Working from home could harm women’s careers, Nationwide boss warns
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Debbie Crosbie says more women take up flexible working to juggle work and childcare but it could block their promotion path. Working from home could harm women’s careers because they are less likely to come into the office than their male colleagues, the boss of Britain’s biggest building society has warned.
Debbie Crosbie, the chief executive of Nationwide, said the fact more women have taken advantage of flexible working – as they tend to juggle work and childcare – could cost them in terms of progression to more senior roles. Nationwide, which has more than 17 million customers and 18,000 employees, 60% of whom are female, brought in a “work anywhere” policy for staff who did not work in branches during the pandemic. The policy changed a year ago and now requires staff to come in to the office at least two days a week.
Crosbie told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday: “One of the only good things that came out of the pandemic was the fact that people got much more comfortable with working flexibly, working from home. And I do think that’s very useful. “My watch out, though, is that what we find, certainly at Nationwide, is that men are more likely to come into the office than women, and we just need to be really careful that we don’t prevent women from accessing the development-watching. I benefited enormously from watching some really excellent leaders and how they navigated challenging problems.”.
