Future of Work

​Women have always faced challenges in the workplace, and the advent of the work from home setup simply throws you a new set to overcome. Being aware of the different pros and cons of WFH can help you find the best solution and adapt accordingly to the new normal. With challenges come opportunity for change, a change women could use to level the playing field.​It's been almost a year since the lives of working women around the world experienced a sudden shift. With remote working becoming the default position for many employees amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many have found themselves being torn between the excitement and comfort of working from home and the yearning for the familiar structure that the office environment once provided.Today many workers complain about the challenges remote work has created especially the blurring of boundaries between professional and personal lives being foremost among them. Thanks to modern technology such as chat apps, video conferencing and cloud software, the global work-from home experiment has worked seamlessly and is now more sustainable than ever before, leading many companies to declare that workers may never need to return to the office if they so choose.Indeed, the team at half the sky, often ponders whether we will ever return to the office or is this truly the “new normal”. Despite some of the benefits that working from home offers especially for women there are notable drawbacks. So, which option is best for you? Let’s take a look at both the pros and cons of both sides of the work from home phenomenon.Working HomemakersWFH puts women in an interesting position. Ideally, as women working from home, they have more flexibility with their time and previous biases on women in the workplace are greatly reduced in effect.However, that's only one side of the coin. As we're about to show you, there's more to remote work than we thought, especially considering the circumstances that brought us here:The Pros1. Reduced Bias on AppearanceUnconscious bias brings irrelevant factors into the decision-making process. Age, ethnicity, gender, weight, and even hair color can play a role in personal assessments of candidates and employees and influence the decision to hire, fire, and promote in the workplace.In remote work, the only time you'll see your other coworkers will probably be through the computer screen and only the top half of their body. This limited interaction means others will be less likely to be affected by such unconscious biases. Women can compete solely on the work that they produce and grow their voice and influence.2. Opportunities For the MarginalizedAs companies create remote working opportunities, you could find yourself working with someone who lives in a completely different continent. Not only does this open the gates for greater diversity and understanding in the virtual workplace, but previously marginalized groups can also thrive in a more open and inclusive environment.No matter your background or living arrangements, if they don't affect the way you work and the results you give, they won't influence how your coworkers will see you anymore. You can firmly stand on equal footing with everyone else.3. Equal CommunicationAnother struggle for women at work is being heard, especially in work cultures that promote and reward aggressive communication which can include interrupting, a failure to listen and speaking in a loud voice. Getting your ideas out in this environment tends to come down to being the loudest voice in the room. An environment most women dislike with a vengeance.When you're in a virtual meeting, it's easier for everyone to get their chance to talk. Talking over someone makes both speakers unintelligible, making interruptions more unlikely. And if you are softly spoken, you'll be better heard through the mic and everyone can just turn up the volume either way.4. Personal FreedomWomen want to be judged by their work but it's hard when everyone in the office is also privy to your other, more personal choices. What you wear, what you order in the cafeteria, and—an especially controversial topic—when mothers breastfeed in the office, are all subject to the opinions of the people you work with.When you're working from home, their opinions won't reach your ears anymore. Unless you personally tell them over team video calls, they won't know how you plan to make dinner or what you do in your free time.5. Flexible ScheduleOne of the primary benefits of WFH is the flexibility to arrange your daily activities. Even before the pandemic, working from home has been the desired solution for mothers who have just given birth and want to work the same hours along with their childrearing duties.The only problem is that women who WFH face a stigma. Their coworkers don't expect that they can perform on the same level as those who are in the office. But with WFH as the new norm, there's no reason for this expectation anymore as everyone is on the same level. The Cons1. More Effort to Stay VisibleWhile many are working remotely, there will be others who will have to stay in the office. This divide becomes more apparent as quarantine rules and pandemic regulations start to loosen. The difference in the visibility of each worker may cause a skewed perspective from the management.Men may be called in to the office more than the women who find WFH more convenient. This may cause men to become part of informal yet vital discussions in the office while women will only be part of the official announcements and meetings afterward.2. Less Opportunities for NetworkingCareer progression usually relies on networking that happens outside the office. Without those oft-unexpected opportunities to connect with others, women may find it more difficult to promote themselves. The number of women who nominate themselves for promotion in the workplace is already low so the WFH setup could diminish this even more.3. Burdens on Mental HealthWomen working at home now find several aspects of their lives happening in a concentrated space. As the lines between work and home increasingly become blurred, women’s mental health could be subject to higher levels of stress. The stress is further compounded by fears brought by the pandemic. Worries over the safety of their loved ones and greater economic insecurity.4. Conflicting PrioritiesIn relation to the previous point, women wear many hats at home, and when work is added to the mix, it will become an exhausting juggling act to shift between priorities. To compare, men tend to prioritize their career whereas women being the primary caregivers not just for the immediate family but for extended family such as grandparents and in laws could find the juggling act not compatible with developing their careers. Women feel a strong sense of responsibility for both WFH may place them at a difficult crossroads.5. Disrupted Work-Life Balance“Don't take your work home with you” was once a well understood phrase that your manager may have once uttered to you to encourage you to down tools and relax, but with the greater blurring of the line between work and home life - finding work life balance has become a greater challenge especially for women. Balancing work and life were never easy, but at least we had our sanctuary which was usually the comforts of home. Today, home is no longer that sanctuary causing a greater risk to the mental wellness of workers.Working from home brings its own set of challenges for women but it also provides unique opportunities. It will take a lot of adjusting for women to balance all these important parts of their life and things may get worse before they get better.But over time, the benefits will outweigh the cons. Women have to make the most of the good so that they can make it work for them and their companies. A new age of work is upon us and work from home is firmly in the center.

