Working from home may give you a better work:life balance. It might save you money and perhaps even boost your productivity. But what does it mean for your career prospects?
That probably depends on your gender, suggests new a study led by King’s Business School.
Researchers analysed 13,000 assessments of hypothetical candidates made by 5,300 people employed in the UK and Germany who were asked to rate candidates as they would when deciding on a promotion or appointment.
Candidates described as spending most of the week at home received lower promotion or appointment ratings than office-based colleagues and those who spend only one to two days a week at home, suggesting a clear bias against homeworking in both the UK and Germany.
Fathers and workers without children generally experienced larger declines in ratings, while mothers were penalised least.
The researchers caution that this should not be interpreted as a straightforward advantage for mothers, pointing out that because office-based mothers in the UK already receive relatively low ratings, particularly compared with childless women, homeworking causes less additional damage.
Because men start off from a higher position, they have more to lose when working from home.
Professor Heejung Chung, Professor of Work and Employment at King’s Business School, said: “Flexible working has often been seen as a mothers issue, but this study shows that fathers also need protection from career penalties when they use it. Making flexibility safe and normal for fathers can support mothers’ employment while improving outcomes for fathers and children.”
The study’s authors – Professor Heejung Chung (King’s Business School), Assistant Professor Senhu Wang (National University of Singapore) and Dr Yvonne Lott (Institute of Economic and Social Research at the Hans-Böckler Foundation) – advise organisations to review how employees are assessed; train managers to recognise proximity bias; place greater emphasis on results rather than time spent in the office; and present flexible working as a normal way of working for all employees, not just for mothers and carers.
The paper, Flexibility stigma in the UK and Germany post-pandemic: intersectionality of stigma across gender and parental lines, is published in Community, Work & Family.
