Highlights
- •Flexible work arrangements remove barriers to career advancement, promote well-being and reduce burnout.
- •Flexible work arrangements by default give employees options to choose from and their choice can change over time.
- •Working from home is here to stay mainly in a hybrid style, allowing employees to work from home 1 to 3 days a week.
- •Negotiating workloads and work-life balance can have a significant role in improving women's long-term career prospects.
- •Encouraging men to take parental time off will reduce stereotypes about women's lower productivity.
Abstract
There is an ongoing trend in the direction of flexible work arrangements in which employees can decide where and when to work. Multiple studies have demonstrated a significant decrease in associated job-related stress, improved job satisfaction, job autonomy, and collaboration when flexible work arrangements exist. However, some have reported increased workload and home spillover to work.1 The American Association for Women in Radiology (AAWR) convened a panel of radiologist presenters with diverse backgrounds who shared their own experiences with flexible work arrangements at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2021 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting. This manuscript summarizes the discussion and reviews various aspects of workplace flexibility.
The RSNA 2021 AAWR-sponsored panel on workplace flexibility reviewed the current state of different work arrangements available for radiologists and addressed future strategies for implementing workplace flexibility. The panelists addressed the imperatives and key factors for the availability of diverse opportunities and ways to foster future opportunities. Matters discussed included differences in the availability of flexible work arrangements in the healthcare system compared to other industries, normalizing flexible work arrangements at the organization level, underutilization of currently available flexible work arrangements, part-time positions and stigma associated with them, thriving in a part-time capacity, workplace flexibility options for radiology residents and fellows and successfully implementing workplace flexibility at institutions. The panel ended with a call to action to develop toolkits with effective resources to support implementing flexible workplace opportunities.
Keywords
1. Introduction
The American Association for Women in Radiology (AAWR) was founded in 1981 to address the problems and barriers unique to women in radiology. To further explore the current state of workplace flexibility and its effect on women radiologists, the AAWR's sponsored panel discussion at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2021 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting held in Chicago, Illinois, explored the current state of flexible work arrangements in our society and profession. This panel, like other RSNA sessions, was available for both in-person and real-time virtual participation due to the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This hybrid in-person and virtual session on workplace flexibility was very well attended in person and virtually by radiologists and trainees.
The session was co-moderated by Dr. Kristin Porter, 2021 AAWR President, as well as Dr. Parisa Mazaheri, Assistant Professor of Radiology, Neuroradiology section at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. This session was structured as a panel of three speakers each discussing their experience with workplace flexibility followed by a question-and-answer session. Panelists included Dr. K Elizabeth Hawk, Nuclear Medicine Physician, and Neuroradiologist who is an Assistant professor at Stanford also working with Radiology Partners; Dr. Eric J. Ledermann, musculoskeletal radiologist, founder of a small teleradiology company focused on academic style teleradiology and Dr. Katie Lozano from Virtual Radiologic with a lifelong passion for advocacy in medicine. It was a successful and inspiring event. This article highlights the discussed topics and explores various aspects of workplace flexibility.
2. Flexible work arrangement- why is it important?
Women are underrepresented in radiology; however, they play an integral role in providing collaborative and compassionate patient care and education. In academic medicine, women are less likely to achieve the rank of full professor and are less likely to remain in academia.
2.
, 3.
A poor balance between work and family is a major stressor especially for women with young children, with a negative impact on emotional well-being and productivity.1.
Flexible work arrangements are known to remove barriers to career advancement, help promote well-being and reduce burnout. Employers, as well as employees, will benefit from flexibility.Flexible work arrangements can have different shapes and forms. They enable employees to have some control over when and where they prefer to work and how much work to perform. Flexible work arrangements such as flexitime (flexible work hours) and flexiplace (telecommuting) are shown to be associated with lower fatigue and less burnout for employees. Compressed workweek (e.g., working long hours and freeing up more days), compressed hours (e.g., working 4 h a day and freeing up time the rest of the day for other activities), job sharing, and part-time work are some other examples of flexible work arrangements. Many studies have shown that the employee's productivity increases when they are given the option to choose their work arrangement.
4.
Both positive and negative outcomes of flexible work arrangements have been discussed in the literature for employers and their workforce. Positive outcomes include retention of talented employees, increased employee loyalty, decreased operating costs, increased productivity, increased job satisfaction, and decreased work-family conflict.
