First, what our research really shows is that flexibility is a necessity. It can't be an option. But it's nuanced. And that's what companies are missing right now.
First and foremost, we wanted to define what we mean when we're talking about flexibility, because we often find that for companies their definition of flexibility is a bit different. So flexible, as defined here, is defined as the ability to make your own arrangements as needed, versus hybrid, which is defined as working scheduled days on site and some off site. Now, we know a lot of corporate America has moved into a hybrid environment. And what's interesting is that in fact, just the other night, I was with a president at a global holding company. I asked them how they're doing with the flexibility. They said they're doing great because they're offering a hybrid schedule. So I say that to say what's so interesting is that what this clearly shows is women strongly prefer and just prefer overall, 79% said they prefer flexibility. Just 4% said they prefer hybrid.
Women aren't defining flexibility as hybrid. And that's a really important nuance that we need to make sure that we're empowering our companies to understand.
The other piece is there's not a one size fits all approach to remote work. It's not all or nothing. 43% of women that we surveyed said that they feel like they're more productive when they're working at home remotely. But also 31% said that they're more productive in an office environment. But I think what's probably the most interesting is when we asked women how often they want to work remotely, not everybody wants to be working remotely all of the time. In fact, it's a nice balance of how often people want to be in the office versus not in the office. And just understanding that, and that this isn't a one size fits all or nothing approach, really matters to women across generations. We'll get into generation breakout in a bit.
We also asked women to tell us what their ideal work scenario is, and are your employers aligned with that? A lot of women believe that their companies believe that working exclusively on site is the ideal versus where they want to be. Similarly, with remote working, many more women believe that that's ideal for them versus what they think the company ideal is. As you start to see this disconnect, you can start to make inferences to where we're going with so many people that are quitting in this great resignation. There seems to be a misalignment that we'd like to get companies more aligned around.
The second insight that we thought was really interesting is that when we talk about flexible work, women want them to be customized and really inclusive and equitable. There's definitely a concern that going forward there might be different cultures created for the people that are working from home versus the ones that aren't. We asked woman, which of the following do you feel are the most important for your employer to provide? Customized flex time and flexible work policies are the most important. This shows an understanding of my work and my work life balance and responsibility. Having that real empathy is really going to matter. But even further, the results shown an interest in creating inclusive remote policies, meaning that everyone participates. It's going to be really important, so that a dual system-dual culture doesn't exist. What's interesting about that is when you look at the research, those rank higher than transparent, equitable compensation practices. So it gives a sense of how important this has all become.
And by far at the bottom of importance to women, interestingly, were allyship programs, with male allies. That was really deemed as the least important thing for women to have from employers, and we can probably have a cocktail over why that's coming in so low. But again, when we talk about things that maybe aren't working, aren't landing as intended, that's probably one of those areas that we want to be looking at, depending on the workplace.
The other piece is, obviously, pay equity has been a big topic of conversation, and rightly so, for the last several years. What we found though, in our research is women's retention needs to go beyond equitable compensation.
What we found is that empathy and corporate culture are the top drivers of women's retention. So my employer provides employees with the ability to ask for personal or family leave for family reasons.
Going back to that flexibility, look how high that is. That doesn't mean that I'm paid fairly for my contributions isn't important, but when you think about the amount of weight and attention on pay equity, we need to make sure that we're looking at these other things as well. And I also think, this last one is worth pointing out because of how high it scores: the ability to take family leave without fear of retribution.
The fear of retribution, I just want to make sure that lands with everyone. There is a fear of retribution still with this.
So even though we've all been through this pandemic together, and we're all dealing, there very much is a fear that that is not going to be accepted from employers.
People right now are very worried about who's going to be staying, and we've heard all the statistics about how many women are planning on leaving. So we wanted to ask the question, what are the must haves, the top three or the most important to consider switching, to a different workplace: I feel respected and valued comes in high. My work is fun, interesting, and challenging, something that gives me a sense of accomplishment scores incredibly highly. And even more so then, I'm paid fairly for my contribution. I don't want the takeaway to be that we don't pay women fairly. We absolutely need to pay women fairly. But I just think it's important that we're looking at the surround sound of women. They're not feeling valued right now by their employers. So that's a big reason why they're choosing to leave.
