Women Workers Impacted Most By Broader Return To Office Push, Say Experts

Years after the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase of people working from home, public and private sector organizations are having more workers return to the office — but experts say the switch back is disproportionately negative for women.

Nora Jenkins Townson, the founder and CEO of HR consultancy Bright + Early, said women still carry more than their fair share of child care, elder care and household responsibilities, where flexible working arrangements helped to ease the burden.

“When that flexibility is removed, they’re often the ones who absorb the logistical strain. So they might have to scale back hours or turn down leadership opportunities or even leave the workforce altogether, because that balance is just tough,” she said.

If men don’t take on their fair share of domestic responsibilities, that can leave women having to pick up the slack.

Last summer, some of Canada’s largest companies, including several of the big banks, announced plans to shift to a four-day in office work week beginning in the fall. Governments ranging from municipal to federal levels have also made moves to increase in office days for workers.

Christine Neill, professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier, said there is a gendered aspect to the effects of return to office mandates.

“If we allow for work from home a little bit more that allows everyone with children, without (children), men, women, to manage whatever weird stuff is happening in their lives a bit easier,” she said.

Findings from a 2024 study conducted by Statistics Canada found that teleworkers in 2022 were able to reallocate more than an hour each day on average to other activities as they did not have to commute. The study found that both men and women did more housework, like preparing meals, laundry or cleaning, when they worked from home.

With many firms enacting return-to-office mandates, Sunira Chaudhri, founder and partner at Workly Law, said executive-level employees have generally been shown more flexibility regarding remote or hybrid working arrangements.

“But employers have not shown the same degree of flexibility for those that are lower on the hierarchy. New hires, those that might be lower in ranking, are not seeing the same flexibility,” she said.

When looking at the gender balance of those in executive positions, Chaudhri said the majority of seats are filled by men rather than women. This means that men are seeing more flexible working arrangements compared with women.

Flexibility around child care has continued to be an issue that she has seen among clients. Chaudhri said challenges arise with getting children to school on time and commuting into the office, something she says women overwhelmingly bear the brunt of.

“It can lead to poorer outcomes in terms of retention and promotion in the workplace,” she said.

Issues of workplace flexibility can also have legal implications.

“As an employment lawyer, in the last 24 months, I probably brought more cases relating to family status discrimination than ever before in my career,” Chaudhri said.

The reason, she said, is that some employers had made commitments regarding flexibility that they have not stuck to, specifically around supporting parents by allowing them to “work from anywhere.” To mitigate these issues, Chaudhri said companies should review commitments and communication from the pandemic period before changing the rules again.

“If a policy change like this impacts women more so than men, it could on balance be viewed as discriminatory,” she said.

Chaudhri said companies can’t discriminate against employees when it comes to family status and childcare responsibilities.

During the pandemic, she said, some companies made express commitments of flexibility to parents with young children with the intent of making the changes more or less permanent, and walking those commitments back could lead to “compelling” discrimination claims.

As companies grapple with return-to-office mandates, flexible working arrangements and what they mean for female staff, Chaudhri said it can be a matter of talent retention.

“There’s no question that there is a sore lacking of female leadership at the highest levels in organizations when we look at board seats as an example,” she said.

A key part of improving representation would mean advancing women in the ranks between the ages of around 25 and 45, she said.

During that period, Chaudhri said many women are balancing their own career trajectory but also “managing child care responsibilities and growing their family at the same time.”

With return to office mandates in full swing for some firms, Jenkins Townson said employers have more leverage with current labour market favouring employers over employees.

“Employers feel a little bit more empowered towards these mandates. But I don’t think that will be the case forever,” she said.

“I think that workers and I think that women will keep in mind the employers who have been supportive the whole time, and that will really affect retention and who they choose to work for in the future.”

But remote and hybrid working options may not be a sweeping solution for the advancement of women in the workplace, Neill said, highlighting trade offs that could come with less in-person hours.

For those enjoying flexible working arrangements, it could mean not getting promotions in the future because “the people making the decisions about promotions don’t see you contributing,” she said.