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PA Enterprise
active role in supporting their employee’s mental childcare still falls unfairly on women, who may
health to prevent burnout and fatigue. The global feel pressure to continue working at home to
pandemic has added an extra layer of stress facilitate this.
to everyone’s lives, and senior leaders must be Male colleagues who face less barriers to being
conscious of the working culture they promote physically present at work then gain greater
and instil in their teams. influence in decision-making and higher chances
Remote working can make it harder for of promotion, exacerbating workplace gender
employees to reach out if they are struggling, and inequality. There’s no simple solution to this issue,
so it is critical that communication channels are but an individualised, personalised approach can
available and easily accessible, and that workers help. Understand the reasons people are opting
feel empowered to speak openly and honestly for or against working flexibly and use this to
with their managers. build better policies.
5. Avoid exacerbating workplace gender If they consider and act on each of these issues,
employers will be able to keep their employees
inequality engaged and working at their best, even if they
Offering the option between working at home or cannot be in the office. Feeling valued and heard
in the office may seem like an attractive strategy by business leaders is essential to productivity:
to mitigate against some of the issues with when individuals feel like part of a team, they will
flexible working, but be aware that employees help a team to work.
may not be making as free a choice as it seems.
The burden of unpaid domestic labour and Jeff Phipps, fenews.co.uk
PA Enterprise is published by
14 February/March 2021
