Harvard Business Review: Women want to work from home too much, so don't let them.

[Elixir]

I think it would be better for him to advise businesses about these possibilities and their effects on productivity, promotions, etc.... because each business will have a different culture which may allow for more tailored policies.

^THAT!
There are whole galaxies of physical arrangements, psychological requirements and cultural contexts that bear on the optimization of of human resources within any given organization. As long as a prospective employee's eyes are wide open and there is full disclosure of what will be required going in, I don't think people should freak out about the specter of their preferences not being met.

As for Meta's complaint, sounds like he got something out of the pandemic (at-home work) that he would now be loathe to give up. That's understandable. But trying to pin one's own fears on the advice that a phantom "leftist" might give to businesses, is silly. Finger pointing at women as the root cause of the horror that said "leftist"'s advice might cause to be visited upon him, is simple misogyny.

 

[KeepTalking]

The thread title is grossly misleading.

The linked article's author argues against allowing employees to choose which days they will work from home, and in favor of businesses making that decision based on business needs and fairness in the workplace.

It's in favor of not allowing people to choose when to work at home because that could result in a disparate impact. In other words, women are not to be allowed to choose a path that is better for them but which might hold back their career.

Did it occur to you that holding back a career might not be considered better?

Isn't it their decision whether or not holding back a career is better? Why should it be taken away from them?

I disagree with the article because I disagree with the notion that not going into the office will necessarily hold back one's career. That may have been the old paradigm, but things have shifted, at least in my industry (software development). It seems to me that things are starting to lean in the opposite direction. Wandering around a dark, empty office, trying to find someone higher up to impress with your charm and wit while the rest of us are productively collaborating over Zoom/Slack/Discord may very well hold back your career in this new paradigm.

 

[TomC]

The thread title is grossly misleading.

The linked article's author argues against allowing employees to choose which days they will work from home, and in favor of businesses making that decision based on business needs and fairness in the workplace.

It's in favor of not allowing people to choose when to work at home because that could result in a disparate impact. In other words, women are not to be allowed to choose a path that is better for them but which might hold back their career.

Did it occur to you that holding back a career might not be considered better?

Did it occur to you that making choices that prioritize something over career advancements might be considered better by people who prioritize differently than you?
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

I read the HBR article. The author is making the point that it may make business sense to require or expect in person work for two major reasons - managing personnel is easier in person, and that lack of attendance tends to reduce promotion chances.

In this thread, there does not seem to be much (if any) dispute about the accuracy of those reasons.

The evidence for the reduced promotional chances is based on a single experiment run in 2014, run before COVID-19 began to normalise working from home, and supported by the author's subjective anecdotal experience. I haven't read the paper concerning the experiment, but I would say corporate culture changes and corporate values can be different in different countries.

The concern about the reduction in promotion chances for women because they tend to choose to work more from home is not "woke". It has been around for at least 4 decades. It is reactionary claptrap to invoke "woke".

The author uses the language and the reasoning and the prejudices of the woke. A dead giveaway is his imagined scenario of young men showing up five days a week in office, while remaining silent about what young women would or could do. He invokes the spectre of a 'diversity crisis', presumably meaning that some arbitrary amount of diversity that is not high enough is a crisis.

The idea that mandating some in-person work is necessarily a "disbenefit" to everyone is wrong. There people who prefer to use rules to justify their choices - it gives them cover for the choices they would like to make.

It reduces everybody's choice to zero, but I'd be interested in hearing the specifics of how an employee benefits using the 'cover' argument?

Moreover, restricting the possible choices to employees by requiring in-person work does have an expected benefit to the company (in terms of productivity)

Productivity loss from working from home is not proven. In the same paper that the author relies upon for his 'promotional opportunities' evidence, working from home increased productivity:

Home working led to a 13% performance increase, of which 9% was from work-ing more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick days) and 4% from more callsper minute (attributed to a quieter and more convenient working environment).Home workers also reported improved work satisfaction, and their attrition ratehalved, but their promotion rate conditional on performance fell.

and a possible future benefit to those who would have chosen to stay home more (increased chance of promotion).