5.
, 6.
Some potential negative outcomes include reduced social contact, and interference of work and home domains, leading to decreased quality time with family, increased after-hour workload, and reduced well-being.3. Workplace flexibility in healthcare system- telemedicine, the new norm
As a result of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of weeks, the US and many other countries transformed into a working from the home economy. Forty-two percent of U.S. workers worked from home full-time in 2020, accounting for more than two-thirds of economic activity.
7.
The recent pandemic also demonstrated that working from home is not only economically essential but is also a critical tool in unusual circumstances such as facing a pandemic.However, not all industries have adopted remote work equally due to special job requirements. Examples of such industries falling behind in providing remote job opportunities are the healthcare system, retail, and transportation. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth became quickly and widely available. Telemedicine grew fast in all subspecialties. Telehealth-based interventions have emerged. Technological advancements have resolved the connectivity issues for telemedicine even in the remotest places. Teleconsultation has become an acceptable alternative for patients and healthcare providers in this era of information technology. Some studies have reported higher patient satisfaction with virtual visits.
8.
As the world moved toward a more virtualized and distributed care delivery model with home care, and remote patient management, radiologists remained at the forefront of integrating technology and medicine, making remote work a possibility. Due to the pandemic, home workstations became widely available in a brief period. Some academic programs also provided home workstations for their residents. Most trainees and attending physicians have indicated they prefer a hybrid model post-pandemic and hope to maintain some of the positive changes enacted because of the pandemic.
Working from home increases autonomy and flexibility to fit other activities, which will improve work-life integration. It also reduces cumulative commuting time, which will be beneficial to long-term mental and physical well-being and increased productivity during the saved time. It is believed that these changes can help reduce the frequency of burnout among radiologists, which is among the highest of all physicians.
9.
Although there is still a long way to go, telehealth and telemedicine have become increasingly available in the past 2 years and their value is getting recognized. Moving forward, physical location will matter less and less, while having the right process and physician managing the care will become the focus. As we move forward, we need to embrace technology, master it, and use it to its fullest potential. It is an exciting new era to be part of and watch evolve.
4. Role of organizations in normalizing and facilitating flexible work arrangements
At the organizational level, work-family conflict has been associated with increased absenteeism, increased employee turnover, decreased job satisfaction, and decreased career involvement.
10.
Employers implement flexible work arrangement practices for several reasons, including if they result in higher levels of productivity or lower costs. Employers may also use flexible work arrangement practices as an instrument to recruit and retain employees, as well as to encourage their engagement in work and decrease work-family conflict.11.
Supportive organizational culture acknowledges and is supportive of employees' family and personal situations, and promotes flexibility, tolerance, and support for family obligations. Supportive work-family culture produces norms that respect employees' personal and family time and encourage the use of work-family benefits, such as working from home. This contrasts with the ideal worker culture where employees are expected to work long hours and arrange their other responsibilities around their paid work. If an ideal worker norm dominates the organization, and the work culture is performance-oriented, demanding greater effort and time from the employee, users of work-family benefits may fear negative consequences and stigmatization from colleagues and supervisors, which serves as a stressor that contributes to work-family conflict.
12.
Organizations should move in the direction of letting employees choose, within limits. Ideally, nobody should be forced to work from home full-time nor should they be forced to work from the office full-time. Having the choice is key, employees should pick their schedule and change it as their views or circumstances evolve. Employers should view flexible work arrangement practices as human capital investment to absorb and retain employees. Employees should not be afraid of negative consequences such as losing job security or salary reductions for using flexible arrangements.
In 2021, the gender gap in U.S. workforce participation was at an all-time low; however, there are still substantial gender disparities in pay, leadership representation, and access to resources, among many other key metrics. At work, women take on more responsibilities outside of formally defined roles,
13.
both voluntarily and due to more frequent requests.14.
Also, women compared to men are less likely to delegate work tasks to others15.
or ask for deadline extensions.16.
