Remote Work Realities: How Women Can Thrive at Every Stage of Their Careers

Remote work has transformed the professional landscape, offering opportunities and challenges across industries, including the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sectors. As the world increasingly embraces flexible work models, it’s essential to understand how remote work impacts individuals differently based on their career stages. These impacts are nuanced for women and often depend on their organisational experience level and seniority.

While remote work has been hailed as a game-changer for balancing personal and professional life, especially for women juggling family responsibilities, its influence on career development is less clear-cut. Research shows that the effects of working from home (WFH) vary significantly between junior and senior women professionals. Junior women often face reduced access to mentorship and slower professional growth. In contrast, senior women tend to benefit from fewer interruptions and can focus on their productivity without the burden of mentoring, which is often an invisible and under-rewarded responsibility.

In this article, we’ll explore how remote work affects women at different stages of their careers and offer actionable insights into how companies can help women thrive, regardless of their seniority.

The Double-Edged Sword of Remote Work for Junior Women

For junior women professionals, remote work can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it offers flexibility and the potential for a better work-life balance. On the other hand, it can impair professional development, especially in roles that rely heavily on mentorship, feedback, and on-the-job learning.

A study involving software engineers at a Fortune 500 company found that junior women, particularly those new to the company, received significantly less mentorship and feedback when working remotely than their in-office counterparts. Before the shift to remote work, junior women who sat near their colleagues in a single office building received 51% more feedback than those who were part of teams spread across multiple buildings. Proximity fostered mentorship through casual interactions and made it easier for junior women to ask questions and seek colleague guidance.

This mentorship is crucial for career advancement. Early-career professionals, especially in technical roles like software engineering, rely on frequent feedback to grow their skills, refine their work, and learn the subtleties of navigating workplace dynamics. Junior women miss learning opportunities without in-person interaction from overhearing conversations, participating in impromptu discussions, and receiving real-time guidance.

• Actionable Insight: To mitigate the loss of mentorship in a remote setting, companies should create structured mentorship programs and virtual training opportunities that ensure junior employees receive the guidance they need. Regular check-ins and precise feedback mechanisms can help bridge the gap created by the absence of in-person interactions.

The Invisible Workload of Senior Women

For senior women, remote work presents different challenges and opportunities. On one hand, working from home allows them to focus on producing more output without the constant interruptions of office life. A key finding from the same research showed that senior women who worked remotely produced twice as much work as their in-office peers because they were less engaged in mentoring and feedback to junior colleagues.

However, this increased productivity comes at a cost. Senior women tend to take on more mentorship responsibilities in an office setting, which can detract from their work and reduce their output. While mentorship is essential for team development, it is often seen as "invisible work" - undervalued and under-rewarded in formal performance evaluations. As a result, senior women who spend significant time mentoring junior colleagues may see fewer pay raises and promotions compared to their male counterparts, who tend to take on fewer mentoring duties.

This imbalance is particularly concerning because it reinforces existing gender biases in the workplace. Senior women are often expected to provide support and guidance, even at the expense of their career progression. When they work remotely, they can focus more on their output, but the loss of in-person mentorship impacts the development of the next generation of women leaders.

• Actionable Insight: Companies need to recognise and reward mentorship as a critical component of leadership. By explicitly valuing mentorship in performance reviews and offering compensation or career advancement opportunities tied to mentoring, organisations can ensure that senior women are not penalised for supporting junior colleagues.

How Remote Work Impacts Career Stages Differently

The challenges and benefits of remote work are not one-size-fits-all. An employee's career stage determines how they experience remote work. Here’s a closer look at how different stages are impacted:

1. Early-career Women Junior professionals, especially those in the early stages of their careers, need consistent feedback and opportunities to learn from more experienced colleagues. Remote work can create a barrier to these interactions. Junior women may struggle to build relationships and gain the confidence they need to advance without spontaneous conversations and informal mentorship in an office setting.
   
   To support early-career women in a remote environment, companies should:
   • Establish formal mentorship programs that pair junior employees with experienced mentors.
   • Promote regular virtual check-ins and feedback sessions to ensure junior women receive the guidance they need.
   • Create peer-learning opportunities where junior employees can collaborate with others at their level to build skills and share knowledge.


2. Mid-Career Women For mid-career professionals, remote work offers flexibility but can also create isolation. Women in this career stage may find it more difficult to network and advocate for themselves when they are not physically present in the office. Visibility is critical to securing promotions and new opportunities, and remote work can make it harder to stay connected with senior leaders who can champion their careers.
   
   To help mid-career women thrive in a remote setting, organisations should:
   
   • Encourage networking by hosting virtual events and creating opportunities for women to connect with leaders.
   • Ensure fair promotion opportunities by evaluating performance based on outcomes rather than visibility.
   • Promote leadership development programs tailored to mid-career women, focusing on skills like negotiation, leadership, and visibility in a remote world.


3. Senior Women As mentioned earlier, senior women often benefit from remote work because it allows them to focus more on productivity and less on mentoring. However, this can also be a double-edged sword, as senior women may feel isolated from their teams and miss the opportunity to influence company culture and mentor the next generation of leaders.
   
   To support senior women in remote work, companies should:
   
   • Recognize and reward mentorship as a critical component of leadership.
   • Offer executive coaching and leadership training that helps senior women balance mentorship with their career growth.
   • Encourage cross-functional collaboration and ensure senior women remain connected to the broader organisation, even remotely.

Addressing Invisible Work and Gender Bias in Remote Settings

One of the most significant challenges for women, especially senior women, in remote work environments is the issue of invisible work. Tasks such as mentoring, team-building, and emotional support often go unnoticed and unrewarded, yet these contributions are critical to the team's success. Women disproportionately take on this invisible work, hindering their career progression while benefiting the organisation.

To address this imbalance, companies need to make invisible work visible. This can be done by:

• Including mentorship and team development as explicit metrics in performance evaluations.
• Offering compensation or bonuses for employees who take on significant mentorship roles.
• Ensuring that women who contribute to the organisation’s success through invisible work are recognised and rewarded in tangible ways, such as promotions and pay raises.

The Future of Remote Work: What Companies Can Do

As remote work becomes a permanent fixture in many organisations, creating a system that supports women at every stage of their careers is critical. The impact of remote work on women is not fixed - it depends on the management practices and reward systems in place. Companies that take proactive steps to support women, from junior employees to senior leaders, will be better positioned to retain top talent and foster an inclusive, equitable workplace.

Key actions that organisations can take include:

• Investing in mentorship programs that thrive in a virtual environment.
• Rewarding invisible work by recognising and compensating employees for their contributions to team development.
• Promoting flexible policies that support work-life balance without penalising women for taking advantage of remote work opportunities.
• Encouraging leadership training for women at all levels to help them navigate remote work and career development challenges.

Conclusion: Thriving in the Remote Work Era

The shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how we work, and its effects on women are complex and multifaceted. For junior women, the challenge is maintaining access to mentorship and professional development opportunities. For senior women, the challenge lies in balancing productivity with the invisible work of mentoring and team-building.

Organisations can help all women thrive in remote work by addressing these challenges head-on and creating inclusive policies that support women at every career stage. The key is to ensure that mentorship, feedback, and recognition do not fall by the wayside simply because employees are no longer in the same physical space.