March 18, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of the "HR Mixtape," host Shari Simpson welcomes Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher at the Women in Public Policy program at Harvard Kennedy School. They discuss the importance of data-driven approaches to advancing gender equality in the workplace and explore practical strategies for creating fairer work environments. Siri shares insights from her book, "Make Work Fair," emphasizing how organizational design can influence equity and inclusion.
Key Takeaways:
- Data-Driven Design: Learn how small changes in workplace design, like table shapes and resume formats, can significantly impact fairness and inclusivity.
- Flexibility in Work: Discover the benefits of hybrid work models and how they can enhance job satisfaction, especially for caregivers.
- Building Fairness: Understand that fairness should be integrated into everyday practices rather than treated as a one-off program.
Tune in for actionable insights that can transform your HR practices! Guest(s): Siri Chilazi, Senior Researcher at the Women in Public Policy program, Harvard Kennedy School Book: Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
You're listening to the HR Mixtape Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me on the podcast today is Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher
at the Women in Public Policy program at Harvard Kennedy School. Siri
(00:25):
is dedicated to advancing gender equality in the workplace and
partners with organizations around the world as a strategic advisor
and keynote speaker. Her insights are regularly featured in
major media outlets, and she holds degrees from Harvard in business,
Siri, I'm so glad you were able to join me on the podcast today. Thank
(00:49):
you for having me, Shari. I'm so thrilled to be here. I thought we could start
with you sharing a little bit about your background and the book that you
I am a behavioral scientist and a researcher of
gender equality and organizations at Harvard Kennedy School. My
research focuses on identifying and testing concrete ways that
both individuals and organizations can help to close
(01:12):
very well-documented gender gaps. So it's things like, how do
we hire more objectively? How can we run a meetings in
a way that we can actually benefit from the collective wisdom of
everyone present? Or how do we make sure that we're giving everyone
a level playing field to advance once they're in the organization? And
by giving them equal access to opportunities, evaluating them fairly and
(01:33):
promoting the best people. I love that. And what's the title of your book? The
title is Make Work Fair Data-Driven Design
for Real Results. And the Make Work Fair part of it, the main title
really encapsulates what the book is about. It's about concrete. actions,
things that we can do to make our workplaces better
work. Obviously this has to do with the workplaces of all kinds around
(01:55):
the world, whether we're talking about startups or enormous multinational corporations
or anything in between. And then fairness. Fairness from my coauthor,
Iris Bennett and I wrote this book together is about ensuring that
everyone has equal access. access to opportunities and
an equal level playing field on which to do their best
work. Does that mean that everyone's going to become the CEO? Of
(02:16):
course not. Not everyone has the skill, the capabilities. Not everyone
wants that job either, right? But we at least should be
able to provide everyone a sort of equal basis from
which to then rise as far as they wish to
I love that. You know, we've had so many conversations over the
years about quality and equity, and we've
(02:37):
really approached it, I think, from the perspective of culture, employee
experience, those types of things. Your approach is very data-driven
as you've kind of explored this idea around workplace quality.
Talk me through how you got to that conclusion that data can help really
Yeah, culture is obviously a really important piece, but
(03:00):
culture too, by the way, can be approached in a data-driven way.
So the evidence from decades of behavioral science research is
really clear that de-biasing human brains
or trying to change how people think and feel is really
difficult and might even be impossible. But that research also
shows that so much of how we behave actually comes
(03:22):
from the environments that we surround ourselves with. So
I'm talking physical environments, like the layout of our offices or
the shapes of tables and conference rooms. I'm talking about behaviors
and culture and what we see other people doing. But I'm also talking about
organizational processes and systems that govern how we
do our everyday work. Like how do we hire? How do
(03:42):
we choose which person to put on which project or
how to assign tasks in our workplaces? You
know, how do we make decisions about who to promote? And so
much of how those processes and systems are designed influences
what the outcomes are. And it turns out that those systems are
much easier to debias than our brains. So
(04:04):
we can get humans to behave a lot more
fairly and make more objective decisions by just changing the
What are our approaches to do that? You
mentioned so many things there, and I feel like we could dive into each
one specifically, but you mentioned the shape of tables.
