According to Deloitte, hybrid work environments are “finally becoming more inclusive” for women. Deloitte's Women at Work survey polled 5,000 women from 10 different countries, and found that the percentage of hybrid working women who feel excluded has dropped significantly.
Compared to a year ago, the “number of women who reported feeling excluded from meetings and decisions is down more than 36%,” according to Deloitte's poll.
Last year, 58% of women working on a hybrid schedule felt they had been “left out, including from informal interactions with other coworkers.” This year, that figure dropped to just 37%.
A year ago, 45% of women working on a hybrid schedule reported not having enough access to their companies’ senior leaders. This year, just 30% expressed the same sentiment.
Read more via Bloomberg, Deloitte
According to Stellantis, allowing women to work remotely 70% of the time has helped the company to retain female workers.
Xavier Chereau, chief human resources and transformation officer for Stellantis, said in an interview last month that “the company’s work from home policy has helped the automaker boost the number of women in its ranks, particularly at the top.”
According to Chereau, women held 27% of leadership positions at Stellantis as of December 2022, up from 24% a year prior.
Read more via Bloomberg
The use of employee monitoring software is on the rise, but some experts fear its overuse and overreach could cause it to backfire.
Employee surveillance is not exactly new: Experts say monitoring workers has been happening “since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.”
The pandemic increased ‘productivity paranoia’: One survey found that 85% of leaders “have trouble believing their workers are being productive.”
The use of employee monitoring software has skyrocketed: Demand for monitoring software has increased dramatically since the start of the pandemic, according to surveys and experts.
Monitoring software allows employers to see virtually everything: Experts say “most types of employee monitoring software in the market now make it possible for users to see everything on a desktop in real-time — from keystrokes, browsing activity, emails, chat apps.” While most employers focus on tracking performance based on online activity (versus inactivity), other employers take monitoring much further.
Some employers have taken monitoring to an extreme: Some managers listen in on phone calls, and read email messages, all as part of monitoring employee performance. One company that sells monitoring software offers a feature that analyzes workers' language to “figure out if workers are satisfied at work.” The same software checks to see if employees are using work time to search for a new job.
Experts say over-monitoring workers could backfire: One study indicates that workers who know they are being monitored are “substantially more likely to take unapproved breaks and purposely work at a slow pace.”
“[Employee surveillance] has increased excessively over the last few years … largely under the guise of ensuring workplace safety and confidentiality and protecting the business.”
Read more via CNBC
According to new research conducted by economists at the New York Federal Reserve, Harvard University, and the University of Iowa, remote workers “may be paying a hidden professional penalty” in exchange for the flexibility offered by remote work.
The research is considered “one of the first major studies on remote work.” The study involved researchers observing engineers working at a large tech company.
The paper’s authors say their research reveals that while remote work enhanced the productivity of some workers, it reduced feedback offered to other less senior employees.
Remote work “enhanced the productivity of senior engineers, but it also reduced the amount of feedback that junior employees received.”
Junior engineers were “more likely to quit” working at the company.
Declining feedback was “especially pronounced for female engineers.”
Read more via New York Times
