Why remote working is a magnet for attracting diverse talent to the public service
Public servants discuss how hybrid working is providing a major benefit to recruitment, and how it can help organisations better reflect the communities they serve.
Hybrid working has encouraged more professional women to move to full-time work and enabled many to better balance work and other responsibilities. Despite this, some governments and private sector firms are backtracking on pandemic trends and encouraging – or enforcing – returns to the office or refusing flexible working requests. In addition, some fear out of sight could mean out of mind when it comes to career prospects for hybrid workers.
On a recent Global Government Forum webinar, female public servants from the US and UK shared their experiences of hybrid working and addressed some of the challenges head-on. All three speakers agreed that talent attraction is a major benefit, particularly for public service organisations that increasingly espouse the importance of reflecting the diversity of the communities they serve.
Hybrid working poses unique challenges and opportunities, including for women specifically, said Natasha Jamal, director of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility at the United States Digital Service.
She shared scene-setting statistics, including that 3 million American women left the workforce in the first year of the pandemic.
“And a lot of that is due to the disproportionate burden that they have in terms of childcare and elder care,” Jamal said, noting that in heterosexual relationships where both partners work full time, women spend 40% more time caregiving than men.
Meanwhile, 75% of women report having a better work-life balance thanks to hybrid working.
‘Great technologists are everywhere’
The US Digital Service works on the technology that enables government services, and Jamal’s role is “helping underrepresented technologists thrive in the workforce”.
“We realised during COVID that while we could not work side by side with agencies in terms of physical proximity, we were actually able to hire technologists from all over the country for the first time,” she said.
This meant that people didn’t have to commute long distances or necessarily even live in Washington DC, which is one of the most expensive places in the US.
“We also really learned that great technologists are everywhere in our country,” said Jamal.
“A lot of people cannot come into an office every day, but that doesn’t make them any less good at their job.”
Since offering hybrid working, Jamal says the US Digital Service has seen improvements in several areas including staff wellbeing, having a more diverse workforce, and having a higher percentage of employees who identify as female and disabled.
As part of a parents and caregivers’ group at the US Digital Service, Jamal says she meets “amazing engineers, product managers and designers who are here and said they could never be working in this job if the hybrid and remote options were not offered”.
She noted that it is critically important to create a workforce that works for everyone “because we serve all people”.
Read more: ‘Be your own kind of leader’: Old leadership models shouldn’t hold female civil servants back
Talent attraction
Kumbi Kariwo, health inequalities lead at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in the UK, also highlighted hybrid working benefits spurred by the pandemic. Previously, she said, conversations about new working models in the NHS tended to stall, with changes viewed as “too hard to do”.
“COVID-19 was an opportunity for a real shift for us,” she said. “It accelerated the adoption of flexible and hybrid working models.”
“So far, it already has improved lives, and I think there’s still more room for improvement,” she added.
The NHS has a predominantly female workforce, but this is not reflected at senior levels. Hybrid working could help to change that.
Kariwo said that for women who are carers, the flexibility to work from home sometimes and better manage home and family life “has meant that people have the ability and the confidence to hold careers and hold roles – strategic roles, particularly – that they might not have otherwise thought to apply for”.
Echoing Jamal’s comments, Kariwo said hybrid working has been effective for talent attraction.
“You now have skillsets, different mindsets, different thinking in environments we previously might not have had,” she said. “I think when an organisation has flexible policies, flexible ways of working, that is a recruitment driver for people.”
There is also a growing focus on neurodivergent individuals. For example, open plan offices may cause sensory overload for some people.
“We can have a balance of in person and remote working, which enables individuals to work more productively,” she said.
Workforce flexibility
The US Small Business Administration (SBA) already had a hybrid work model where employees could work on site and a few days at home a week, and additional “workforce flexibilities” were implemented as a result of the pandemic.
“We define workforce flexibilities as strategic workforce tools that provide our employees autonomy and choices to meet both our mission needs, and also for them while they’re managing their work and life responsibilities,” said Yadira Guerrero, chief for enterprise human capital initiatives at the US Small Business Administration.
Options include hybrid and remote working, temporary exceptions to on-site requirements, and flexible schedules such as compressed hours, mid-day flex where employees can work half their day at home and half in the office or vice versa, and gliding start and end times. Employees can also take health and wellness breaks during their work day and make up the time later.
“All of that is co-creation with the employee and the supervisor,” Guerrero said, noting this is based on the needs of their role and the specific projects they’re working on.
Remote working has proved beneficial to the SBA in its disaster response efforts, for example.
“It allows us to tap a wider talent pool. If there’s no expectation for that employee to report on site, we’re able to recruit more broadly, and also get them on board more efficiently when we’re trying to respond to ensure that we’re there for any of those disaster survivors and victims,” Guerrero said.
The SBA has also become more “intentional” around using the right technology in the right way and at the right time to improve collaboration.
Read more: Back to office push could hit women hardest
How to address proximity bias
Hybrid working isn’t a silver bullet, though, and the panellists also addressed potential challenges, such as ‘proximity bias’ where those who are not in the office may be overlooked for projects and even promotion.
Kariwo said: “One of the things that we need to start to look at is leadership support. So how are our managers, our line managers, championing flexible working?” She said leaders need to understand “the impact that when staff are happy, it means productivity and it means great development for the organisation”.
She also highlighted the importance of clear, inclusive flexible working policies, structured career development where people can work towards personal goals, and staff networks such as for women, employees with disabilities, carers, LGBT+ people, etc.
“One voice might not be enough but a collection of voices can be enough to change things,” Kariwo said.
Jamal said the “day-to-day level” can be a good place to start addressing proximity bias, including strategies such as having everyone join a meeting via video for inclusive participation or making a dedicated effort to ensure those joining remotely can actively participate.
Having channels on platforms like Slack where people can chat at any time, as well as ‘coffee chats’ can also help people bond and build relationships – which can be more difficult remotely.
Other challenges discussed during the event included how to implement mentoring and coaching in remote environments, resolving conflicts, and onboarding new and younger members of staff.
But as Jamal put it: “None of these challenges mean that we should not have hybrid work. It just means we need to think about: how do we adjust to this? How do we be more intentional?”
As webinar audience members asked about ways to establish hybrid working, the panellists recommended finding a champion and collaborating with HR. They suggested starting small by piloting hybrid approaches at the team level and gathering evidence-based results to complement existing data on the benefits of hybrid and flexible working.
The ‘What impact could the longer-term move to flexible and hybrid working have on the careers of women civil servants?’ webinar took place on 3 October. You can watch the webinar in full here.
About Sarah Wray
Sarah has over 15 years’ experience as a journalist with a specialism in the public sector and topics such as digitalisation and climate action. Sarah was formerly the editor of Cities Today and Smart Cities World, as well as a specialist video-based publication in the aerospace sector. She has also written for publications including Smart Cities Dive, Mobile Europe, Mobile World Live and Computer Weekly.
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