Start there. That's really fascinating. I know that seems like such a
(04:27):
simple one to ask about, but yeah, if
Yeah, we humans read so much into something
as the shape of a table. So if it's a square or
circle, There's no clear head of the table, right? There's no
real clear authority position because wherever
(04:48):
you sit in a circle, you're kind of equivalent to everybody else. If you
have a rectangular table and it's clear that one
side is sort of the front of the room, then whoever sits
at that front of the table position automatically assumes
a position of authority. And we start looking toward that
person and say, well, what are they saying? You know, if we're debating an issue, what's
(05:08):
the opinion that they express first? And we are more likely to
defer to that person and express concurrent opinions, essentially
a group thing, in order to create harmony in the group and in
order not to stand out. So, you know, one way to create
a more level playing field to really signal, Hey, everyone's
ideas are valued here. We want to hear from everyone. Your contributions are
(05:29):
welcome, is to either move to a round table or
a square table, something that physically decreases the hierarchy. Or
if you're stuck with that rectangular table and you are the person of highest
positional authority in the room, don't sit at the head of
the table. Sit down last when everyone has already assumed
their positions. Maybe even speak last, you know, foster
(05:50):
conversations among others, try to pull
out everybody else's opinions before you express your
What are some of the other ways we should think about this that
I would have never considered the table thing? Like, I mean, that concept
obviously makes sense. And we've talked about, you know, leadership roles and
(06:11):
speaking last, those types of things. But being intentional about the design
of the room is really fascinating. What are some other things that people are
missing that are like low hanging fruit that could have a big impact if
That's the thing about design. It's often kind of invisible or
slightly underneath the surface to your point so that it doesn't jump out at us.
And it's so powerful. So let's talk about resumes. All
(06:34):
of us have one, right? Regardless of how recently it's been updated.
We use those to apply to jobs, very important. unspoken,
unaddressed design of most people's resumes is that you list your
past work experience with the specific dates attached.
So you say, I was a management consultant from 2010 to 2013, and then I
(06:54):
was an assistant product manager from 2015 to 2017. Well, one
of the things that that design does, unintentionally, most of us
haven't thought about this, is it highlights any gaps
in our work history. So if I finished being a management consultant
in 2013 and I started my next job in 2015, a recruiter or
an algorithm that's screening that resume is
(07:17):
going to say, wait a second, what happened between 2013 and
2015? What's going on? And empirically, we know that employers penalize
candidates for having these career gaps, even though there's actually no
evidence to suggest that people with non-continuous work histories
are in any way less talented or capable. So our
colleagues ran a really fun experiment in the UK
(07:40):
where they tested a very small redesign to that resume format.
So that instead of expressing the work experience with the
specific date attached, you listed the total amount of time.
So you'd say management consultant for three years, assistant product
manager for five years. You don't really lose any critical information
because you still can get at the amount of experience that a person has
(08:02):
in a given role. But what this small redesign does is
that it obfuscates those curves. And what these researchers
found in this study, which looked at more than 9,000 companies, And he's hiring
for all different kinds of jobs, ranging from software engineer and
financial analyst to customer call center representative,
you know, and care worker. So really a range of jobs. They found that both women and
(08:23):
men were about 15% more likely to get invited to
an interview, to get a call back. Because those companies were able
to look past something that didn't actually matter, which is gaps
in work history. And they were able to better focus on the actual skills
and competencies that candidates brought to the table. So tiny
design that makes a huge difference for whom we
(08:44):
select. And for any recruiter, you know, it raises the question of
wait a second today when we're screening and we think we're getting the
best candidates. Are we actually? Or are we just getting the
best candidates with a continuous work history or something else? Are
the best candidates from a certain type of school or with a certain type
Well, and it goes, that plays very nicely into some
(09:06):
of the statistics we've heard around, you know, the way that
women will apply for jobs compared to the way men will apply for jobs. Cause
you don't necessarily know if you're getting the most qualified person
applying for that job because sometimes they won't even raise
their hand, you know, females won't if they don't have, you know, a
hundred percent of what's on a job posting. So really
(09:26):
fascinating to think about that design piece when it comes
to applying for jobs. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about
diversity in the context of remote work, hybrid
environments, some of the stuff that we're still experiencing now. And
granted, there's a lot of return to work mandates happening right now. We
know that some of the impacts like just owning real estate have dictated like,
(09:48):
Hey, we got to come back in the office. We're paying for, for this real
estate. We need to use it. What are the things that we need to
consider now that hybrid work is more normal? Organizations
are definitely leaning into it more. We're seeing jobs that are consistently staying
remote, but we still have to make sure that we're not introducing bias
or things like recency bias when you're thinking about who to
(10:10):
promote and those types of things. How do we need to start thinking about that?
I love that you mentioned things like real estate, because
I do find that people forget that in these conversations about
is remote work desirable or should we do it? There's multiple factors
at play, right? I can speak to what the evidence says about
the actual effects of remote work. And I think it's important because this
(10:32):
conversation has been lacking a lot of the data and evidence. I see people
saying very ideological things like, I know that my employees are
more productive in the office. I'm like. I have the evidence to
suggest that that's not the case. So I think it's really important to
bring in the data. And then leaders have to be honest when they say, listen,
I understand that my employees want remote work. I know
that there's data to suggest that that can do great things, but we've
(10:55):
still decided to call everyone back into the office because we want to maximize
our real estate holdings or whatever, right? Yeah. So I think we just need
to be more honest about, you know, what the reasons are that are driving some
of these decisions. Here's what the data has to say. Around the
world, employees tend to be more enthusiastic about
remote work than employers. And we'll get to why that
is in a second. Research has shown that working in a
(11:18):
hybrid fashion, so some combination of remote and in-person, can
increase things like employee job satisfaction, life
satisfaction, retention, measurable productivity in
those jobs where it's easier to measure productivity. In a lot of
white-collar occupations, it's actually incredible. incredibly difficult
to measure productivity, which is another important part of this conversation.
