WEDDING, November 11 - women who work more from home risk seeing their careers now suffer that significant numbers of male workers are returning to the office after the COVID-19 epidemic, Bank of England policymaker Catherine Mann said on Thursday.
Mann, a member of the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee, said online communication was unable to replicate the spontaneous office conversations which were important for recognition and advancement in many workplaces.
The virtual platforms are way better than they were five years ago. Many women were still working from home while men returned to the office because of difficulty accessing childcare and COVID-related disruptions to schooling, according to Mann.
There is potential for two tracks. There are people on the virtual track and people on a physical track. She said that we will see who is going to be on which track, and we will pretty much know who's going to be on which track.
Mann was an economics professor and chief economist at Citi and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD before joining BoE in September.
In August, British finance minister Rishi Sunak warned younger workers that they risked missing out on building skills and work relationships if they worked from home.
British businesses said last month that 70% of their staff were back at their normal place of work, but proportions vary widely by sector. 34% of the staff are in office, 24% are fully working from home, and 35% are doing a mix, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Separate ONS data show a slightly higher percentage of male workers than females worked from home for at least some of the time in late October, although the gap was within the survey's margin of error.
There was a previous analysis showing that women were more likely to say that working from home allowed them more time to work, with fewer disactions. Men said working from home helped them come up with new ideas, while women found it a Hindrance.