On Bringing Women Back to Work
Since the beginning of the year, when healthcare workers began receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations with a promise that the rest of the nation soon would follow suit, I have wondered about the return to “normal.” That’s what we've all craved during the pandemic, isn’t it? Normalcy. Yet now, despite vaccine availability, pick up any newspaper or magazine, and you will find an article about how few of us will be returning to “normal” — not just because of our incalculable losses but also because our priorities, jobs, offices, friendships and so many other things changed in some permanent ways over the course of the past year.
From a business perspective, a significant change that few anticipated was the major impact that the pandemic had on working women. According to CNBC, 100% of the jobs lost last December belonged to women — and this news comes at a time in our history in which more women than men were in the workforce. In total, American women lost 5 million jobs in 2020, per Forbes, which also found that, of the women who lost jobs, over 40% remained unemployed for over six months, with the most significant impact felt by non-white women.
Before the pandemic, I wrote and spoke on subjects like how tech needs to “woman up,” pay equity, creating opportunities for more women, and the need for women to create their own networks and “locker rooms.” Nine months into the pandemic, I wrote in Forbes about whether or not working from home would be the great equalizer for women.
Unfortunately, the stress of the pandemic has set women back by a whole generation, according to the World Economic Forum (via the Washington Post), and whether or not it is going to take us a whole other generation to recover is going to depend on those very same things women’s careers have always depended on, the same things that I’ve written and spoken about for years: namely, how hospitable tech is going to be to (the return of) women; how many opportunities will be created for women to be (re)hired, trained, and promoted; how we are going to mentor the many women who are going to be recovering from the serious burden placed by family and by work this past year; and how we are going to pay women fairly and equally for their work while taking care not to discount anyone for doing whatever they needed to do to get through the past year.
These are not things that it should take a generation to accomplish. Really, these are the same concerns women in the tech industry have had all along, and that should have been accomplished already, just highlighted by the direness of the pandemic.
What will the resurgence of women in the workforce look like? No one knows yet. These are exceptional times, and the urgency is far greater than it ever has been before for a conversation of how to make equitable room for women in tech despite the past year.
As a leader of our company’s new venture arm, my job is looking toward a bright future, one in which we continuously innovate. Today, we have to innovate far more than just technology for our businesses to survive and thrive again. We have to fine-tune our flexible, mobile and scalable workforces to account for the unexpected. Companies are beginning to offer wellness programs that include services such as one-on-one coaching and training to help employees take much-needed breaks to exercise, learn or get advice. Empathy supported by technology is the innovation that has transformed the future of work in the post-pandemic world ahead. We all have been adjusting to the new normal and the sense that things can change at any time, such as with the disastrous impact of the Delta variant.
While some of the statistics are bleak, and while there remain so many unanswered questions, it is important to note that many of the changes necessitated by the pandemic are ones that are net-positive. Hybrid work, if not remote work, is here to stay for many businesses. Both at work and among families, technology keeps us connected in a time when we both want and need that connection. A lot of other services of convenience, like food and grocery delivery, flourished and made our lives easier in ways that will remain. Even video doctor’s appointments have become the norm. We’ve broken down lots of barriers because we had to, and we still are learning how to live in this world that has changed forever in so many ways.
In closing, while we begin to return to some hybrid work and in-person schooling here in the U.S., I want to acknowledge that too much of the rest of the world isn’t here with us yet, not when it comes to vaccination or factors like economic recovery. My thoughts are with the people and places that continue to suffer devastating losses. As the world takes steps toward its arduous recovery, hopefully, every company can figure out how to welcome its employees back to the office or back to work.
Originally published in Forbes