(11:41):
So we can have many benefits. And while women and
men are actually largely, roughly equally excited
about remote work, it's particularly caregivers of
all genders, people who have either children to take care of or elderly parents
or relatives to take care of, as well as people with longer commutes, unsurprisingly,
that are especially enthused about remote work. I think one
(12:02):
of the reasons why managers and employers are less
enthusiastic, and this goes to how do we make this a success, is
that we learned how to manage and how to
set up work in an in-person context. That's what
our processes were designed for, optimized for.
So now, of course, if we're going to have to manage a workforce that is
(12:24):
partially in-person, some of them are fully remote, some of them are hybrid, that
takes different skills and different processes. And while some
organizations were already experimenting with remote work before COVID,
most of the organizations that are doing it today were kind of thrust into
it overnight in 2020 without having
the time to thoughtfully try train managers, educate
(12:45):
the workforce and retool their processes. They were just expected from
one day to the next to all of a sudden become proficient and
expert at managing remotely. So those organizations that
have made the transition successfully have discovered that the key is
that thoughtful and intentional transition. So you've got to revisit
everything from norms for meetings, norms for
(13:07):
communication, how quickly do we expect a response? What are
the online times? What are the offline times? How do we ensure that
people are able to carve out longer blocks of time for continuous
focus work when they're not interrupted with pings on
Slack or endless emails or meetings? Thinking
about rethinking those types of norms to actual formal criteria for
(13:29):
performance evaluations, promotions. How do we make sure
that we actually focus on the results of what people are
achieving, the outputs, rather than assessing inputs like,
do I see them sitting with their butt in the chair in front of
their screen and who knows what they're doing on that screen? Right. Right. Like them
typing on a computer does not equate to productivity necessarily. But
(13:49):
that's a big mental shift for most organizations and
for most managers. And so it has to be done intentionally.
How are you seeing the data play out as they
think about the generation that's getting older
and older. And you have people like me who are in that Gen X category who
are now having to think about being caregivers for their
(14:11):
parents and potentially at the same time, their grandkids. How
do we think about that data and what's, I mean, and then
kind of specifically speaking of the US, because I think about our population here,
that demographic is changing so much that you now have these Gen
Xers that are in these really unique roles to try to balance all
of this. who, you know, are excited about the opportunity of
(14:33):
remote work. But there's also like you have
to find that balance and flexibility. How is the data either supporting
that or not supporting that or things that we should consider? It supports
There's actually even a term for this generation. It's the sandwich generation.
So people who are caring both for elderly relatives as well as
(14:54):
kids under 18 in their household at the same time. And
we've got, you know, between a quarter and a half of the working population, depending
on their exact age, who are in that sandwich generation category.
So they've got really substantial commitments and requirements
outside of work. At the same time, they're committed to work. They
want to work. They want to give it their best. It has to
(15:15):
fit in with life outside of work. And I think this is
where flexibility in all forms can come in. So
it's flexibility in terms of the location of where you work from. Is
it all in office, all at home, or some combination of the two, or even a different location?
