Ladies are overwhelmingly formidable of their careers, and so they see office flexibility as a pillar for serving to them get forward at work.
A majority of ladies employees, 87%, say they’re formidable of their careers, with roughly half, 48%, saying they’re “very formidable,” in line with CNBC’s annual SurveyMonkey Women at Work survey, which was fielded to over 18,800 U.S. employees between February 21 and March 3.
However many fear the stigma of versatile preparations might hurt their profession development, and adaptability is tougher to come back by for these looking for new alternatives.
Ladies worth flexibility however fear it should hinder their careers
Ladies worth quite a lot of components at their present jobs.
A majority of ladies say they’re of their position now as a result of they take pleasure in their work, and lots of others say it is as a result of their job is “general working for me proper now.”
Extra particularly, 34% cited having good work-life stability of their present positions, and 27% mentioned they have been pleased with their versatile work association.
Ladies earlier of their careers, from age 18 to 34, are most definitely to say they worth work-life stability and versatile work preparations supplied by their jobs.
As for the place ladies are working, 75% mentioned they’re largely or totally in-person, 11% are largely or totally distant, and 12% are hybrid and spend an equal period of time onsite and distant.
However for these with entry to versatile work advantages, many are afraid of repercussions for utilizing them: 40% of ladies say they’re involved with profiting from versatile advantages like paid go away, work-from-home or flex time as a result of it might stop them from reaching their profession targets.
A current wave of return-to-office mandates from the federal government to corporate America might make these issues worse, says Tara Van Bommel, director of analysis at Catalyst, a nonprofit that focuses on constructing equitable workplaces for girls.
“Even when they’re hybrid, in the event that they’ve gone from having extra flexibility to rolling it again, that provides folks the impression that it is not secure to take these choices,” Van Bommel tells CNBC Make It.
Staff could also be reluctant to take flexible-work preparations if they do not see management modeling it, too, she provides.
Lack of work-life stability turns into a giant quitting issue
There is a distinction between the the reason why ladies need to go away their jobs and what drives them to truly stop.
Some 21% of ladies surveyed mentioned they’d “severely thought of quitting” their job in current months, citing that they wished to alleviate work stress and discover a job with increased pay.
Nevertheless, among the many 8% of ladies who did just lately stop, the No. 1 issue for doing so was to discover a job with higher work-life stability.
Some ladies usually tend to prioritize job flexibility even when it means much less pay: Ladies are barely extra doubtless than males to remain at a job due to its flexibility and fewer doubtless as a result of the pay is sweet.
Taking a extra versatile job for much less pay could make a giant distinction for girls who tackle extra parenting and caregiving tasks, Van Bommel says.
“We see pay as this tangible consequence, however the profit you get from flexibility in your life has an actual, tangible profit too,” she says. “I feel persons are making these psychological calculations after they’re excited about jobs.”
Roughly 1 in 4 ladies say their work-life stability improved within the final yr and credited having a extra versatile schedule with being the principle purpose why, over having a decreased workload, altering to a much less demanding position or having extra distant work alternatives.
Distant and hybrid jobs have gotten scarce
However job flexibility is tougher to come back by in right now’s difficult job market.
Many employees are pissed off by the present labor market, the place hiring is down, job creation is sluggish and challenges within the AI-enabled application process abound.
Amongst roughly 700 ladies on the lookout for a job proper now and surveyed by CNBC, 90% report that it is extremely tough, with one of many major causes being that they are unable to search out distant or hybrid job alternatives.
Ladies (46%) are extra doubtless than males (27%) to quote this as a major barrier to discovering a brand new job.
There are fewer distant jobs and elevated competitors for them: As of January 2025, simply 9% of U.S. LinkedIn job postings have been for distant roles, however they acquired 40% of functions on the platform; roughly 13% of jobs have been listed as hybrid and acquired practically 20% of all functions, in line with LinkedIn information supplied to CNBC Make It.
Securing a distant or hybrid job might get even tougher with new RTO mandates as bosses anticipate employees to spend extra time in places of work. Whether or not different firms observe might come down as to if largely in-office firms can reveal sturdy enterprise outcomes like increased productiveness and income.
However some research indicates new RTO guidelines haven’t got constructive impacts on worker engagement or enterprise income.
“I feel extra organizations are testing the waters [of] ‘how a lot can we roll this again?'” Van Bommel says of the remote- and hybrid-work pull-back.
“However there are additionally loads of different organizations who notice that is the longer term, that is the best way of labor,” she provides. “Individuals are going to need to go to these firms.”
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