Can Companies Have a Hybrid Workplace—and Keep Things Fair?

Some employers are trying to make sure that hybrid work arrangements don’t reverse gains among historically marginalized groups

There will be a new protocol for meetings. If one employee of the internet-infrastructure company is remote and dialing in via Zoom, everyone in the office attending that meeting will also dial in.

The idea might seem counterintuitive: More than 18 months into the pandemic, many workers are tired of video calls and eager to work in person again. But there are other factors to consider.

“We want that one person, maybe in New York or London, to have an equitable experience,” says Janet Van Huysse, Cloudflare’s chief people officer.

Hybrid work arrangements—a mix of office and remote—have emerged as a popular model companies plan to adopt once more offices reopen. Flexibility is what most knowledge workers want, according to surveys. But hybrid work has downsides, including tensions over whether people who go into the office more will be perceived as harder workers and have better chances at upward mobility.

Concerns about keeping things fair goes beyond convenience and day-to-day workflow: Some companies worry that the wrong balance could reverse gains among historically marginalized groups like working moms and people of color, because they may opt for the highest levels of flexibility and put themselves at a disadvantage.

Among college graduates with young children, women were 30% more likely than men to want to work from home five days a week after the pandemic, according to research from Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom. His research has also found that people working from home had lower promotion rates than their in-office counterparts.

As more companies start to tackle these issues, they are looking for ways to measure the impacts of remote work pay and on upward mobility. Maria Colacurcio, CEO of Syndio, a software startup that analyzes pay data for inequities, says she has noticed an uptick in requests from clients to include days in the office as a new input to factor: Companies want to track whether face time influences salaries, and if it does, they want to know how to correct the situation. wsj.com