It's flexibility in terms of when do you work? Not
everyone can do nine to five, but they can put in eight hours or
(15:36):
even more than eight, cumulatively over the course of a day,
when fits their life best. Why
would we not give workers that flexibility, right? Or
at least some part of it. There's also the flexibility of going
into and out of the workforce. The traditional model, right,
is you finish education, you go into work and then you're there nonstop
(15:57):
for 40ish years and then you exit and then you're gone. And
that's not realistic in today's workplace anymore. We've not
only got caregiving responsibilities, but people want to pursue side
hustles or additional projects. people get ill, they have to go get
cancer treatment for a couple months, but then they heal and six months later, they're
ready to come back. I think it's really important for us to
(16:20):
harness truly the full talent pool that's out there to
accommodate this and to make work more conducive to stepping
in and stepping out at some times. I wish there was an easy one-stop-shop
answer. Of course, there isn't because every workplace is
different. Every role is different. And I think this is something that organizations
have to embrace a little bit more is the need to develop tailored
(16:42):
solutions. If you have a big company with a lot of different divisions and
a lot of different types of roles, you might have 20 different
remote work policies because some roles are. face-to-face
and you have, you know, customer service, retail, frontline, this
kind of stuff, you just have to be there on the ground. But in the same
organization, you might have so many jobs that can be done partially,
(17:03):
remotely and flexibly, or even fully. And so
this is just something that we have to put a little bit more time
and effort toward clarifying and navigating, but it can be
I think the other complexity that comes with this, and I
love your perspective on it, because I've heard this before from
employees, Hey, I, my role can't be
(17:24):
remote, right? I have to be in the office. It isn't fair
that the knowledge workers get to be remote and I don't. How
do we test fairness if we're implementing this
type of flexibility across different roles and different departments
Yeah, this brings up actually some really deep and fundamental questions
(17:45):
because fairness is a shared human value, something
really foundational. You know, in studies, children as young as four
and five and six years old develop really strong
senses of what's fair and what's not, and they react very strongly
to perceived unfairness. So this really is something that's, I
would argue, almost universally shared by humans. But to
(18:06):
your point, Our definitions of what's fair as
we grow from that four-year-old and as the world gets more complex and
situations we encounter more complex, our definitions are not always
the same. I think organizations and leaders just
have to be more frankly transparent and honest about
both the needs of the business and the decisions that they're making to
(18:27):
try to satisfy the needs of the business while satisfying
as many of their employees' needs and demands as
possible. So I think folks can understand that if you've
applied for a role, that's a customer service role
in person, right? And you you're in that job, that's a
different job than someone managing accounts or doing budgets on
(18:49):
a computer. And if folks want to get into those jobs with
more flexibility, then there's maybe reskilling opportunities, upskilling
opportunities, apprenticeships that can help put them on that path.
This is also something that being more upfront about in job
advertisements, can be very helpful. Another big
study in the UK, Dan, showed that when jobs were advertised
(19:10):
as having more flexibility, if they were actually able to be done more flexibly,
once again, it resulted in more applications, especially from
women. So companies were able to access a broader talent pool,
but it is not going to apply to every job. Well,
let me just show one example though, of getting more
creative, even in frontline occupations. Chick-fil-A, restaurant chain,
(19:32):
right? With locations around the U.S. and actually around the world, requires in-person
presence, but their employees also wanted more flexibility. So one
of their Florida locations, Reina Pilot, which has now become a permanent mode
of operating, where they allowed employees to
cram all of their weekly hours into three days. So
instead of coming in five or six days a week for however many, six,
(19:54):
seven, eight, nine hours, you would work longer shifts, but
you'd pack all your hours in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then you'd
be off Thursday through Sunday. And there was another crew that did the same thing where
they packed all their hours in Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then
they had Sunday through Wednesday off. And Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays anyway, so
they only are open six days a week. People loved
(20:14):
it because it gave them more predictability in
their schedule. They were happy to work longer days, a few days
of the week, because on the flip side, they got some days that were completely
off. And once again, they got more applications for
open roles because this was something not only that existing employees
loved, but prospective employees were really drawn to. So
(20:36):
even in those frontline roles where work has to be
in person, we can get more creative about what else
I love that. I did see, and I don't know if they're still piloting it.
I saw it a while ago, but I saw that McDonald's had been trying in
their video displays, having remote workers
(20:58):
take orders in the drive-thru. And I thought that was really
creative. I'm sure there's a lot of, oh, creative. tech involved that could go wrong
in that scenario, but it's just one more way organizations are thinking
And just to connect this to what we were saying a moment ago, these are design
choices, right? Someone somewhere has decided that
(21:20):
work needs to get done like this and every system
and every process can be redesigned. So just like we
made that first design choice, we can make a different choice. and experiment and
test and see if it works. You know, does it meet the needs of the business? Are employees
happy? Does this increase productivity, retention, sales? And
Love that. As we wrap up our conversation, what is one
(21:43):
thing that you hope those that are listening that are
in the HR space walk away from this conversation with
when it comes to things like data and equality? Yeah.
One of the core messages of our book, Make Work Fair, is that making
fairness and making work fair is not a program. but
a way of doing things. So we don't need to start up a new
(22:04):
training, start up a new employee resource group, spend times on
speaker series or networking events or this and that. Those are all programmatic
one-off solutions, which by the way, are really easy
to get. cut when budgets are tight, or it's easy for people
to skip when they're overwhelmed with their quote unquote real work. So
if we really want to make progress on leveling the playing field
(22:26):
and getting both the best people in the door, and then making sure that they're
in the right roles at the right time, doing their best work to enable
our collective success, we need to build fairness into
all the things that we're already doing. So I would challenge and
encourage everyone listening to even just look at your
calendar for today and think about what is it that I'm already doing? You
(22:46):
might be writing emails, you might be sitting in meetings, you might be facilitating meetings,
you might be giving feedback to somebody, a co-worker, you
might be hiring for a new position, you might be assigning people
to new projects, right? Those are the things that
we have to do a little bit better and a little
bit more scenarially. And fortunately, like that resume example
(23:08):
from the UK, the evidence is there. The research has been done to
tell us what works and what doesn't, how we should do these things and
what we should avoid. So all we need to do is just put all that good knowledge into
Thank you so much for all of this. What a great discussion. And
I will make sure to put your book in the show notes for those listening. They can go grab it.