Given the volume of tasks that women disproportionately juggle, women can feel overwhelmed and stressed, which can negatively affect their well-being and performance. Flexible work arrangements help enable women's career advancement and appropriate promotion to higher ranks.In Radiology, women's representation decreases at increasing levels of leadership. A similar trend is seen in other medical specialties, outside medicine, and in the corporate world. The whole organization will benefit from having more women in senior ranks. For example, it has been shown that firms use less gender-stereotyped language after hiring women into senior leadership positions suggesting a positive impact on the culture of the entire organization. Supportive organizational context is important to alleviate work-life conflict. We need to challenge organizational cultures that privilege work above everything else, where long hours are synonymous with productivity and commitment. We also need to challenge our gendered assumptions of men's and women's roles at home. Organizations' policies and initiatives should target altering stereotypical expectations about women's productivity for more equality in the workplace. Working from home and flexible work arrangements are here to stay. A recent survey among US office employees and executives showed that working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic has been successful in terms of productivity and flexibility to manage family matters.
17.
Most employees indicated they prefer to work remotely at least 3 days a week following the COVID-19 pandemic.17.
Such a hybrid style of remote and on-site working is likely to become the norm for office employees.17.
The same hybrid style can be easily adopted by many radiology practices in both private and academic settings.5. Under-utilization of existing flexible work arrangements
Before the pandemic, working from home was highly stigmatized. During the pandemic working remotely became quite common without stigma but was typically taking place under challenging conditions. Having kids at home, homeschooling, lack of quiet space, lack of choice over working from home, or working full-time from home were some of those challenges. Working from home post COVID-19 will not have many of these challenging conditions and we are now much better equipped with what is needed to work efficiently remotely.
The factors that determine the use of flexible work arrangements are not quite clear. As the number of dual-earner families has increased over time,
18.
the need for flexible work arrangements has grown. Based on some surveys, although many employers allow taking time off for personal reasons, effective use is not as extensive as might be expected. If the main goal of flexible work arrangement practices is to help employees achieve work-family balance, it is important to investigate if these practices are used by those who need them.- Greenhaus J.H.
- Kossek E.E.
The contemporary career: a workhome perspective.
Annu Rev Organ Psych Organ Behav. 2014; 1: 361-388https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-ORGPSYCH-031413-091324
Traditional societal norms have dictated that men should invest more in the work domain, whereas women should invest more in the family domain. Hence, work-family conflict is likely to be a more pressing concern for women than for men. Recent studies demonstrate that in families with two working parents, women are disproportionately bearing the burden of domestic work, by up to 20 more hours per week than men.
20.
It is therefore crucial that the medical community provides programs to support healthcare workers, especially working mothers. Younger people adopt a more equal distribution of activities than older couples and use more flexible work arrangement practices to balance competing demands of work and family life. Family structure also plays a role. People with children have more family responsibilities and dual-earner couples have more family responsibilities than traditional couples in which men engage in paid work and women are responsible for the household.It is expected that employees with more family responsibilities (women, younger people, people within dual-earner couples, and those with children) are more likely to use flexible work arrangement practices than those with fewer family responsibilities (men, older people, traditional couples, singles, and those without children). Some of the cited reasons for underutilization of flexible work arrangements include having these arrangements only offered to a small proportion of the workforce, fear of getting penalized for utilizing them, fear of negative consequences for salary, promotion, and job security, not being advertised widely enough that employees are aware of their existence, lack of formal, written policy, or having arrangements that do not meet the employee's needs.
For example, it is shown that men may refrain from utilizing working from home for the fear of negative career consequences,
18.
especially in ideal worker cultures. Those workers who work from home in an environment where very few co-workers do may experience isolation. More engagement in using flexible work arrangements will make it more acceptable to utilize this benefit. In addition, in a context where many co-workers utilize flexible work arrangements, everyone is more understanding of the potential pitfalls and conflicting situations and is better equipped to deal with them.- Greenhaus J.H.
- Kossek E.E.
The contemporary career: a workhome perspective.
Annu Rev Organ Psych Organ Behav. 2014; 1: 361-388https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-ORGPSYCH-031413-091324
Other challenges in implementing some forms of flexible work arrangements include lack of necessary technological infrastructure to support remote work, lack of necessary budget, resistance to change, and lack of appreciation of the importance of such arrangements by organization leaders.
Proximity bias refers to the tendency of people in positions of authority to demonstrate prejudice against remote workers.
21.
A key component of proximity bias is the old assumption that people are more productive in an office environment than at home. Proximity bias is a mental shortcut that allows managers to make decisions about performance and promotions based on familiarity rather than objective criteria. To ensure a fair and equitable workplace, leaders need to actively address proximity bias and create a more inclusive workplace, which is critical for employee and organizational success.Leaders tasked with implementing strategic goals related to flexible work arrangements will benefit from a dedicated training on the importance of flexible work arrangements for organizations, differences in need for flexible work arrangements between employees, potential biases such as proximity bias, and strategies for creating an equitable work environment.
