Parents with young children tend to want to work more days from home than other groups.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf Presence from Monday to Friday, fixed working hours and a permanent workplace in the office are a thing of the past in many places. The corona pandemic has changed working life, flexible regulations have been established in many German companies. However, this could be a disadvantage for women, as a new study by the professional network LinkedIn among 2,500 employees and HR managers in Germany shows.
56 percent of HR managers surveyed assume that more men will go back to the office after the pandemic, while many women will continue to work from home – for example, to take care of the household “on the side”.
They fear that this may make it harder for women to develop relationships with their employees (22 percent), they may feel fewer career opportunities (24 percent) and they may feel less entitled to demand what they want from their work ( 23 percent).
“We are currently observing with concern that women in particular want to continue to use the possibilities of flexible working – be it in the form of home office or part-time work,” explains Barbara Wittmann, Head of LinkedIn Germany. Men would be more drawn back to the office.
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“If this trend solidifies, then we are threatened with re-traditionalization and falling back into old role models,” says Wittmann. “Then we won’t create a more modern working world, but one in which it will be even more difficult for women to achieve equal opportunities.”
Flexible models are currently more important for women than for men in many respects. 62 percent of the women surveyed would like part-time options in their job, compared to only 43 percent of the men. Flexitime models are also more important for women than for men (48 and 33 percent), as is a four-day week (68 and 58 percent) and reduced hours (61 and 49 percent).
There is a lack of visibility in the home office
All of these models make career advancement more difficult because they severely limit the important career factor of visibility.
Even before Corona, the renowned Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom observed in an experiment in China that home office workers are forgotten more often than their colleagues who come to the office regularly.
Over time, the employees with a lot of on-site presence developed more “management capital”, as Bloom calls it. As a result, they were promoted more often because they went out to eat with colleagues more often or because they were able to chat with the boss.
Bloom’s latest studies show that parents with young children tended to want to work from home more days than other groups. He warns that promotion rates are “drastically lower” than those of ambitious young professionals who come into the office every day.
The expert therefore advocates that companies should strictly specify the days on which employees should come to the office. LinkedIn Germany boss Wittmann is also certain that “the new flexibility will only get us further if it applies to everyone equally”.
More: Three bosses reveal how they keep talent in the home office era.