This has been wonderful. Thanks for sitting down with me for a few minutes. Thank you, Shari.
(23:41):
Come back often, and please subscribe, rate, and review.
You're listening to the HR Mixtape Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me on the podcast today is Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher
at the Women in Public Policy program at Harvard Kennedy School. Siri
(00:25):
is dedicated to advancing gender equality in the workplace and
partners with organizations around the world as a strategic advisor
and keynote speaker. Her insights are regularly featured in
major media outlets, and she holds degrees from Harvard in business,
Siri, I'm so glad you were able to join me on the podcast today. Thank
(00:49):
you for having me, Shari. I'm so thrilled to be here. I thought we could start
with you sharing a little bit about your background and the book that you
I am a behavioral scientist and a researcher of
gender equality and organizations at Harvard Kennedy School. My
research focuses on identifying and testing concrete ways that
both individuals and organizations can help to close
(01:12):
very well-documented gender gaps. So it's things like, how do
we hire more objectively? How can we run a meetings in
a way that we can actually benefit from the collective wisdom of
everyone present? Or how do we make sure that we're giving everyone
a level playing field to advance once they're in the organization? And
by giving them equal access to opportunities, evaluating them fairly and
(01:33):
promoting the best people. I love that. And what's the title of your book? The
title is Make Work Fair Data-Driven Design
for Real Results. And the Make Work Fair part of it, the main title
really encapsulates what the book is about. It's about concrete. actions,
things that we can do to make our workplaces better
work. Obviously this has to do with the workplaces of all kinds around
(01:55):
the world, whether we're talking about startups or enormous multinational corporations
or anything in between. And then fairness. Fairness from my coauthor,
Iris Bennett and I wrote this book together is about ensuring that
everyone has equal access. access to opportunities and
an equal level playing field on which to do their best
work. Does that mean that everyone's going to become the CEO? Of
(02:16):
course not. Not everyone has the skill, the capabilities. Not everyone
wants that job either, right? But we at least should be
able to provide everyone a sort of equal basis from
which to then rise as far as they wish to
I love that. You know, we've had so many conversations over the
years about quality and equity, and we've
(02:37):
really approached it, I think, from the perspective of culture, employee
experience, those types of things. Your approach is very data-driven
as you've kind of explored this idea around workplace quality.
Talk me through how you got to that conclusion that data can help really
Yeah, culture is obviously a really important piece, but
(03:00):
culture too, by the way, can be approached in a data-driven way.
So the evidence from decades of behavioral science research is
really clear that de-biasing human brains
or trying to change how people think and feel is really
difficult and might even be impossible. But that research also
shows that so much of how we behave actually comes
(03:22):
from the environments that we surround ourselves with. So
I'm talking physical environments, like the layout of our offices or
the shapes of tables and conference rooms. I'm talking about behaviors
and culture and what we see other people doing. But I'm also talking about
organizational processes and systems that govern how we
do our everyday work. Like how do we hire? How do
(03:42):
we choose which person to put on which project or
how to assign tasks in our workplaces? You
know, how do we make decisions about who to promote? And so
much of how those processes and systems are designed influences
what the outcomes are. And it turns out that those systems are
much easier to debias than our brains. So
(04:04):
we can get humans to behave a lot more
fairly and make more objective decisions by just changing the
What are our approaches to do that? You
mentioned so many things there, and I feel like we could dive into each
one specifically, but you mentioned the shape of tables.
Start there. That's really fascinating. I know that seems like such a
(04:27):
simple one to ask about, but yeah, if
Yeah, we humans read so much into something
as the shape of a table. So if it's a square or
circle, There's no clear head of the table, right? There's no
real clear authority position because wherever
(04:48):
you sit in a circle, you're kind of equivalent to everybody else. If you
have a rectangular table and it's clear that one
side is sort of the front of the room, then whoever sits
at that front of the table position automatically assumes
a position of authority. And we start looking toward that
person and say, well, what are they saying? You know, if we're debating an issue, what's
(05:08):
the opinion that they express first? And we are more likely to
defer to that person and express concurrent opinions, essentially
a group thing, in order to create harmony in the group and in
order not to stand out. So, you know, one way to create
a more level playing field to really signal, Hey, everyone's
ideas are valued here. We want to hear from everyone. Your contributions are
(05:29):
welcome, is to either move to a round table or
a square table, something that physically decreases the hierarchy. Or
if you're stuck with that rectangular table and you are the person of highest
positional authority in the room, don't sit at the head of
the table. Sit down last when everyone has already assumed
their positions. Maybe even speak last, you know, foster
(05:50):
conversations among others, try to pull
out everybody else's opinions before you express your
What are some of the other ways we should think about this that
I would have never considered the table thing? Like, I mean, that concept
obviously makes sense. And we've talked about, you know, leadership roles and
(06:11):
speaking last, those types of things. But being intentional about the design
of the room is really fascinating. What are some other things that people are
missing that are like low hanging fruit that could have a big impact if
That's the thing about design. It's often kind of invisible or
slightly underneath the surface to your point so that it doesn't jump out at us.