It is a disbenefit to have your chances of promotion prejudiced compared to somebody who performs similarly but does it in-office, I agree. The solution to that is not to make everyone come into the office but to change your hiring and promotion practices to more fairly evaluate everybody.

Either So there are clearly benefits and costs to such policies. Criticizing them because one fears it may restrict one's choice while explicitly ignoring those benefitw seems, at a minimum, rather overly narrow-minded.

The productivity benefit is unproven and in fact has evidence against it.

The 'promotion' benefit may be real but it's also unfair. Methods of hiring and promotion should be changed to make it more fair--not changing WFH policies to indulge the prejudices of people doing the promoting.

 

[Metaphor]

I think it would be better for him to advise businesses about these possibilities and their effects on productivity, promotions, etc.... because each business will have a different culture which may allow for more tailored policies.

^THAT!
There are whole galaxies of physical arrangements, psychological requirements and cultural contexts that bear on the optimization of of human resources within any given organization. As long as a prospective employee's eyes are wide open and there is full disclosure of what will be required going in, I don't think people should freak out about the specter of their preferences not being met.

As for Meta's complaint, sounds like he got something out of the pandemic (at-home work) that he would now be loathe to give up. That's understandable. But trying to pin one's own fears on the advice that a phantom "leftist" might give to businesses, is silly. Finger pointing at women as the root cause of the horror that said "leftist"'s advice might cause to be visited upon him, is simple misogyny.

I didn't blame women for anything. I blame the author's mindset and bad arguments and prejudices. It's the author who has found the differences between men and women to be problematic, not me.

 

[Metaphor]

Psshaw, No one on this thread claimed that "mandating some in-person work is necessarily a "disbenefit". Metaphor did however call the reason given in the article for making it a mandate; bullshit. That I agree with.

So what if more women than men decide to work from home. Hows about you change your promotion triggers to something other than coffee machine talk. I don't get what the difference is between Working from home or in the office if the work is getting done. At that point, it's things like speed, efficiency, and the ability to problem-solve that matter. Ya know, results. Fuck basing it on who walked into the boss's office and kisses his/her ass every morning.

In fact, the very experiment the author relies upon for his single 'promotion' data point shows that people who worked from home were more productive.

But instead of advising businesses "hey, maybe you should change the way you promote people, because you appear to have an 'in office' bias that doesn't actually reflect performance, plus we live in a post-COVID world that has begun to normalise WFH", he instead says "don't let people work from home the number of days they choose, because men and women will make different choices and your biased promotion practises will favour the 'in office' workers".

 

[Playball40]

I'd rather eat boiled peanuts than admit this but I think Metaphor's take is correct.

His take on the article in the OP, or his take on the issue of employees being the ones to decide when they work from home and when they come into the office?

The only time I've ever had the 'autonomy' to decide when I would be at a workplace was when I was an Uber driver. Other than that, it was always my manager's decision when and whether I was physically present at the business. So I don't really get what's the big whoop about a business advisor advising businesses to have their managers make those decisions.

Employee autonomy is valuable to employees. In fact, low autonomy often correlates with low job satisfaction.

I like working from home and I object to bullshit reasons for that choice to be taken away or reduced. That women want more days working from home is a bullshit reason to reduce employee autonomy and take away WFH choice.

I agree with Metaphor and find their justification of taking that choice to be bullshit. Stop pretending it's to protect women. A good manager will know someone's worth by their productivity, not by how many days they see them in person.

 

[Elixir]

I blame the author's mindset and bad arguments and prejudices.

For your fear that his advice about women's choices could cause you to have to go to work?
No, dude. That's all you.

 

[Metaphor]

I blame the author's mindset and bad arguments and prejudices.

For your fear that his advice about women's choices could cause you to have to go to work?
No, dude. That's all you.

No. None of it is me. I didn't write an article for HBR where I backflipped on previous advice that was pro- employee autonomy because I thought it would lead to a "diversity crisis"--an ethereal bugbear if ever there were one.

The author:
Made sloppy arguments
Ignored the benefit of employee autonomy
Ignored the benefit of increased productivity that WFH brings that arose FROM HIS OWN STUDY
Used group average differences to justify decreasing employee autonomy for his own personal taste for "diversity" .

