What the return to the office means for women and ethnic minorities

Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that workers would no longer be required to work from home as he moved England to Plan A Covid-19 restrictions.

While it is unclear exactly how many people worked remotely throughout the pandemic, a survey by the Office for National Statistics in May 2021 estimated that 8.4 million people were working from home at the time.

But as restrictions around social distancing are eased once more, there are concerns that some groups, more than others, may feel apprehensive about the return to the office.

During the past year, various studies have been carried out on how a move to remote working has impacted employees, both negatively and positively.

In September 2020, professional messaging app Slack launched Future Forum – a think tank dedicated to better understanding the future of a digital-first workplace. One study, published by Future Forum in March 2021, found that 97 per cent of black professionals would like to remain working from home full time or have a hybrid working model.

Just three per cent of all black people surveyed said they would like to go back to the office full time, while 21 per cent of white professionals reported that they are looking forward to a return to the office full time.

Researchers at Future Forum identified several factors which could explain the distinction in results. The first is that working from home can reduce the need for black workers to constantly engage in “code-switching”, which is when they change the way they talk, dress or behave in a bid to fit into a predominantly white workplace.

Experts said working from home also protects workers from microaggressions, such as being mistaken for another colleague of the same race or having your hair touched. Brian Lowery, a professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford University said office-based work can perpetuate feelings of otherness or outsider status in black workers.

“Black employees experience stress associated with working in a predominantly white workplace, which contributes to a lower sense of belonging. Importantly, it might not be work activities per se driving these effects, but all of the big and small social interactions that make up much of our work days,” he said.

“Research suggests that among black people, the experience of discrimination is one of the few negative experiences that actually increases with education. One explanation is that as education increases interactions in predominantly white social spaces also increases.”

Additionally, 64 per cent of black people surveyed by Future Forum said they were better able to manage feelings of stress when working from home, while 25 per cent said it improved their work life balance.

The Bank of England previously warned that more women than men are choosing to continue working from home due to disruptions to childcare during the pandemic, but this could be hurting their careers.

Speaking at an event for women in finance held by Financial News in November 2021, policymaker Catherine Mann said spontaneous office conversations, which are key for recognition and advancement in the workplace, are harder to replicate in virtual settings.

“There is the potential for two tracks,” she explained. “There’s the people who are on the virtual track and people who are on a physical track. And I do worry that we will see those two tracks develop, and we will pretty much know who’s going to be on which track, unfortunately.”

Separately, research published by digital platform WorkL in June 2021 found that women and people from black and minority ethnic groups (BAME) felt the most stressed about returning to work.

According to a survey of more than 150,000 employees, men and white people were most likely to report that they “rarely feel anxious or depressed about work”.

Almost two thirds of men (63 per cent) said they agreed with the statement, while 59 per cent of women said the same. Additionally, 70 per cent of white people said the statement was true, compared to 62 per cent of those from BAME backgrounds.

Employees who identified as LGBT+ are also likely to experience higher levels of stress and anxiety about the return to the workplace. The survey found that LGBT+ people scored almost 12 per cent more than their heterosexual colleagues.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is encouraging managers to have conversations with employees about any concerns they may have.

“The pandemic has affected people very differently depending on a range of factors including their age, gender and ethnicity, for example, which will mean views on the return to the workplace will vary widely,” said Ben Willmott, head of public policy.

“We’d also encourage employers to provide different forms of flexible working arrangements for people who can’t work from home to help support people with caring responsibilities and employees’ wellbeing and work-life balance more broadly.”