And it's so powerful. So let's talk about resumes. All
(06:34):
of us have one, right? Regardless of how recently it's been updated.
We use those to apply to jobs, very important. unspoken,
unaddressed design of most people's resumes is that you list your
past work experience with the specific dates attached.
So you say, I was a management consultant from 2010 to 2013, and then I
(06:54):
was an assistant product manager from 2015 to 2017. Well, one
of the things that that design does, unintentionally, most of us
haven't thought about this, is it highlights any gaps
in our work history. So if I finished being a management consultant
in 2013 and I started my next job in 2015, a recruiter or
an algorithm that's screening that resume is
(07:17):
going to say, wait a second, what happened between 2013 and
2015? What's going on? And empirically, we know that employers penalize
candidates for having these career gaps, even though there's actually no
evidence to suggest that people with non-continuous work histories
are in any way less talented or capable. So our
colleagues ran a really fun experiment in the UK
(07:40):
where they tested a very small redesign to that resume format.
So that instead of expressing the work experience with the
specific date attached, you listed the total amount of time.
So you'd say management consultant for three years, assistant product
manager for five years. You don't really lose any critical information
because you still can get at the amount of experience that a person has
(08:02):
in a given role. But what this small redesign does is
that it obfuscates those curves. And what these researchers
found in this study, which looked at more than 9,000 companies, And he's hiring
for all different kinds of jobs, ranging from software engineer and
financial analyst to customer call center representative,
you know, and care worker. So really a range of jobs. They found that both women and
(08:23):
men were about 15% more likely to get invited to
an interview, to get a call back. Because those companies were able
to look past something that didn't actually matter, which is gaps
in work history. And they were able to better focus on the actual skills
and competencies that candidates brought to the table. So tiny
design that makes a huge difference for whom we
(08:44):
select. And for any recruiter, you know, it raises the question of
wait a second today when we're screening and we think we're getting the
best candidates. Are we actually? Or are we just getting the
best candidates with a continuous work history or something else? Are
the best candidates from a certain type of school or with a certain type
Well, and it goes, that plays very nicely into some
(09:06):
of the statistics we've heard around, you know, the way that
women will apply for jobs compared to the way men will apply for jobs. Cause
you don't necessarily know if you're getting the most qualified person
applying for that job because sometimes they won't even raise
their hand, you know, females won't if they don't have, you know, a
hundred percent of what's on a job posting. So really
(09:26):
fascinating to think about that design piece when it comes
to applying for jobs. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about
diversity in the context of remote work, hybrid
environments, some of the stuff that we're still experiencing now. And
granted, there's a lot of return to work mandates happening right now. We
know that some of the impacts like just owning real estate have dictated like,
(09:48):
Hey, we got to come back in the office. We're paying for, for this real
estate. We need to use it. What are the things that we need to
consider now that hybrid work is more normal? Organizations
are definitely leaning into it more. We're seeing jobs that are consistently staying
remote, but we still have to make sure that we're not introducing bias
or things like recency bias when you're thinking about who to
(10:10):
promote and those types of things. How do we need to start thinking about that?
I love that you mentioned things like real estate, because
I do find that people forget that in these conversations about
is remote work desirable or should we do it? There's multiple factors
at play, right? I can speak to what the evidence says about
the actual effects of remote work. And I think it's important because this
(10:32):
conversation has been lacking a lot of the data and evidence. I see people
saying very ideological things like, I know that my employees are
more productive in the office. I'm like. I have the evidence to
suggest that that's not the case. So I think it's really important to
bring in the data. And then leaders have to be honest when they say, listen,
I understand that my employees want remote work. I know
that there's data to suggest that that can do great things, but we've
(10:55):
still decided to call everyone back into the office because we want to maximize
our real estate holdings or whatever, right? Yeah. So I think we just need
to be more honest about, you know, what the reasons are that are driving some
of these decisions. Here's what the data has to say. Around the
world, employees tend to be more enthusiastic about
remote work than employers. And we'll get to why that
is in a second. Research has shown that working in a
(11:18):
hybrid fashion, so some combination of remote and in-person, can
increase things like employee job satisfaction, life
satisfaction, retention, measurable productivity in
those jobs where it's easier to measure productivity. In a lot of
white-collar occupations, it's actually incredible. incredibly difficult
to measure productivity, which is another important part of this conversation.