I would go further and say the author advocated, unethically, for businesses to change NOTHING about their unfair promotion biases but instead advocated businesses merely restrict employee autonomy to "correct" for the businesses bias.

But hey. Your distaste for my opinion totally means the author didn't do an by of these things.

 

[laughing dog]

Did it occur to you that holding back a career might not be considered better?

Did it occur to you that making choices that prioritize something over career advancements might be considered better by people who prioritize differently than you?
Tom

Apparently it occurred to me that
1) there are woman who might welcome the cover of a requirement because it gives them more leverage to make their preferred, and
2) it might just be the case that there are women who are not aware of the longer-run effects on their career and who might make a different decision,
but clearly did not occur to you.

I realize that many people feel that any choice that is made is free from uncertainty, ignorance and real constraints, but that is simply not true for every one.

 

[Elixir]

No. None of it is me. I didn't write an article...

Nah, you just freaked out about it, and started this stupid thread to vent about your fears, thinking you might get sympathy for your possible abuse at the hands of that mean "leftie". Where's Swiz when you need him?
All you, dude.

 

[laughing dog]

Apparently, there are some posters who do not understand how a requirement may provide cover for an employee, so here is an example.

An employee wants to go into work 3 days a week but because it is volitional instead of mandatory, the partner places undue stress on that person to stay home. If the 3 days are mandatory, the employee's partner is now more accepting and helpful..

 

[Metaphor]

No. None of it is me. I didn't write an article...

Nah, you just freaked out about it, and started this stupid thread to vent about your fears, thinking you might get sympathy for your possible abuse at the hands of that mean "leftie". Where's Swiz when you need him?
All you, dude.

I'm certain you don't know what "freaking out" means. Nor am I afraid that this article will influence my workplace's wfh policy. Nor do I think I've been "abused". Nor have I ever expected or wanted "sympathy" for exposing sloppy arguments, badly evidenced, and influenced by ideological bias.

 

[Metaphor]

Apparently, there are some posters who do not understand how a requirement may provide cover for an employee, so here is an example.

An employee wants to go into work 3 days a week but because it is volitional instead of mandatory, the partner places undue stress on that person to stay home. If the 3 days are mandatory, the employee's partner is now more accepting and helpful..

I suppose it could be seen as a benefit in that it allows a person to avoid the hard work of correcting the faults in an unhealthy interpersonal relationship.

So, I agree that some (small) number of employees might find that a benefit--though I feel it should be incumbent upon those employees to simply lie to their unsupportive partner about the mandatory nature of going in to work (and this gain the 'cover' benefit anyway) than to force the entire workplace to attend certain days where they otherwise would not have attended.

 

[J842P]

No, it's misleading, and grossly so.

The author begins the article with this:

As U.S. states and the federal government start to roll back Covid-19 restrictions, and companies and workers start to firm up their office return plans, one point is becoming clear: The future of working from home (WFH) is hybrid. In research with my colleagues Jose Maria Barrero and Steven J. Davis, as well as discussions with hundreds of managers across different industries, I’m finding that about 70% of firms, from tiny companies to massive multinationals like Google, Citi, and HSBC, plan to move to some form of hybrid working.

But another question is controversial: How much choice should workers have in the matter?

He then goes on to talk about employees, not women or men or other gender presentations. He's talking about all employees, not just the female kind.

He says that many managers are passionate that their employees should determine their own schedule, but 32% of employees say they never want to return to working in the office, while 21% say they never want to spend another day working from home. He says that allowing the employees to choose their own work from home schedules raises two concerns: the difficulty of managing a hybrid team and people feeling excluded, and the risk to diversity. It is only then that the author makes any sort of distinction between male and female employees, saying that "among college graduates with young children women want to work from home full-time almost 50% more than men." And then he goes right back to talking about employees in general.

He presents a hypothetical in which "ingle young men could all choose to come into the office five days a week and rocket up the firm, while employees with young children, particularly women, who choose to WFH for several days each week are held back". Note that he says "particularly" women, not exclusively women. He calls it a diversity loss and a legal time bomb for companies. He says that for these reasons he has started advising firms that managers should decide which days their team should WFH.

