Why Flexible Working is the Key to Diversity

While the concept of telecommunicating has been around since the 1970s, the Covid-19 pandemic has firmly put working-from-home on the agenda. A poll by our parent company Phaidon International found that as much as 81% of the life sciences workforce want their employers to continue embracing the flexible working model.

As the increased awareness of flexible working reaches its tipping point, companies must embrace the new normal of these working arrangements. By championing the cause, organisations are poised to make even greater gains than they realise. 

The case for flexible working

The case has been made for years that remote and flexible working improves employee loyalty and job satisfaction. It also results in lower absenteeism, fewer quality defects and an increase in overall profitability for the business. 

The explanations for this are multiple: great individual autonomy encourages employees to work harder and take on more responsibility; avoiding the daily commute can produce happier, more productive workers; and an improved work-life balance results in greater long-term satisfaction and loyalty. 

What is often less widely discussed is the profound potential for flexibility and remote working to increase diversity and inclusion on a number of important levels.

Improve gender diversity 

Female inclusion in the workforce – especially in senior roles – is a major problem within many organisations. Caring is one of the major systemic cultural barriers women are facing. Roughly 60% of people with unpaid caring responsibilities are women, leading to perceived limits on their productive capacities and commitment to work.

According to the Equal Opportunities Commission, 40% of mothers (compared with 10% of fathers) have either given up or turned down a job because of difficulties combining it with their caring responsibilities; 43% of women with children leave work all together. The traditional concept of work as something done only in an office forces women to choose between their caring commitments and their careers.

If remote and flexible work becomes the norm, women will no longer have to make such decisions – the stigma around caring roles will be removed and women’s work will be allowed to speak for itself.

Increase accessibility

With low employment rates of those with self-identified disabilities, there is clearly a huge pool of talent waiting to be unlocked. The reasons for this block are numerous from practical impediments faced by those with physical disabilities, to the stigma and fear of ridicule experienced by many neuroatypical individuals. 

It is common for such individuals to opt out of the traditional workforce because extensive commuting and limited office resources do not fully cater to their specific needs and create an environment of otherness which is intolerable.

The option of remote working – where individuals can have their own specific needs catered to without feeling they are being stigmatised – will have a huge, positive effect on the problem of accessibility and inclusion within the workplace. 

While embracing remote work won’t solve every problem faced by such a diverse group, it will significantly increase the viability – and appeal – of workplace participation for a great many. 

Include contingent workers

At EPM Scientific, we have seen demand for our contract recruitment services grow over the last few years. A growing proportion of the workforce is made up of private contractors, gig workers and other flexible contract employment arrangements. 

However, even within organisations which rely heavily on contingent workers, there is a common perception that they are disposable and separate from the organisations’ core. Contingent workers represent a hugely diverse array of perspective, abilities and background and normalising flexible working patterns as a core feature of workplace dynamics will help overcome this.

The long term view

Increasing diversity is not an overnight fix: while remote and flexible work will help open doors and start conversations, this is no silver bullet, and diversity must be an ongoing process of cultural self-examination.

Working from home will undoubtedly make many marginalised groups feel safer and more comfortable entering the workforce, but if the internal culture simply treats the issue as dealt with, any progress made will ultimately stagnate.

Organisations that want to make real progress moving forward should continually consider three factors:

• Reshaping culture
• Transparency and hierarchy
• Self-disruption 

Organisations who respond to the changing needs of the workforce are more likely to attract and retain the best life sciences talent in the market. They will also benefit from increased diversity.