S/O: Women bosses supporting other women... Do I owe it to feminism to offer work-at-home option?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My firm allows unlimited teleworking with no formal arrangement. I run my team this way as well. Some team members work from the beach during the summer months, others from home, etc. The policy i run my team on, if you can even call it that, that I have is all about results: if you should be in the office for a meeting or something, I expect you to make the right judgement call and come. If you don't need to be here, don't come in if you don't want to. If you rather come in, that's fine too. I won't reward long hours, I reward results. Work where you want, when you want, as long as the team isn't left holdin the bag, and you drive results, I don't care how you manage your time.

That attitude works exceptionally well- people feel empowered, they feel trusted, they feel valued, and they end up working harder because of it. If a late night comes up, no one makes a peep about it because they all know it just means they'll probably sleep in a bit more or kick off a little earlier this week. Giving people autonomy is incredibly rewarding - we have low turnover in part because people realize 99% of teams don't run this way. I've never got my team benchmarked at another firm but here we run 90% of staff saying they are "happy" in satisfaction surveys. I don't know how much of that is because of this flexible schedule business, but I would be willing to bet that it makes a big diff.

Also agree I see no connection between feminism and this issue. It's akin to my saying "Do I owe it to masculinity I have my team event at a strip club?". Somehow I find the whole premise of OPs question off putting.

I absolutely love this. We need more leaders like you!

I don't "absolutely love this" b/c the poster misses the point. In our workplaces, we have a variety of "public policy" driven initiatives in place in order to make right historical wrongs. For example, offices cannot discriminate because of race so as a public policy initiative, workplaces (and certainly the federal government) incentivize the hiring of candidates with minority status. Only a stubborn few would suggest that these candidates didn't "earn" the right for this hiring preference, right? Why then would we begrudge parents a teleworking preference if it furthers a public policy objective (strong childcare and ensuring that women (or primary child care providers) do not lose their career track and the economic power that comes with it. (For the record, I would argue that the teleworking preference should apply to the primary caregiver, whether a mother or father).
There will always be those who begrudge these public policy based preferences. Hopefully, one day those who begrudge these modest accommodations for parents (yes, likely mothers) will seem as reactionary as the Archie Bunker types who begrudge the analagous racial preferences which have been so important to establish diversity in the workplace.