Women Face a Double Disadvantage in the Hybrid Workplace

In a fixed hybrid system, the same employee is sometimes co-located and sometimes remote. Some employees are always co-located while others are always remote in a fixed hybrid system. Why does this matter? The author believes that we can be cautiously optimistic about how women will fare in a hybrid system, where they work at least some of the time, but not all of the time. There are compelling reasons to be less optimistic about how women will fare in a fixed hybrid system, where they work remotely full-time while at least some of their colleagues are co-located. Women risk being doubly disadvantaged if they work remotely in a hybrid system.

According to recent polls, women want to work full time or part time at a 10% higher rate than men. I hear enthusiasm about remote work in my discussions with women in the executive education programs I teach at Wharton. The benefits they see include better work-life balance and more control over their time, making it easier to manage their families, in addition to the time and money they save.