6. Overcoming stigma associated with part-time positions
Traditionally, women in part-time positions reported that they were working more hours for less pay, were overlooked for promotions, and were viewed by their colleagues and supervisors as being less committed to their jobs or incompetent. Many organizations do not have formal policies regarding part-time work, and how that affects salary, bonus eligibility, benefits, vacation, or call responsibilities, which puts employees at increased risk of discrimination and not being offered a fair arrangement.
Employees experiencing greater difficulty in striking an acceptable work-family balance are more frequently engaged in part-time work
22.
which is usually women with more family responsibilities. However, late-career individuals preparing for retirement, going back to school, or taking care of aging/disabled family members are other commonly encountered reasons employees choose part-time work arrangements. Thus, it is important that employees be clear about their priorities and discuss what types of potential intrusions in their time off are acceptable or how long they envision being part-time.Working a part-time or flexible schedule or taking a family leave from work is not the accepted norm for employees' career paths; because of this, adopting such a schedule discredits employees and subjects them to bias. Women are shown to be more likely than their male colleagues to face flexibility stigma. Many employees in part-time positions do not have high-ranking positions and are lower in seniority (typically early-career women of childbearing age). This can result in discrimination regarding both working conditions and career advancement.
23.
As we move forward, we must strive to reduce the stigma around part-time practices and encourage formal universal plans for salary and benefit adjustments at the organizational level and across different institutions.- Bowles H.R.
- Thomason B.
- Bear Ju.B.
Reconceptualizing what and how women negotiate for career advancement.
Acad Manage J. 2019; 62: 1645-1671https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2017.1497/ASSET/IMAGES/MEDIUM/AMJ.2017.1497F1.GIF
7. Thriving in academia and private practice with flexible arrangements
Part-time positions can improve career longevity. When it comes to employees' career negotiations, it is important to negotiate over workloads, work-life balance, and role definition. Although women may be more likely to experience resistance to requests for salary increases, negotiating these other areas may have a significant role in improving women's long-term career prospects.
23.
Being a part-time radiologist does not mean being less committed, in fact, it can help increase radiologists' commitment to their career by getting them time to engage in other nonclinical activities within organized radiology. Early and mid-career radiologists should be encouraged to apply for competitive positions and not shy away from them even if working part-time or remotely. Women in part-time or remote positions should familiarize themselves with promotion criteria from early on. Additionally, having mentors and sponsors will make a positive impact on career trajectory and long-term opportunities for advancement for these radiologists.- Bowles H.R.
- Thomason B.
- Bear Ju.B.
Reconceptualizing what and how women negotiate for career advancement.
Acad Manage J. 2019; 62: 1645-1671https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2017.1497/ASSET/IMAGES/MEDIUM/AMJ.2017.1497F1.GIF
Flexible work arrangements are also becoming more popular in scientific research, driven by advances in technology, social trends, and cultural change. Flexible arrangements are associated with increased creativity derived from improved work-life balance. They provide early-career women and men the ability to continue their careers while balancing their work and family responsibilities or following relocation to a new city. Remote collaboration is now extremely common for research collaborations among researchers at different institutions, as often the best person to address a question is not at your own institution. In this sense, remote working is already enhancing the quality and productivity of many collaborative projects and scientists. Offering postdocs and staff scientists more remote opportunities would broaden the pool to those who are the best fit, regardless of location.
Although remote work may have disadvantages such as a lack of face-to-face encounters around a laboratory, or concern about getting cut off from the academic community, overall, the advantages it offers outweigh the disadvantages. A combination of weekly or bi-weekly video or teleconferencing meetings, emails, and team messaging can be used to communicate between different team members in these settings. Moving forward, there should be an emphasis on providing flexibility for researchers to improve their work-life balance while eliminating negative impacts on interaction, project management, and career advancement.
It is important for radiologists in academia and private practice to prioritize tasks and commitments. One suggested approach in determining which tasks and activities one can say no to is to categorize them into 3 buckets. Tasks you perform and get appropriately paid for, tasks you do not get appropriately paid for but are investments of your time for your career advancement, and tasks you do not get paid for but feed your soul. If an activity does not belong to any of those buckets, it should be declined. Building a career with something in all those buckets and nothing else will bring radiologists a lot of self-satisfaction and minimize burnout.
