More Women Are Leaving Jobs Due to Lack of Flexibility, Not Location
Jeffery Tobias Halter, Gender Strategist
Corporate Gender Strategist, Author, Consultant, Speaker
WHEN Tops WHERE!
A new report from Deloitte reveals that inflexible work hours are driving more women to leave their jobs than office location policies.
Inflexible organizations risk losing talented women
The 2023 Women @ Work: A Global Outlook report surveyed nearly 11,000 professional women across 46 countries. It found that lack of flexibility around working hours is one of the top three reasons women cite for voluntarily leaving their employer in the past year.
In fact, more women globally left their jobs in 2022 due to inflexible hours than left due to inflexible location policies.
This highlights an important shift in what women value from employers in the wake of COVID-19. While the option to work remotely is still desired by many, schedule flexibility is even more important.
Yet most companies are not meeting this demand. Less than 25% of women surveyed said they currently have a high degree of flexibility over when and where they work.
Even more concerning:
The result? Talented women end up leaving their jobs instead of trying to make flexibility work where they are.
How allies can help
This is where allies in the workplace can make a difference. Both male and female allies should support women in requesting flexibility without fear of reprisals. They can collaborate to ensure performance reviews and promotion criteria focus on outcomes rather than face time.
Allies can also take steps to monitor work distribution on flexible teams to prevent inequitable burdens on women. By speaking up when they observe flexibility stigma and advocating for more empathetic policies, allies can drive meaningful culture change at work.
Management needs to step up
If companies want to attract and retain more female employees, they need to take concrete steps to offer more flexibility without stigma or career penalties. Things like core hours, meeting-free blocks of time, and deadline-oriented rather than hour-oriented schedules can make a big difference.
Organizations need to set clear expectations around role scope and provide managers training on leading dispersed teams. Frontline managers should be trained on how to equitably accommodate flexible schedules and adjust workloads. Otherwise, flexibility simply becomes extra unseen and unpaid work for women trying to balance careers and other responsibilities. With consistent implementation, flex policies can benefit both employees and employers.
The Deloitte data shows women are taking action with their feet when employers fail to provide real flexibility.
The mass exodus of women from the workforce is a wake-up call to business leaders. Supporting work-life balance through flexible hours and hybrid arrangements needs to be a top priority. Otherwise, inflexible environments will continue losing top female talent to more accommodating competitors. Smart companies will recognize this driver of attrition and take steps to provide the adaptable, empathetic work culture women are demanding.
Related articles:
Certified Career and Personal Coach. Former IBM Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Global Women's Community Leader, Executive/Manager Coach and HR Business Partner.
1yThank you for posting this important paper Jeffery Tobias Halter, Gender Strategist and always helping to create better allies for women! #allyship
that is why i wrote “Go! Reboot Your Career in 90 Days”, we must to better for women leaders mid career: Go!: Reboot Your Career in 90 Days https://a.co/d/6hTi3VG
3x Social Impact Entrepreneur | Board Member | Start-Up Advisor | Executive Coach | 2x Best-Selling Author | Global Keynote Speaker
1ySpot on, Jeffery. For my book, Work Pause Thrive, I surveyed and interviewed over 1500 college educated women in the United States. While some wanted the ability to work from anywhere, the vast majority shared they wanted time mastery. As one shared, "Let me define my schedule and I'll deliver better than you ever imagined." As another shared, "Trust us. We can get the work done and done well." A third said, "Treat women like the adults they are and they will astound their employers by what is possible."