Women who stay away from office risk their careers, BoE committee say
Women who stay away from the office risk their careers suffering as more staff return to the workplace after the pandemic, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee said.
Catherine Mann told an event for women in finance hosted by Financial News: “Virtual platforms are way better than they were even five years ago. But the extemporaneous, spontaneity — those are hard to replicate in a virtual setting.”
As a result, women are being left behind as men are disproportionately returning to the the office environment.
She cited access to childcare as a key reason why women are unable to make it back into the City.
“There is the potential for two tracks. There’s the people who are on the virtual track and people who are on a physical track. And I do worry that we will see those two tracks develop, and we will pretty much know who’s going to be on which track, unfortunately,” she said.
Whilst there is not full capacity back in the office, by the end of October only 15 per cent of those surveyed were working solely from home, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Earlier research by the ONS found that women were more likely to work from home than their male counterparts because it gave them more time to complete work and fewer distractions.
A greater proportion of women than men over 50 also switched to home working during the pandemic, the ONS said, at 45 per cent of those surveyed.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has previously advised that younger people risked missing out on developing working relationships and building skills if they did not return to the office.