Why do organizations still struggle with gender equality at senior levels? Largely, it may be because men still feel culturally constrained to relentlessly pursue status in the workplace—preventing them from sharing non-work responsibilities with their partners in a way that would allow women to more easily advance.
Deloitte’s new report The design of everyday men investigates men’s experiences with work, family, and masculinity to explore the impact of organizational and cultural expectations on their behaviour both within and outside the workplace. Based on an intensive ethnographic study of 16 professional men in and around the Greater Toronto Area, the study concludes that business leaders have a significant opportunity to change organizational cultures to enable men to approach gender equality, not just as supporters, but as active participants.
Today’s “always on, always available” workplace culture is a key factor holding back gender equality at senior organizational levels, the study finds. Individuals often prioritize work over family, personal commitments, and well-being to rise to the top, and men may be more predisposed to making this tradeoff at the expense of their outside-of-work commitments. Women then wind up picking up the slack on household and other non-work responsibilities, thereby disadvantaging themselves by becoming unable to adhere to the “always on, always available” expectation as easily.