Do remote work arrangements disproportionately and negatively impact primary childcare providers?
IQ has clients that have fully remote, hybrid, and fully in-office work arrangements. As recruiters it is our job to find candidates that are happy with the client mandated arrangement. We do exactly that; and without second-guessing the wisdom of what the client has decided is best for them.
On the other hand, as a long-time team leader myself, I am aware that whatever arrangement is chosen requires management-led change to ensure the pros are maximized and the cons are minimized.
An excellent article by Rotman Management Magazine points out just one of many obvious upsides and some of the serious downsides.
“Remote and flexible work arrangements reduce barriers to work, contributing to economic equality. For example, caregiving responsibilities — most often done by women — are often easier to take on while working from home. Research shows that remote and flexible work arrangements facilitate women’s return to work after childbirth and help them remain in the workforce, leading to economic benefits not only for women but also their families and the economy overall.”
On the other hand, the gender pay gap remained unchanged during the Covid pandemic and has, in fact, grown larger for women that work remotely compared to men who work remotely. In a hybrid arrangement where employees can work in the office when they choose, primary childcare providers (most often women) may be disadvantaged versus non-primary childcare providers (most often men). The quantity of hours worked has long been a measure of productivity (despite that being incorrect) so those who ‘put in the hours’ at the office may be perceived as being more productive. Remote work productivity is harder to assess and may be incorrectly judged as lower.
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It seems clear that employee performance assessments need to be free of cognitive bias, gender bias, and constructed to ensure that an accurate picture of productivity and work quality is achieved.
I would love to hear your opinions on this.
Do you believe remote work disproportionately and negatively impacts primary childcare providers?
Does your company have policies in place to eliminate bias in employee assessments?
Senior Partner/Founder at IQ PARTNERS Inc. | Executive Search and Recruitment
2yGreat observations Mark Rouse! The whole topic of assessing performance in hybrid and remote work environments is still fraught with bias and challenges that companies will need to figure out. In many cases, remote workers (primary childcare providers AND others) are far more productive than their in-office peers!