation.
But for companies that practice flexibility, performance measurement includes pillars such as creativity, innovation, building customer relationships, adaptability and contribution to corporate strategy. “It’s much more about people-centered, relationship-oriented measures at the forefront; that’s the reality today,” she said. “We no longer work in silos.”