New analysis: male dominated firms want workers back to their desks...

... and are choking out diversity by cementing in less flexible working policies.

A thread...

Australia has started to return to offices and also publishes gender balance figures for every firm.

This allows us to take a view of the relationship between gender & flexible working.

Firstly here's a selection of firms across consulting and infrastructure/construction

By categorising these firms' policies into an index of flexibility we were able to see that the fewer women in the workforce, the more likely a firm was to introduce a stubborn office-based approach to work.

The more male a firm, the less concession was made to working flexibly.

This is particularly relevant right now because some firms are insisting that all of their suppliers implement their (male) regressive working policies.

They are mandating that everyone comes in to work every day.

You might notice one firm stands out bucking the sector trend - this is Aurecon.

@Aurecon has a female boss in ANZ. Louise Adams ( @louadams257) was named CEO of the year in 2020 for asserting that industry needed to move on from restrictive tradition.

If your firm isn't introducing flexibility post Covid, it might be worth asking the question of whether it's because men are making the decisions?

Full data: https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Gender-and-flexibility-4.pdf

Thank you to my anonymous collaborator in Melbourne who helped me source the original data

For more on how work is evolving you can sign up to receive my weekly newsletter: https://makeworkbetter.substack.com/p/proof-that-flexible-working-is-a