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Is your organization walking back many years of progress in gender equity with a snap of its fingers? The query may sting, but the information tells an uncomfortable truth: forced Return to Office (RTO) policies may unintentionally roll back the progress we have made toward gender equality within the workplace.
By scrapping the gains in flexible working environments made in the course of the pandemic, firms are essentially establishing a “men first” hiring policy, whether or not they understand it or not. An inflexible RTO approach is pushing women out, which in turn fosters an environment that’s much more exclusive. This exclusivity cycles back as a self-fulfilling prophecy, putting one more layer of glass on that notorious ceiling.
Gains on the gender pay gap: A precarious progress
McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org recently published their Women within the Workplace report for 2023. The study spans a formidable 27,000 employees, 270 senior HR leaders, and 270 corporations. We’re inching toward equality, nevertheless reluctantly. Women make up 28% of the C-suite, a historical peak. But before we uncork the champagne, let’s not overlook the asterisks that accompany this headline. The journey to this milestone has been arduous, and the trail ahead is fraught with obstacles that threaten to undo this progress.
Women reaching the C-suite represents a powerful narrative of hard-won battles in boardrooms, oftentimes against a backdrop of systemic obstacles. Yet, even as we have fun the 28%, we must grapple with the glaring disparity that ladies of color comprise just 6% of this top-level leadership. It’s a somber footnote that screams: our work is removed from done. And unfortunately, the barriers should not just confined to the boardroom — they infiltrate every level of the company hierarchy.
Let’s speak about mid-tier promotions, a critical inflection point in anyone’s profession, but especially for girls. That is the stage where the company ladder starts to narrow significantly, and each rung upwards becomes exponentially more competitive. According to the report, for each 100 men promoted from entry-level to managerial positions, only 87 women achieve the identical elevation. Break it down by race, and the numbers are much more bleak — 73 women of color get promoted for each 100 men.
We will not speak about progress without addressing microaggressions. They’re the tiny pebbles within the shoe, easily dismissed but unimaginable to ignore. Women are 1.5 times more likely than men to have a colleague take credit for his or her work and twice as likely to endure unsolicited commentary about their emotional state. Consequently, nearly all of women — particularly women of color — adapt their appearance or behavior to circumvent these demeaning experiences. And guess what? Those that do are thrice more likely to contemplate leaving their jobs.
What these numbers don’t show are the invisible forces at play: the quiet sidelining of girls during key project assignments, the unconscious biases coloring performance reviews, and the systemic hurdles in networking opportunities. Put bluntly, the system is rigged, and the chances are skewed heavily against women, much more so against women of color.
Given the present imbalances, the query becomes: can we afford to destabilize this precarious progress? Because what’s at stake is not just a few percentage points in a C-suite representation chart—it’s about shifting the complete cultural narrative around what leadership looks like. And more practically, it’s about leveraging the total extent of accessible talent in an increasingly competitive business landscape.
Related: We’re Now Finding Out The Damaging Results of The Mandated Return to Office — And It’s Worse Than We Thought.
Why a forced return to office is a gender issue
And now for the gut punch: all this hard-won progress is getting ready to unraveling. Why? Because a mandatory return to office is hitting women harder.
At first glance, bringing people back to the office looks like an equitable move — everyone, regardless of gender, resumes the day by day commute. Yet, it’s anything but. The consequences of this seemingly uniform policy are essentially hitting the rewind button on the modest gains we have made.
To grasp this, let’s take a have a look at a recent survey of over 1,000 UK CTOs and CIOs conducted by Nash Squared, which revealed a disturbing trend. Companies that mandated employees to be within the office at the very least 4 days a week had a conspicuously lower rate of hiring women — comprising only one in five latest hires. Contrarily, firms that allowed more flexible work arrangements saw a 50% higher hiring rate for girls. That is a staggering difference, one which exposes the underlying biases and systemic issues at play.
Other research shows similar findings. A Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence survey specializing in the financial sector illustrates that if leaders have caregiving responsibilities, they’re 30% times more likely to exit if their distant work options are rescinded. And unfortunately, women still are way more likely to be caregivers.
The blow to women from an inflexible return to office applies especially to high-paying, high-pressure jobs that demand employees be available at unusual times outside their contracted hours. The recent Nobel Award winner in economics, Claudia Golden, calls these “greedy jobs” and pointed out that flexibility in the course of the pandemic allowed women to take more of those roles, helping narrow the gender pay gap. Reversal of RTO naturally reverses these gains.
What explains such disparities? Forced RTO policies neglect the present social inequalities and pressures disproportionately faced by women. Talking about childcare responsibilities, the pliability to earn a living from home helps mitigate these challenges, allowing women to integrate their skilled and private lives more effectively. With RTO, the juggling act becomes more precarious, leading many to opt out of full-time roles or sidestep promotional opportunities that demand more in-office presence.
Furthermore, women, especially women of color, often have to take care of microaggressions within the workplace, from being interrupted during meetings to having credit for his or her work usurped by male colleagues. The option to earn a living from home doesn’t entirely eliminate these issues, but it surely does offer some level of insulation. Forced RTO means a return to these exhausting day by day battles, which could lead on to attrition amongst women who’re already thrice more likely to consider quitting when experiencing such microaggressions.
Now, let’s bring it back to the information. If women make up just one in five latest hires in an RTO-enforced environment, imagine the ripple effect this can have on the already dismal ratios of girls in mid-tier and senior roles. And in the event that they are 30% more likely to exit, they’re much less likely to be retained.
So, as we navigate the ever-shifting terrains of the post-pandemic workplace, it’s crucial to scrutinize the unintended consequences of our decisions. Forced RTO is not just a logistics or productivity issue; it’s a dire gender issue with the potential to reverse years of slow but consistent progress. It’s a pivotal moment that calls for conscious decision-making, weighing the allure of returning to “business as usual” against the fee of squandering the inclusive workplaces we have began to construct.
That is why I tell the clients I work with to determine their RTO policies to deal with the impact of RTO on all categories of employees, not only white males. Doing so helps inform more inclusive decisions considerate of the needs of all employees.
The unintended consequences of RTO policies
Let’s not kid ourselves. The thought behind a return-to-office policy often stems from a well-intended desire to reestablish workplace culture, foster team dynamics, and reclaim some sense of “normalcy.” But in achieving these objectives, are corporations factoring within the regressions that may occur in other equally crucial areas, like gender equality? The balance of power is already skewed; the pliability in work arrangements is one in all the few equalizing aspects we have managed to introduce. Strip that away, and you are not just affecting logistics — you are altering profession trajectories.
Enough with the doom and gloom. Here’s the wake-up call: this is not about appeasing anybody group; it’s about ensuring that your talent pool is as wealthy, diverse and dynamic as it may possibly possibly be. Make gender neutrality a cornerstone of your RTO policy. Use advanced analytics to monitor promotion rates across gender and racial lines. Equip your managers to recognize and counteract microaggressions.
Is this difficult work? Absolutely. But when we let forced RTO policies dismantle what progress we have made in gender equality, then we aren’t just failing our women; we’re failing our organizations.
So, are you in, or are you out?