The author backflipped on his earlier recommendation of letting employees choose how much to work from home, because he thinks women's personal autonomy leads to troubling non-diverse outcomes, and he is willing to sacrifice that autonomy on the altar of diversity.

He said nothing of the sort. That's just you adding your own spin to a pretty straightforward discussion of teamwork and basic management of employees.

I was able to work from home for the first time in my life starting in 2020, due to the change in culture brought about by COVID. It was wonderful. Now the diversicrats think employers should go back to removing some of that freedom and autonomy because women make different decisions to men, and those decisions must be corrected.

Ah, so this is all about you wanting to work from home too much.

Got it.

It's amazing how you pretty much repeat what Metaphor has said, adding some detail (which is in the link anyway), and then seem to think it contradicts Metaphor's claim.

 

[J842P]

Employee autonomy is valuable to employees. In fact, low autonomy often correlates with low job satisfaction.

I like working from home and I object to bullshit reasons for that choice to be taken away or reduced. That women want more days working from home is a bullshit reason to reduce employee autonomy and take away WFH choice.

so, given that your posting history on this forum that isn't your gender-based hobby horse is notably pro-corporate and blindly in favor of the cultural worship of predatory capitalism, how do you square these two ideas?

employee autonomy is directly in opposition to corporatethink, which staunchly demands total control over every second of an employee's life and only begrudgingly concedes a couple hours per day for sleep and biological needs.
it seems like getting to tell you when and where you work, with or without a valid reason, would be entirely within the scope of what you support.

Seems to me you have a pretty deranged view of what Metaphor would think, given his posting history.

 

[Gospel]

I feel like I'm in an inverted universe right now. I find myself agreeing with people I've disagreed with on almost every other topic. I need a drink.

 

[Arctish]

No, it's misleading, and grossly so.

The author begins the article with this:



He then goes on to talk about employees, not women or men or other gender presentations. He's talking about all employees, not just the female kind.

He says that many managers are passionate that their employees should determine their own schedule, but 32% of employees say they never want to return to working in the office, while 21% say they never want to spend another day working from home. He says that allowing the employees to choose their own work from home schedules raises two concerns: the difficulty of managing a hybrid team and people feeling excluded, and the risk to diversity. It is only then that the author makes any sort of distinction between male and female employees, saying that "among college graduates with young children women want to work from home full-time almost 50% more than men." And then he goes right back to talking about employees in general.

He presents a hypothetical in which "ingle young men could all choose to come into the office five days a week and rocket up the firm, while employees with young children, particularly women, who choose to WFH for several days each week are held back". Note that he says "particularly" women, not exclusively women. He calls it a diversity loss and a legal time bomb for companies. He says that for these reasons he has started advising firms that managers should decide which days their team should WFH.



He said nothing of the sort. That's just you adding your own spin to a pretty straightforward discussion of teamwork and basic management of employees.

I was able to work from home for the first time in my life starting in 2020, due to the change in culture brought about by COVID. It was wonderful. Now the diversicrats think employers should go back to removing some of that freedom and autonomy because women make different decisions to men, and those decisions must be corrected.

Ah, so this is all about you wanting to work from home too much.

Got it.

It's amazing how you pretty much repeat what Metaphor has said, adding some detail (which is in the link anyway), and then seem to think it contradicts Metaphor's claim.

What do you think Metaphor was claiming prior to my post?

And why do you think I added that detail from the OP article?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Apparently, there are some posters who do not understand how a requirement may provide cover for an employee, so here is an example.

An employee wants to go into work 3 days a week but because it is volitional instead of mandatory, the partner places undue stress on that person to stay home. If the 3 days are mandatory, the employee's partner is now more accepting and helpful..

Goalposts!!

That wasn't the point here.

 

[laughing dog]

Apparently, there are some posters who do not understand how a requirement may provide cover for an employee, so here is an example.

An employee wants to go into work 3 days a week but because it is volitional instead of mandatory, the partner places undue stress on that person to stay home. If the 3 days are mandatory, the employee's partner is now more accepting and helpful..

Goalposts!!

That wasn't the point here.

Actually, it a point in the discussion in the thread. I realize it may not have been your point, but this thread is not about you.