Can Remote Work Help Shatter the Glass Ceiling for Women?

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many of us to take a long and hard look at how we work, when we work, and where we choose to work.

The reality is that a revolution in the logistics of work, specifically related to a more flexible or fully remote schedule, has been overdue for a long time. There will surely be many long term effects from this revolution, both positive and negative, but one might stand out above the rest decades from now.

Can this revolution in the way we work help shatter the glass ceiling for women, and erase gender bias in the workplace?

There are those who would argue that we are already making progress in elevating women to managerial levels faster than ever before. Even though studies like the ones conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company show a slight improvement in career advancement speed for women over the last 5 years, there is a key area in which a problem still exists — the first rung up the corporate ladder, where only 38% of women have made it to management versus 62% of men.

For most organizations, the first rung of management is arguably the most important. Just as in a relationship, this first step shows that you’ve committed a fair amount of time with each other and want to pursue this for the long term. For the employee, the first promotion is often much more significant than the second, third or fourth because of how new it feels, as well as the confidence boost from the recognition of all their hard work.

Remote work is a great evaluator of the qualities most organizations look for in a leader. It requires a higher level of empathy because you have to actively reach out and check in on colleagues who are in their own personal space. In addition, remote work requires a communication skills that truly demonstrates who is keeping the group together, even when you’re physically far apart.

Finally, remote working “keeps the receipts,” meaning that all the effort in communication is stored digitally so you can always track it later. This is made simple with Lark’s unlimited searchable history, which preserves institutional knowledge for everyone, even new members who just joined.

It may seem strange to audit your team’s project group chat for engagement rate, but you can think of it as a clear, unobstructed dataset to identify who was the displaying the most leadership and showing the most empathy.

At the end of the day, shattering the glass ceiling for women at work isn’t going to change in a day or two, but over a longer period of time. Having said that, remote work can be a gamechanger in helping elevate more women into leadership roles.

Having the right tools to properly measure, track and analyze performance assures accuracy in evaluation, which can help to identify the highest performers regardless of gender. In addition, qualities like empathy and care — which help remote teams work better together — are traits more traditionally associated with women.

Moving forward, we hope that working remotely can provide better transparency into performance, which can lead to earlier and more accurate assessments for promotions at work — especially for women of color.

Perhaps one of the silver linings of this global pandemic is a change in how we view, evaluate and decide promotions based on remote communication, paving an easier path for the first step upward for more women.

Lark is the perfect all-in-one remote working solution. Try Lark for free today by clicking here!