Supposedly the pandemic has changed the working scenario for once and for all. Organizations have reportedly recorded heightened work and better work quality from the present ‘work from home’ set-up. Today companies are contemplating taking up remote working even post the pandemic.
Drifting a little from aspects like the required leadership in the age of remote working to the maintenance of the business continuity to the adoption of the technologies which simplify WFH to likewise, let us ponder over the effect of this new work structure on our women.
Many might be extremely tempted to think that the flexibility of WFH will prove to be a perfect counterpoise for the women. WFH seems to be a highly favorable scheme for women to get into jobs full-time, without any family distractions.
Before making such assumptions, wait! Let us not declare win before considering the extremely potential perils of the way!
The archaic conflict between work and family
Time and again, it has been proved that in comparison to the men who prioritize careers, the women carry out household duties a lot more. Going by the facts, no amount of work flexibility has been able to bring about a better work-life balance to the female professionals. Even if it helped to bring about that balance, only the lower-level employees have been facilitated, the senior-level officials have always been deprived of it.
The hard-earned access
Women generally have tough luck in earning career benefits that are facilitated by interacting with the decision-makers (mostly male). This inequality can be enlarged with the onset of WFH as face-to-face interactions decline. The career trajectories are bound to droop. Again, women who could not enjoy promotions in the usual work structure due to relocation inabilities might now walk the path that was so long the male domain.
The newly incorporated concept of presenteeism
The talks regarding companies adopting 100% remote work even after the pandemic are doing the rounds. In such a situation, some employees will enjoy co-location, some will work from home, and some will be on the move. In traditional organizations, the ones traveling and relocating will be the men, and hence they will be more visible in their contributions towards the company, whereas working from home women will stay out of sight. On the other side, we have introduced a digital work-from-anywhere environment where supervisors gain complete visibility of all the entire workforce so that there is no gender bias when it comes to remote or mobile working.
In such a challenging situation for one part of your workforce, it is important to switch to a digital solution like NexAEI that negates bias and ensures an agile and connected working environment. For more information about NexAEI, please here.