(11:41):
So we can have many benefits. And while women and
men are actually largely, roughly equally excited
about remote work, it's particularly caregivers of
all genders, people who have either children to take care of or elderly parents
or relatives to take care of, as well as people with longer commutes, unsurprisingly,
that are especially enthused about remote work. I think one
(12:02):
of the reasons why managers and employers are less
enthusiastic, and this goes to how do we make this a success, is
that we learned how to manage and how to
set up work in an in-person context. That's what
our processes were designed for, optimized for.
So now, of course, if we're going to have to manage a workforce that is
(12:24):
partially in-person, some of them are fully remote, some of them are hybrid, that
takes different skills and different processes. And while some
organizations were already experimenting with remote work before COVID,
most of the organizations that are doing it today were kind of thrust into
it overnight in 2020 without having
the time to thoughtfully try train managers, educate
(12:45):
the workforce and retool their processes. They were just expected from
one day to the next to all of a sudden become proficient and
expert at managing remotely. So those organizations that
have made the transition successfully have discovered that the key is
that thoughtful and intentional transition. So you've got to revisit
everything from norms for meetings, norms for
(13:07):
communication, how quickly do we expect a response? What are
the online times? What are the offline times? How do we ensure that
people are able to carve out longer blocks of time for continuous
focus work when they're not interrupted with pings on
Slack or endless emails or meetings? Thinking
about rethinking those types of norms to actual formal criteria for
(13:29):
performance evaluations, promotions. How do we make sure
that we actually focus on the results of what people are
achieving, the outputs, rather than assessing inputs like,
do I see them sitting with their butt in the chair in front of
their screen and who knows what they're doing on that screen? Right. Right. Like them
typing on a computer does not equate to productivity necessarily. But
(13:49):
that's a big mental shift for most organizations and
for most managers. And so it has to be done intentionally.
How are you seeing the data play out as they
think about the generation that's getting older
and older. And you have people like me who are in that Gen X category who
are now having to think about being caregivers for their
(14:11):
parents and potentially at the same time, their grandkids. How
do we think about that data and what's, I mean, and then
kind of specifically speaking of the US, because I think about our population here,
that demographic is changing so much that you now have these Gen
Xers that are in these really unique roles to try to balance all
of this. who, you know, are excited about the opportunity of
(14:33):
remote work. But there's also like you have
to find that balance and flexibility. How is the data either supporting
that or not supporting that or things that we should consider? It supports
There's actually even a term for this generation. It's the sandwich generation.
So people who are caring both for elderly relatives as well as
(14:54):
kids under 18 in their household at the same time. And
we've got, you know, between a quarter and a half of the working population, depending
on their exact age, who are in that sandwich generation category.
So they've got really substantial commitments and requirements
outside of work. At the same time, they're committed to work. They
want to work. They want to give it their best. It has to
(15:15):
fit in with life outside of work. And I think this is
where flexibility in all forms can come in. So
it's flexibility in terms of the location of where you work from. Is
it all in office, all at home, or some combination of the two, or even a different location?
It's flexibility in terms of when do you work? Not
everyone can do nine to five, but they can put in eight hours or
(15:36):
even more than eight, cumulatively over the course of a day,
when fits their life best. Why
would we not give workers that flexibility, right? Or
at least some part of it. There's also the flexibility of going
into and out of the workforce. The traditional model, right,
is you finish education, you go into work and then you're there nonstop
(15:57):
for 40ish years and then you exit and then you're gone. And
that's not realistic in today's workplace anymore. We've not
only got caregiving responsibilities, but people want to pursue side
hustles or additional projects. people get ill, they have to go get
cancer treatment for a couple months, but then they heal and six months later, they're
ready to come back. I think it's really important for us to
(16:20):
harness truly the full talent pool that's out there to
accommodate this and to make work more conducive to stepping
in and stepping out at some times. I wish there was an easy one-stop-shop
answer. Of course, there isn't because every workplace is
different. Every role is different. And I think this is something that organizations
have to embrace a little bit more is the need to develop tailored
(16:42):
solutions. If you have a big company with a lot of different divisions and
a lot of different types of roles, you might have 20 different
remote work policies because some roles are. face-to-face
and you have, you know, customer service, retail, frontline, this
kind of stuff, you just have to be there on the ground. But in the same
organization, you might have so many jobs that can be done partially,
(17:03):
remotely and flexibly, or even fully. And so
this is just something that we have to put a little bit more time
and effort toward clarifying and navigating, but it can be
I think the other complexity that comes with this, and I
love your perspective on it, because I've heard this before from
employees, Hey, I, my role can't be
(17:24):
remote, right? I have to be in the office. It isn't fair
that the knowledge workers get to be remote and I don't. How
do we test fairness if we're implementing this
type of flexibility across different roles and different departments
Yeah, this brings up actually some really deep and fundamental questions
(17:45):
because fairness is a shared human value, something
really foundational. You know, in studies, children as young as four
and five and six years old develop really strong
senses of what's fair and what's not, and they react very strongly
to perceived unfairness. So this really is something that's, I
would argue, almost universally shared by humans. But to
(18:06):
your point, Our definitions of what's fair as
we grow from that four-year-old and as the world gets more complex and
situations we encounter more complex, our definitions are not always
the same. I think organizations and leaders just
have to be more frankly transparent and honest about
both the needs of the business and the decisions that they're making to
(18:27):
try to satisfy the needs of the business while satisfying
as many of their employees' needs and demands as
possible. So I think folks can understand that if you've
applied for a role, that's a customer service role
in person, right? And you you're in that job, that's a
different job than someone managing accounts or doing budgets on
(18:49):
a computer. And if folks want to get into those jobs with
more flexibility, then there's maybe reskilling opportunities, upskilling
opportunities, apprenticeships that can help put them on that path.
