4 ms·

I’m genuinely curious what reason there is for women and people of colour to not want to return to office. Parents I get. (Also; why make the ‘working parents’

I’m genuinely curious what reason there is for women and people of colour to not want to return to office. Parents I get. (Also; why make the ‘working parents’ distinction? Isn’t that implied?) I have multiple colleagues working mostly from home right note because the family situation demands it. I just wonder why the employee satisfaction and retention would be threatened more for women and people of colour than for people not in those groups.

lostcolony 5y ago
One of the things I've adopted in the pandemic, and which has shed some light on this, is moving more things that would have been discussions, into collaborative documents. I.e., rather than "let me get the team together and discuss this" I instead write a doc, and then ask people to comment on it, and I seek to resolve the comments. What I've seen is that people who frequently would speak little in person, will sometimes have a LOT to say on the doc. They're more direct and less self-deprecating too. The changes that remote has forced in many ways have changed, and potentially removed some of the cultural barriers that were in place before; much like an internet forum allows a level of confidence and directness that a person may not feel in person, so too has that particular change seemed to enable some people to find their voice. I'd imagine that even for things that are still zoom meetings, it has changed things too; more agenda driven, more need to raise your hand or be polite when you realize multiple people have started to respond and still carve out time for the people who spoke up but aren't going next, rather than just interrupt and now soandso has the floor, etc. I don't know any of these things to be the reason, but I could easily see it leading to a different and more egalitarian experience for women and people of color.
- pindab0ter 5y ago
  I’d never have thought of this, but it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I might even give that method a go.

lostcolony 5y ago

One of the things I've adopted in the pandemic, and which has shed some light on this, is moving more things that would have been discussions, into collaborative documents. I.e., rather than "let me get the team together and discuss this" I instead write a doc, and then ask people to comment on it, and I seek to resolve the comments. What I've seen is that people who frequently would speak little in person, will sometimes have a LOT to say on the doc. They're more direct and less self-deprecating too. The changes that remote has forced in many ways have changed, and potentially removed some of the cultural barriers that were in place before; much like an internet forum allows a level of confidence and directness that a person may not feel in person, so too has that particular change seemed to enable some people to find their voice. I'd imagine that even for things that are still zoom meetings, it has changed things too; more agenda driven, more need to raise your hand or be polite when you realize multiple people have started to respond and still carve out time for the people who spoke up but aren't going next, rather than just interrupt and now soandso has the floor, etc. I don't know any of these things to be the reason, but I could easily see it leading to a different and more egalitarian experience for women and people of color.

pindab0ter 5y ago
I’d never have thought of this, but it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I might even give that method a go.