​SINGAPORE — Singapore can be a model of a country that has women in the tech sector, said Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Thursday (Nov 19), adding that the Government is making a conscious effort to develop role models and mentorship schemes for women in this space.“We’re not there yet but we have some advantages that other countries don't, because if you look at our school system — our secondary schools, our junior colleges — women are as represented as men in the sciences. “It’s a little unusual compared to most countries.Women are as represented as men in the sciences and do very well. So, the question is transiting from that into tertiary education and into jobs,” said Mr Tharman, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Policies. He was speaking during a Facebook Live session at the Singapore Tech Forum 2020 where he was joined by Mr Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer and founder of American cloud-based software company Salesforce. Mr Tharman said that in tertiary education, women have shunned hardware engineering although they moved into chemical engineering and life sciences. Women also tend to move into quantitative fields like accountancy and business, he pointed out.  “The world of engineering is changing. It’s now knowledge and data, and I think it's a very exciting opportunity for women. But we've got to have a very conscious effort to develop that norm, to develop the role models, to develop the mentorship schemes. And that's a responsibility of the Government, of education institutions, of corporates and of community,” said Mr Tharman. He said companies such as DBS bank, online payment service Paypal and Salesforce have “very determined schemes” now to hire and develop women in the tech space. He added that the Government is trying to do the same through an Infocomm Media Development Authority initiative called SG Women In Tech. “There are also community initiatives, (like) something called The Codette Project by Nurul Jihadah, which is very much the same; mentorship, encouraging women, including women from minority backgrounds, to get into tech,” he said. “I think Singapore can be a model. We’re not there yet and, in fact, there are no real models for women in tech internationally, including in Silicon Valley. We must be a model of inclusivity, even on gender, when it comes to the tech world, because the tech world hasn't been famous for gender equality.”During the session, Mr Benioff commented on how the world is facing a global health, economic and environmental crisis, and how the United States is also grappling with a justice, racial and equality crisis. “I think that we can all look at that and, in many ways, we can also say we're in a crisis of equality. This idea of capitalism, let's talk about that — is that all we're about? Money? Is that all we're about? Shareholder return? It is about a much greater mission than that,” said Mr Benioff.The pandemic, he said, could be a “great reset” for a new, more compassionate, more fair capitalism. Mr Tharman said that economic objectives should not be separate from social objectives. If a country is able to run a competitive and efficient economy, it will be able to create a lot more opportunities for people, he pointed out. However, if it is left entirely to the market, those opportunities become polarised over time — those who have an advantage will get even more advantage and those who start off with less tend to end up with less, he said. “So you can't leave it to the market. But if you think of an economy as a social ecosystem, not just a business ecosystem, you're able to create opportunities starting upstream in education but moving into work, because work is still fundamental to any system with a sense of equality and opportunity.And you create a society where everyone feels that the economy is doing well, I, my children and the people I know well are also more likely to do well,” said Mr Tharman. Conversely, he said that if Singapore does not have a cohesive society with divisions widening over time, it will be very hard to sustain an economic strategy that involves being open. “In other words, if you're not socially sustainable, you're not going to have a competitive economy in the long term and that's what you see across the world.No one is perfect; we're not perfect in Singapore,” said Mr Tharman. Singapore, however, is one of the few countries together with Sweden and “just one or two others” that have managed to sustain the middle majority society, moving up one decade after another even in the last five years. “There's still a significant work plan, significant collaboration plan, significant upscaling plan to help people who are lower down the ladder take opportunities of moving up. It will make us a better society. It creates better companies and creates a better society. ”But Singapore, he said, was “not done yet at all”.  “There's really no perfect society wherever you go in the world,” said Mr Tharman. This article was first published in Today Online.