This is also something that being more upfront about in job
advertisements, can be very helpful. Another big
study in the UK, Dan, showed that when jobs were advertised
(19:10):
as having more flexibility, if they were actually able to be done more flexibly,
once again, it resulted in more applications, especially from
women. So companies were able to access a broader talent pool,
but it is not going to apply to every job. Well,
let me just show one example though, of getting more
creative, even in frontline occupations. Chick-fil-A, restaurant chain,
(19:32):
right? With locations around the U.S. and actually around the world, requires in-person
presence, but their employees also wanted more flexibility. So one
of their Florida locations, Reina Pilot, which has now become a permanent mode
of operating, where they allowed employees to
cram all of their weekly hours into three days. So
instead of coming in five or six days a week for however many, six,
(19:54):
seven, eight, nine hours, you would work longer shifts, but
you'd pack all your hours in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then you'd
be off Thursday through Sunday. And there was another crew that did the same thing where
they packed all their hours in Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then
they had Sunday through Wednesday off. And Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays anyway, so
they only are open six days a week. People loved
(20:14):
it because it gave them more predictability in
their schedule. They were happy to work longer days, a few days
of the week, because on the flip side, they got some days that were completely
off. And once again, they got more applications for
open roles because this was something not only that existing employees
loved, but prospective employees were really drawn to. So
(20:36):
even in those frontline roles where work has to be
in person, we can get more creative about what else
I love that. I did see, and I don't know if they're still piloting it.
I saw it a while ago, but I saw that McDonald's had been trying in
their video displays, having remote workers
(20:58):
take orders in the drive-thru. And I thought that was really
creative. I'm sure there's a lot of, oh, creative. tech involved that could go wrong
in that scenario, but it's just one more way organizations are thinking
And just to connect this to what we were saying a moment ago, these are design
choices, right? Someone somewhere has decided that
(21:20):
work needs to get done like this and every system
and every process can be redesigned. So just like we
made that first design choice, we can make a different choice. and experiment and
test and see if it works. You know, does it meet the needs of the business? Are employees
happy? Does this increase productivity, retention, sales? And
Love that. As we wrap up our conversation, what is one
(21:43):
thing that you hope those that are listening that are
in the HR space walk away from this conversation with
when it comes to things like data and equality? Yeah.
One of the core messages of our book, Make Work Fair, is that making
fairness and making work fair is not a program. but
a way of doing things. So we don't need to start up a new
(22:04):
training, start up a new employee resource group, spend times on
speaker series or networking events or this and that. Those are all programmatic
one-off solutions, which by the way, are really easy
to get. cut when budgets are tight, or it's easy for people
to skip when they're overwhelmed with their quote unquote real work. So
if we really want to make progress on leveling the playing field
(22:26):
and getting both the best people in the door, and then making sure that they're
in the right roles at the right time, doing their best work to enable
our collective success, we need to build fairness into
all the things that we're already doing. So I would challenge and
encourage everyone listening to even just look at your
calendar for today and think about what is it that I'm already doing? You
(22:46):
might be writing emails, you might be sitting in meetings, you might be facilitating meetings,
you might be giving feedback to somebody, a co-worker, you
might be hiring for a new position, you might be assigning people
to new projects, right? Those are the things that
we have to do a little bit better and a little
bit more scenarially. And fortunately, like that resume example
(23:08):
from the UK, the evidence is there. The research has been done to
tell us what works and what doesn't, how we should do these things and
what we should avoid. So all we need to do is just put all that good knowledge into
Thank you so much for all of this. What a great discussion. And
I will make sure to put your book in the show notes for those listening. They can go grab it.
This has been wonderful. Thanks for sitting down with me for a few minutes. Thank you, Shari.
(23:41):
Come back often, and please subscribe, rate, and review.
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