Want a more diverse applicant pool? Make your job remote
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A recent survey found that remote workers are more likely to be seen as lazy by their in-office colleagues.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Follow topic:
NEW YORK – Companies may be calling staff back to the office, but many workers want to stay home, particularly those who come from under-represented groups.
Black, Hispanic and female job seekers are making up a greater share of applicants – and new hires – for roles that can be done remotely compared with their white and male counterparts, an analysis released on Thursday by LinkedIn found.
Between January 2019 and October 2022, the platform saw a 20 per cent increase in the share of female applicants applying for fully remote jobs, compared with a similar decrease in male applicants over the same time period.
The analysis also found a notable increase in interest for those kinds of jobs among black and Hispanic people.
LinkedIn analysed one million accounts belonging to men and women, as well as 300,000 accounts each for black and Latino members, who chose to share demographic data about themselves.
LinkedIn career expert Andrew McCaskill said the application rates will only grow increasingly important as the number of remote jobs decrease.
Before March 2020, 2 per cent of paid job listings in the United States on the platform were remote, he said. The number of remote job listings jumped to 20 per cent during the pandemic and has since levelled out to 15 per cent. In Britain, it is 12 per cent.
Workers still want those jobs: 52 per cent of applicants on LinkedIn are applying for remote positions.
“More and more people want remote work, but we are having fewer and fewer remote jobs, and more and more companies are asking people to not only not have remote jobs, but also to come back into the office,” Mr McCaskill said.
This “disconnect might become a problem” as companies start to look at attracting that talent, he added.
Black workers, in particular, were more likely to prefer remote work throughout the pandemic, surveys found, with many saying it allowed them to escape some of the biases they faced at the office. Women with children also said it has helped them better balance the demands of work and home life.
There are career downsides to staying home.
Older bosses are more likely to want workers in the office, and the phenomenon of “proximity bias” persists, where just being seen in the office can affect performance evaluations, promotions and job security, research has found.
A recent survey found that remote workers are more likely to be seen as lazy by their in-office colleagues. Women and workers of colour, who already face an uphill battle at work, may be penalised for working remotely.
Although remote work is just one facet of overall company culture, Mr McCaskill suggested that it may be make-or-break when it comes to hiring a diverse team. Remote jobs can also widen the pool of where applicants are from.
He pointed to the fact that 57 per cent of the black population in the US live in the south and may not want to move away from established support systems and a certain quality of life.
“Remote work opens the aperture for someone in Jacksonville, Florida, or Nashville, Tennessee, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to get a tech job without moving to Silicon Valley,” he said. “As we start to look at the talent pools and the opportunities for equity and inclusion, remote work has to be a thought process as it relates to how talent will ultimately gravitate towards companies that lean into flexibility.” BLOOMBERG
