Remote Work as the Great Equalizer - originally published in Forbes June 2020

As originally published in Forbes

In the past few weeks, we have heard tech giants far and wide declare the positive benefits of remote work during times like these, giving their employees the option to work from home until the end of the year, and in some cases, permanently.  Amazon and Microsoft have offered employees work from home options until October. Many employees at Facebook will be able to work from home until the end of 2020 while the company considers a permanent option for select positions. Twitter and Square have declared work from home as a permanent option for all of their employees.

Pundits have sliced and diced the unit economics of remote work, citing increased productivity, flexibility, location independent talent pools, office overhead cost savings, higher employee retention, elimination of long commutes and/or even pollution! However, the biggest advantage of remote work is the elephant in the room not acknowledged: the power of remote work to become the greatest equalizer since the Equal Opportunity Act in 1972!

Whatever your stance is on diversity and inclusion, as someone who works in talent acquisition, I am often responsible for actively seeking out the most diverse pipeline possible. I always get the question, how can we get more women or minorities, etc? The culprits most often blamed for a lack of a “diverse” candidate getting a job:

1. Pipeline: not enough diverse candidates who are qualified in the market.
2. Bias: the interview process was biased, and we need more bias training for interviewers.
3. Talent Acquisition: recruiters didn’t do enough events or direct outreach.

Do I agree that, in some cases, these are the case? Yes. Nevertheless, in many instances, it is because the system has created a working environment, namely “the office”, which caters to the 30-40 year old white male. Compound this office requirement over years, and you get various groups dropping out of the workforce or failing to rise up the ranks.  

Before I move on, let me caveat that my personal stance is vehemently against quotas, tokenization, and diversity as some type of employer branding. I believe in the business case for diversity in that it represents different perspectives and ideas that directly contribute to the bottom line NOT some type of charity or reparations for past wrongdoings. 

So what is so bad about “the office” and why has it set back so many specific groups? Let’s discuss broad themes that affect diverse groups and then dissect how they affect each subgroup.

Broad Themes

Results vs. Distractions and Bias

In an office, employees are constantly “watched” or distracted which takes away focus from results and creates bias in judging performance. These things proportionally affect diverse groups. It could be facetime (who comes in early and leaves late), who attends the happy hours or lunches, who is part of the water cooler gossip or cliques, what someone is wearing, how does someone smell, how often someone leaves their desk, what they eat, how often they go to the bathroom to name a few things. In a remote environment, because your moves are not tracked every five seconds, your results are the focal point for your manager in terms of your performance. 

Flexibility

Have a small outside commitment in the middle of the day? Perhaps you needed a doctor’s appointment at 2pm near where you live but you commuted 2 hours to work. Maybe your child has a soccer game or recital for an hour at 4pm. You might need to put in a load of laundry or do a thirty minute run to the grocery store and prepare some stuff for dinner. These things might have taken 30 minutes to an hour out of your day, but because you are chained to your desk, you could not maximize your time, putting off or eliminating these important things from your life.

Productivity Preferences 

Is everyone the most productive in an open office space set at an icy temperature? If I am a developer, I don’t want someone tapping me on the shoulder every five seconds and distracting me from my code and zone or a noisy environment where I can’t think. If I am a recruiter, I need a private room to conduct interviews with my candidates which there are often too few of. If it’s summer, and I am freezing because the AC is too high, I might not be able to concentrate. 

Location Dependence

Can I afford to live near the office, i.e. short commute or relocate to another portion of the country for this position?

Subgroup Specific Themes

Women

As most women bear the responsibility for most household chores and child rearing, the commute and time spent at the office represents an opportunity cost in flexibility that allows them to complete other tasks related to the above.

Physical proximity in the office provides opportunity for unwelcome advances and sexual harassment.

The office is set at a temperature designed for the 40 year old, 155 pound male. (NPR)

Parents

If a child is sick or has an important event like a sports game or recital, parents stuck in the office do not have the flexibility to attend to their child’s needs in real time without having to take PTO or official leave.

Care-Takers

If you are caring for a sick relative, in between meetings, you are more available to attend to their needs or attend doctors appointments with them.

Disabled or those with medical conditions

Medical conditions could require you to go to the doctor frequently, which could be prohibitive if you have a long commute.

Dietary restrictions related to your health require you to cook or prepare your meals with the use of a full kitchen, i.e. microwaves and refrigerators will not cut it.

Immobile or visually impaired folks might have trouble navigating an office and its commute.

Veterans

For those suffering from PTSD or depression, large crowds or sounds in an office might trigger episodes.

Domestic Violence Victims

As victims navigate challenging circumstances at home, remote work can be a lifeline as they try to navigate their escape plan.

Foreigners and Domestic Underserved Regions

We actively discriminate against people who don’t possess US citizenship or cannot relocate to the US in the application process. We operate in a global talent pool and tout diversity and inclusion, but somehow get away with rejecting candidates on this basis alone.

Several domestic regions (mainly the Midwest and South) teetering on the brink of economic collapse have huge pools of untapped talent. Many cannot relocate due to personal circumstances.

Mark Zuckerberg is Right and Wrong

So why is Mark Zuckerberg both right and wrong? Facebook evaluating remote work as a permanent solution for some of their workforce is a laudable first step. However, the concept of employees having to tell their manager they are moving to a new location and having their salary reduced defies the entire concept of equal pay for equal work. Not only is it not feasible to totally track this, and there will be many that game the system, i.e. I am on vacation or I use my friend’s mailing address and my VPN to block your access to my location, but the concept is that the employee is performing the same work and therefore entitled to the same compensation. 

Does that mean that everyone deserves a SF salary? I am not sure. Fully remote companies have grappled with this for a while. Basecamp has implemented SF salaries across the board even though they are not even sure they even have anyone that works in SF! On the other hand, other companies have levelled salaries according to where they see clusters of certain types of talent to remain market competitive.

My ultimate dream is a world where we have a global marketplace for talent which determines fair wages for a given type of work. This will drive America to become great again as they compete globally from a skills perspective, but also eradicate the blatant discrimination and privilege that accompanies where someone was born, how much money they have to buy a passport, or whether their gender, race, or medical status creates barriers to them getting and/or maintaining a job. Location independent remote work is a necessary first step.