Transforming working life for women by IWG

Regus parent company, IWG, recently collaborated with a panel of women business leaders to address the issues of working life for women and create a model for more sustainable future. Check out a preview below and read the full paper here.

It took a global pandemic to prove what many of us already knew: digital connectivity means we can be productive from anywhere, any time. Now, the hybrid model has the power to transform working life for everyone – but for women especially.

“The shift to hybrid working has helped everyone, but it has specific benefits for women,” says Fatima Koning, IWG’s Group Chief Commercial Officer. A flexible model where women can work at home, at HQ or at a local flexspace has unprecedented potential to support women’s wellbeing, family lives and career aspirations.

Transforming Working Life for Women: Advocacy, Resilience and the Hybrid Model is a white paper that looks at some of the challenges currently facing working women, and how the hybrid model can lay the foundation for a new more modern, more equal world of work.

Forging a brighter future

The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought permanent change on the world of work. As we emerge from its shadow, it’s no exaggeration to say that– for hundreds of millions of people – working life will never be the same again.

After long periods of lockdown made remote working a  necessity, we’re now adapting to a new reality: one where long daily commutes and the old-fashioned 9-5 have given way to the hybrid model. By allowing employees to split their time between home, a local flexspace or office and their central HQ, firms can boost their productivity and growth at the same time as helping to improve work-life balance for their people.

“The pandemic has proved people can be just as productive when they’re based remotely,” explains Fatima Koning. “It’s highlighted the huge opportunity we have to improve working life.”

For women, the hybrid shift represents a crucial opportunity to address existing inequalities at work and at home. We believe it has unprecedented potential to support women’s wellbeing, family lives and career aspirations. In this white paper, we’ll address some of the challenges currently facing working women, look at the ways we can support one another and effect change, and explore how the hybrid model can lay the foundation for a new, more modern, more equal world of work.

The value of women in work

In terms of dollars and cents, it’s clear that women add tremendous value to businesses, markets and entire economies. According to analysis by Bloomberg, improving women’s access to employment could boost global growth by $20trn by 2050 – and PwC argues that closing the gender pay gap could increase OECD GDP by $2trn.

However, the value of women in the workplace goes far beyond their ability to bolster the bottom line. McKinsey’s 2021 ‘Women in the Workplace’ study showed that female leaders are more likely to promote the overall wellbeing of people in their workforce, as well as more inclined to offer mentoring and support that falls outside their explicit job responsibilities. Yet Covid-19 has disproportionately affected women – partly because of existing gender inequalities in society.

As Melinda Gates puts it: “When the world’s economies were pushed to the brink, it was women who fell over the edge.” Research from McKinsey shows that women’s roles were 1.8 times more vulnerable to the crisis than men’s – but it isn’t just job losses that have affected women’s careers over the past two years. A Gallup poll shows that women’s feelings of burnout have increased during the pandemic and that the gender gap has widened, with women now significantly more exhausted than their male counterparts.

“Women tend to wear a lot of hats,” says Fatima Koning. “And they want to be the best version of themselves both at work and at home. That can be incredibly hard – but the hybrid shift is a great development that’s going to make a real difference.”

Putting people first

For the hybrid model to work optimally, employers need to take a people-led approach – empowering employees to make their own decisions about how and where they work best. According to Tanuj Kapilashrami, Group Head of HR at Standard Chartered, listening to what employees want is vital. “More than 75% of our colleagues globally want to work flexibly at least 50% of the time,” she explains. “We need to design the future based around what our colleagues want, not our preferences.” As part of its hybrid working strategy, Standard Chartered struck a deal with IWG in 2021 to provide more than 90,000 employees with access to 3,500 flexible workspaces around the world.

Likewise, PwC’s ‘New Deal’ promises ‘empowered flexibility’ for workers. Its hybrid model asks employees to spend 40-60% of their time at the office or on a client site, at the same time as giving them the freedom to decide on their most effective working pattern and the times they work on any given day.

Alongside such empowerment, though, companies must create clear hybrid working plans if they want to ensure the new world of work is a fairer place for women. While the old-fashioned 9-5 left many women feeling stigmatized for leaving the office in time to collect children, an ill-defined hybrid strategy could leave remote female workers feeling similarly pitted against male colleagues who are more frequently seen in the office.

Read the full white paper here.

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