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To start with what we know: Flexible working arrangements\u2014wherein bosses trust their people to get work done in whatever configuration, wherever it makes sense for them\u2014is almost always the best plan for everyone<\/a>. Companies that fail to take workers\u2019 desire for flexibility have paid the cost dearly<\/a>. The past four-plus years have moved flexible work from a nice-to-have to a requirement<\/a> for many job seekers, none more so than caregivers, lower-income workers, and women, who are more likely than men<\/a> to fall into both categories.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s what we\u2019re learning: No single company can escape the impacts of eschewing distributed work and expect to maintain their entire staff. Upwork, a freelancing platform connecting companies with freelancers, recently released a string of reports finding the outsize effect return-to-office mandates have had on women in the workforce. The TL;DR version: It\u2019s been awful for them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe system is not working for women, so they\u2019re opting out\u201d in favor of alternative, flexible career paths, Kelly Monahan, the managing director of Upwork\u2019s research institute, told Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, per Upwork\u2019s new research, nearly two-thirds (63%) of C-suite leaders whose companies have mandated an office return of some sort say the policy has led to a disproportionate number of women to quit.\u00a0<\/p>\n About the same share of executives told Upwork they\u2019re struggling to fill those vacant roles\u2014and more than half agree that their hemorrhaging of women employees tanked company productivity. (They surveyed 2,500 global workers, including over 1,500 C-level executives.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The problem didn\u2019t begin with the remote-work revolution of the 2020s. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost decades of female workforce participation leading up to the pandemic,\u201d Monahan, who holds a PhD in organizational leadership, said. The U.S. lags behind other major economies in creating a workforce that actually works for women at all. \u201cWe still have a culture that favors the people who built it originally.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t let the news of Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 candidacy for president<\/a> distract you from the underwhelming state of women\u2019s power in U.S. workplaces. Per the Center for American Progress<\/a>, over the past 30 years, every G7 nation saw at least 10% growth in working women. The same metric remained mostly flat in the U.S., which CAP estimated will cost the U.S. 5% of potential GDP growth.<\/p>\n So the problem predates the Industrial Revolution, but today\u2019s state of affairs\u2014namely, an across-the-board office return\u2014is still disproportionately hurting women. \u201cI\u2019m very bullish on alternative career paths, because we don\u2019t have the same social safety nets of other G7 countries,\u201d Monahan said.<\/p>\n Searching for avenues of greater career control, many women (over half, in Upwork\u2019s survey sample) have taken to freelancing; nearly 30% of those women said no amount of money would lure them back to full-time work. (To be sure, Upwork itself is a freelancing marketplace, which relies on a steady stream of new freelancers seeking contract work to remain profitable.)<\/p>\n While conducting her research, Monahan sought to determine whether flexibility is \u201ca perk or table stakes in job design\u201d and whether \u201cremote work is a perk or just how we work now.\u201d Both are still paramount questions, even as we near the five-year mark since the world locked down due to COVID.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that correlates higher in-office time with better performance; in fact it\u2019s the opposite,\u201d she said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you have to be 100% remote\u2014and women aren\u2019t always asking for that\u2014just time for life outside of work.\u201d<\/p>\n Workers\u2019 desire for trust underpins all the new findings, Monahan said. \u201cOur data has found that leaders who enable a level of flexibility\u2014give people hybrid options\u2014are way likelier to trust their people more.\u201d (After all, the best companies to work for<\/a> have happy employees due to the emphasis on trust and wellbeing, more so than pay or benefits.)<\/p>\n Monahan encourages leaders to consider whether their hesitance to embrace more flexible, distributed ways of working are, at the core, issues of trust. \u201cYou can\u2019t lead the same way as when we were all in-person,\u201d she hopes bosses realize. \u201cI encourage people in that gray space to have conversations with their teams and figure out how asynchronous work might enable better work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, a 2023 Upwork report<\/a> found that high-performing companies actually had a wide variance for asking people back to the office\u2014but they stood out among their peers in their commitment to flexibility and trust: 62% of those companies worked remotely at least one to two days per week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Research published by software firm Atlassian<\/a> earlier this year echoed Upwork\u2019s report, finding that 1 in 3 Fortune 500 and 1000 bosses whose companies mandate some amount of in-person work say they\u2019ve seen zero productivity change as a result. Those same execs also overwhelmingly agreed that how work is done far outweighs the significance of where it happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n Generally, today\u2019s approach to performance management and measurement is \u201call very transactional,\u201d Monahan said, with bosses focusing on what they can see. Often, measurable performance benchmarks have no column for where the work was carried out. \u201cThose are very butts-in-seats, micromanaging philosophies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And workers notice. The majority of them told Upwork that their employer doesn\u2019t have an accurate understanding of their productivity; most say they\u2019d be more satisfied and productive if they had more of a say in how they\u2019re assessed.\u00a0<\/p>\n But at companies that embrace flexibility, performance measurement includes columns like creativity, innovation, customer-relationship building, adaptability, and contribution to company strategy. \u201cIt\u2019s much more about human-centric, relationship-oriented measures at the forefront; that\u2019s the reality today,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t work\u2014anymore\u2014in isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nAmerica\u2019s working-women problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The productivity paradox remains, despite years of evidence<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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