Preventing the risk of increased discrimination

Women and people of diversity concerned

• The implementation of hybrid work requires employers to be mindful of adverse effects including discrimination, in light of the following data. Black employees are seven times less likely to return to the office than whites because they want to escape a toxic work environment, according to the Harvard Business Review. Female employees are also less likely to come to the office in a hybrid work environment, for these same reasons.
  
• Also, in view of the first confinement, the hybrid model tends to threaten professional equality. Womenhave been asked to do more housework and take care of children. They are also more likely to have put their careers on hold during this unprecedented period. The health crisis has exacerbated gender disparities in both the domestic and professional spheres.
  
• According to the report of the Terra Nova think tank published in October 2022, "We must avoid the emergence of a new form of discrimination, one that would penalize teleworkers, who are less visible to their managers on a daily basis and sometimes wrongly judged as less committed. It is therefore necessary to ensure (by publishing statistical data and training managers) that opportunities for promotion, salary upgrades and access to training are equitable between teleworkers and employees present on site."

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Solutions

Making the hybrid a weapon against discrimination

Employers must therefore be vigilant about the use of telecommuting and detect signs of isolation among vulnerable employees.

⇒ We also warn companies about the practice of remote working on Wednesdays, children's day, especially for women. While some female employees demand to be in the office to avoid domestic demands, others, on the contrary, particularly aspire to remote work on this day, so much so that today some structures decide to prohibit it. This trend risks crushing women under the weight of domestic tasks that are - too often - assigned to them, in addition to making this population even more invisible in the company.

=> We invite companies to initiate incentive telework policies, especially for young fathers. Some companies have tailor-made telework policies that give more flexibility to certain profiles: pregnant women, disabled people, employees living more than an hour away from home, etc. This pivotal period is the breeding ground for professional inequalities: the gender wage gap widens with the number of children and the female activity rate decreases with each birth.

⇒ Develop a data-driven culture to go beyond hunches: analyze, for example, inter-team collaboration networks to coordinate coming or identify at-risk employees and prevent their isolation.

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Two years after the beginning of the epidemic, the foundations of the employee/employer pact have been transformed. Flexibility, trust, a better work/life balance and freedom to organize working hours: these are the new credos of the majority of post-covid workers. Hybrid work will be the norm with 2 to 3 days of telework in 2025, according to the latest survey conducted by ANDRH and the BCG firm.

Whether it is full, regular or occasional, the use of telework seems to be a must today to boost the attractiveness of companies and their employer brand. If teleworking has many advantages - savings on travel time, lower CO2 emissions, freedom of organization for the employee - it also involves various psychological, social, insurance, managerial or organizational risks.

How can they be avoided? What mechanisms should be put in place to best support the hybridization of work in organizations? How can we make hybridization an opportunity for organizations rather than an obstacle? Discover here our advice and best practices to adopt to meet the challenge of hybrid transition.

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