PARIS — Pay, promotions, responsibilities… The list of workplace inequalities between men and women has a new entry: access to teleworking. According to a LinkedIn survey in France, nearly eight out of 10 women worked on site last year, compared with nearly seven out of 10 men.
For this study, the professional social network’s data scientists sifted through the profiles of its 29 million members in France, and looked at those who had added a position in 2023 with the words “on-site”, “hybrid” or “remote.”
“We were surprised by these results, as teleworking is often associated with women, but this is not true,” explains Tiffany Blandin, data reporter at LinkedIn Actualités. “What’s most striking is that this gap in favor of men can be observed everywhere, in all sectors and all age groups.”
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According to the data, 66% of professionals in positions of authority in France are men, and the higher you climb the ladder of responsibility, the more likely you are to be in hybrid or fully remote work, Blandin explains. “Women are also over-represented in front-line jobs and occupy more precarious, less teleworkable positions.”
But it also runs both deeper and wider.
“Women teleworking on Wednesdays? In your dreams!” says one human resources manager in the toy industry, who preferred to remain anonymous. Wednesdays are typically a day off at French public schools.
“We have no agreement on the teleworking front in general, management prefers to handle cases individually and doesn’t even deign to reply to me about these requests,” says the HR chief. “Yet some men are entitled to them.”
Risks of “case-by-case”
This anonymous manager blames sexist stereotypes: mothers look after their children on Wednesdays, commute to different activities, devote time to other family and household tasks… “As I speak, management has granted teleworking to six people — five men and one woman — and it’s not because fewer women have asked for it,” she said.
“Some women are encouraged to take a day off instead of teleworking.”
Dealing with requests on a case-by-case basis makes the company fertile ground for inequalities to flourish, notes Aurélie Judlin, Managing Director of Equilibres, a Paris-based HR consultancy firm. “The company’s objective is to produce value. To do this, it must create an environment conducive to collaboration and performance. This takes time and is not necessarily a priority for management,” Judlin explained. “We observed during COVID that the absence of a framework and rules created a lot of anxiety, so companies need to find a framework that satisfies everyone — one that isn’t set in stone and can evolve.”
In another anonymous testimonial, a former HR manager in the textile sector recounts: “Management almost encouraged their male employees to telework, so as not to waste time in transport, whereas women — in the same line of business — had to bend over backward to get a request through. Some were encouraged to take a day off instead of teleworking.”
Online speaking time
Among other factors penalizing women: they often have less space to work at home, are more likely to be interrupted by children, and are less well treated during remote meetings. In a study carried out in the U.S. by Catalyst, 45% of women surveyed considered speaking up and participating in meetings more difficult during videoconferences. More than one in five even said they had been ignored during such an exercise.
We should quantify remote productivity to put an end to preconceived ideas.
“Not only do women have less speaking time online, but their words are considered less credible”, agrees Isabelle Bize, Recruitment and HR Team Leader at ESN Web-Atrio. “Whereas in a face-to-face meeting, people are obliged to give their time and show a minimum of benevolence. As a result, they come on-site more often to establish their legitimacy.”
She goes on to suggest several ways of redressing this inequity: “Of course, we need to promote women on an equal footing with men, but we could introduce a predefined amount of speaking time — along the lines of what is done in certain political debates — according to expertise and contribution to the project under discussion. We could also quantify remote productivity to put an end to preconceived ideas. With their perfectionist streak, we’ll soon realize that women are just as — if not more — productive than men!”
