Two years into the pandemic, it's time to rethink what jobs mean, says economic sociologist Adina Sterling. "People are really tired."
“We need to redesign companies to center problem-solving, equity, collaboration, and creativity so that people can live balanced work lives.”
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The pandemic revealed that for too long, too many women have lived their lives on a tightrope, balancing multiple, conflicting demands, says Stanford scholar Adina Sterling.
And it’s come at a price: Recent data has shown that women have shouldered the burden of pandemic-related job losses. To retain and bring women back into the workforce, companies need to consider employees as whole human beings, with lives and loved ones outside of work, Sterling says.
Sterling, an associate professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is an economic sociologist and organizational theorist who specializes in studying the way firms and labor and product markets interact and the implications of these interactions on organizational behaviors and career outcomes. She leads the Equity by Design Labopen in new window at Stanford GSB.
Here, she discusses how values and priorities related to work need to shift: Instead of making productivity the end game “at all costs,” organizations and companies must create working environments that inspire problem-solving, equity, collaboration and creativity so that all employees can live well-balanced lives.
When it comes to pandemic-related job losses, the National Women’s Law Center found a dramatic difference between the numbers of men and women returning to the labor market, with women trailing behind men by about 1.1 million jobs. What can be done to bring women back into the labor market?
This piece originally appeared in Stanford Business Insights from Stanford Graduate School of Business. To receive business ideas and insights from Stanford GSB click here: (To sign up: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/about/emails)