8. Flexible workplace arrangements for residents and fellows
Another important consideration is providing residents and fellows with flexible work arrangements without taking away from the educational and clinical experience. Radiology has the advantage over other medical specialties to easily implement online remote educational strategies, given its computer-based nature that allows the reader to be physically anywhere in relation to image acquisition.
There has been a historic emphasis on in-person learning for undergraduate and clinical medical education. The virtual landscape has expanded educational interactions in the past few years. Many excellent educational resources were made available online including asynchronous learning opportunities (those that the learner can complete on their own time, away from the educators who create the content) such as online modules, web pages, and recorded presentations. Additionally, live lectures and learning opportunities were made available nationally during which the audience could communicate in real-time, including board review lectures, didactic lectures, and teaching at the time of readout. Widespread remote teaching has also made it possible to teach residents at smaller programs with limited access to subspecialty training.
With students and residents returning to in-person teaching following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity to reevaluate teaching strategies and incorporate best practices from the pandemic. Hybrid learning models, with a balanced integration of in-person and e-learning environments, offer a promising approach going forward.
24.
, - Musick A.
- Malhotra D.
- French R.
- Carrico C.
- Martin J.
Return to the Reading room: implementation of a hybrid radiology clerkship model after emergent conversion to remote learning in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Acad Radiol. 2022; https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ACRA.2022.08.027
25.
Musick et al. report that in their study a hybrid radiology clerkship curriculum increased student satisfaction and preserved student performance compared to purely in-person or remote-learning models.24.
Periodic surveys of trainees and attending radiologists regarding virtual readout and e-learning experience helps identify strengths and determine areas that need improvement.- Musick A.
- Malhotra D.
- French R.
- Carrico C.
- Martin J.
Return to the Reading room: implementation of a hybrid radiology clerkship model after emergent conversion to remote learning in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Acad Radiol. 2022; https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ACRA.2022.08.027
Remote workflow has also affected mentorship which is a crucial component of career success and benefits both mentor and mentee. Students and residents typically seek mentors from the same racial, ethnic, or gender background.
26.
Remote or digital mentorship is a great tool for overcoming geographic limitations, increasing mentorship access, and providing opportunities, especially for underrepresented students. Remote communication is better now than at any time before due to advances in telecommunication following the COVID-19 pandemic. Different radiologic societies have adopted remote mentorship models including the Association of University Radiologists (AUR), AAWR, and many subspecialty societies such as the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) and its subgroups. Individuals are typically paired based on their clinical and career interests and meet over zoom or other video conference tools. Individuals in remote mentorship models should be given the opportunity to change their pairing if their current pairing is not working well, like in-person models. When connected virtually, more frequent ‘check-ins’ may be necessary to help address any mentee concerns and help them prioritize their goals. Meeting frequency should be addressed early on in mentoring to ensure both mentor and mentee can devote the proper time necessary. Of note, radiologists practicing in flexible work arrangements typically have more time and flexibility to serve as mentors.Institutions must also be supportive of residents with young children or unusual circumstances. Call or after-hour shifts are good examples of shifts that can be flexible in most cases and potentially performed remotely, which can in part help with integrating work-family life for trainees. As we all have learned during the pandemic, being in the same room is not always necessary for excellent patient care or education.
9. Flexible work arrangements and work-family conflict after childbirth
Increasingly, women of childbearing age are participating in the workforce, medicine, and radiology. Work-family conflict negatively influences women's health following childbirth. Supportive work environments and lactation facilities are ongoing challenges for women in different radiology practice settings. Flexible work arrangements are also important in emergencies when alternative childcare arrangements are needed. Women who work in inflexible environments may experience increased stress and be forced to use vacation days or sick time to care for their children.
Since May 2021, the American College of Radiology (ACR) supports allowing residents in good standing within their program to take 12 weeks of family/medical leave during residency (in addition to 4 weeks of vacation per year) while remaining eligible to both sit for the Core/Qualifying Examinations and to graduate without extension of training. On July 1, 2021, the ABR released its updated residency leave policy, such that “Beginning with the 2021-2022 academic year, residents will be considered eligible for Initial Certification without an extension of training with ‘Time Off’ that does not exceed an average of eight weeks (40 workdays) per academic year over the duration of the residency.” The ABR's leave policy means residents can take up to 16 weeks of family/medical leave if needed in addition to four weeks of vacation per year during residency without extension of training.
