Why Work Flexibility Is A Winning Strategy For Everyone - Study

One of the many unhelpful tropes in the literature around women in the workplace is the idea that flexibility policies are unfair because they place an undue burden on childless workers to “pick up the slack” for their colleagues who are parents (read: mothers). This idea seemed to reach a fever pitch with the novel “Meternity” by a single young woman who professed resentment at all of the women who got to take maternity leave while she had to keep on working.

The idea that flexibility “for moms” is unfair definitely hurts moms’ ability to maintain and advance their careers. In fact, study

after study after study has found that women who ask for flextime options were viewed in much worse light than men who ask for the same accommodations. Joan Williams has written extensively about “maternal wall bias” – the bias that attaches to all women, regardless of whether they have children, and makes it difficult for them to move up the career ladder. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t just hurt moms. Because it’s assumed that young women will want a family eventually, the stereotypes and stigmas associated with working moms also hurt the careers of women without children. Which means that childless women who perpetuate these stereotypes unwittingly hurt their own chances for advancement.

And while men fare better in this system – including often being able to enjoy flexibility without negative consequences – I’d argue that a system that continues to expect men to put their work ahead of their families hurts them, too. When people of any gender consistently overwork they are contributing to a bigger problem by normalizing the expectation that workers will take on more than can be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time.

At the individual level, you may benefit from being the workplace hero in the short term, but you will likely be at a disadvantage in the long term. First, because your chances of burning out are high. Second, because you will have trained yourself to work more as your pathway to success, which will become difficult to sustain if and when you need more time for your personal life. And by perpetuating that overwork culture you aren’t really helping your colleagues, either.

I’d like to propose a different way of thinking. What if everyone – man or woman, parent or not – was entitled to live a rich and whole life? What if flexibility wasn’t just relegated to begrudgingly “allowing” moms to duck out early to attend a school play but was also about taking a yoga class at lunch, taking an Excel class to advance your skills, or being able to work remotely to attend to a sick parent? What if we could work together as a team to identify the business priorities and then figure out the best way to meet our goals as a team so that no one has to “pick up the slack”?

Wait, you may be thinking, isn’t that my boss’s job? Am I even allowed to do that? Well, certainly your boss may have ultimate authority over the team and its work and your company’s culture may be what it is. But I believe worker bees have more leverage than they think they do and more and more companies are actually encouraging people at all levels to work collaboratively to solve business problems. In fact, I think there’s an opportunity for you to show leadership. Work with your team to identify the critical priorities that must be accomplished. At the same time, identify the tasks that keep everyone chained to the desk without advancing business goals. Make suggestions to your management to streamline or eliminate the busywork so that the team can focus on the work that actually matters to the business. Then, work with your team to figure out how to tackle that work in a way that allows everyone the flexibility they need to have a life outside the office. If this idea seems daunting, find a senior woman who can mentor you in the best way to approach and she may even be willing to go to bat for you and your team to make changes.

It’s no small undertaking to suggest that a team work in different ways to accommodate everyone while also meeting the organization’s needs. But by taking on this task you can gain valuable management skills, help your team get more accomplished in less time and enjoy a better quality of life.

Learn more about the work I do at Path Forward and read my blog posts about work, life and everything in between.