27.
During ACR 2022 meeting, the ACR passed the resolution on paid family/medical leave in radiology, interventional radiology, radiation oncology, and nuclear medicine that recommends these practices, departments, and training programs strive to provide 12 weeks of paid family/medical leave in 12 months for their attending and trainee physicians. These are great achievements toward the normalization of parental, caregiver, and medical leave in radiology and will benefit both men and women radiologists and our radiology community.
We would like to emphasize the importance of empowering men to take time off for paternity leave. Discriminatory human resource management decision-making based on gender stereotypes is still quite common worldwide. An analysis of 13,000 people across 19 countries found that in regions where regulations mandated more widely available paid parental leave and childcare, employers invested less in developing their female employees.
28.
This highlights that social policies designed by governments to improve gender equality in the workplace may backfire by reinforcing stereotypes about women's lower productivity and result in fewer opportunities for women than men. Encouraging more men to take parental time off will be one major step to tackling this bias.- Reichel A.
- Lazarova M.
- Apospori E.
- Afiouni F.
- Andresen M.
- Bosak J.
- et al.
The disabling effects of enabling social policies on organisations’ human capital development practices for women.
Hum Resour Manag J. 2022; https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12431
10. How to successfully implement workplace flexibility
Flexible working is becoming a must for many. This is especially important for millennials, for whom work-life balance and flexible working are key when evaluating a job prospect.
To successfully attract younger generations of women to radiology, we must make sure it is perceived as a woman- and family-friendly field that is rich in opportunities to grow professionally. Part-time tenure-track positions, onsite and emergency childcare, formal parental leave policies, and women in radiology groups are some examples that could help support career development and aid recruitment.
It is also important to note that increasing flexible work opportunities will not automatically help reduce gender inequality or increase their use. Without recognizing and addressing the bias that those who use such policies experience, the policies risk being undermined by workers seeking to avoid stigma. To enable better use of flexible working, a few things need to be in place. As more people work flexibly and overwork is less prevalent and expected, flexible working is likely to result in better outcomes.
29.
Flexitime, where the number of hours worked per week/day is set within boundaries, is also shown to result in better outcomes compared to complete autonomy over your working time, where conflicting with family time is more likely.30.
Organizations should strive to reward employees for their results, not for hours spent in the office. This is a necessary step in adopting flexible schedules. It is also important to have a clearly communicated written policy on what functions are subject to flexible schedules. Radiology practices should strive to internally promote the benefits of flexible work arrangements and not discourage them.11. Conclusion
Women are underrepresented in radiology. Recruiting and retaining women in radiology should be a priority for the radiology community and institutional leaders by providing an environment supportive of women and their advancement in their careers. Offering and normalizing workplace flexibility will have strong implications for career satisfaction and reducing burnout in radiologists in both early and late careers. In today's workforce, we have many single mothers and dual-earner couples facing the challenging task of balancing work demands and family obligations, who therefore seek workplace flexibility. Whether flexibility results in positive or negative outcomes depend on personal preferences and situations. Flexible work arrangements by default give employees options to choose from based on their current needs, which can evolve and change over time.
Working from home is here to stay with most situations following a hybrid style, allowing employees to work from home 1 to 3 days a week and work onsite the rest of the time. This new working paradigm will likely increase the efficiency and job satisfaction of radiologists and eliminate the risk of isolation. We need to challenge organizational cultures where long hours are synonymous with productivity and commitment. We also need to challenge our gendered assumptions of men's and women's roles at home. These changes are crucial, especially if flexible working is to help reduce the gender wage gap, address issues that hinder women from achieving their full potential and create a better work-life balance for all. As we celebrate the progress that has been made and continue working on addressing areas for improvement, it is important to remember that these issues are not static. Rather, what we know about the obstacles and opportunities women face continues to evolve and improve as more data and experiences are made available. Having more data-driven analysis of different flexible work arrangements is essential to demonstrate their benefits for employees and organizations and increase their use.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 01, 2022
Accepted:
November 21,
2022
Received in revised form:
November 9,
2022
Received:
August 21,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
