Partner content: Lenovo on the 'new normal' for women in the channel

From vendors to resellers, there’s been a lot of talk of adapting to ‘the new normal’. But are the changes that are being made positive for D&I?

COVID-19 is changing all of our lives. That's not in dispute. Murkier is the extent to which the pressures of lockdown are having a regressive or positive impact on working women's lives.

Researchers from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) surveyed more than 3,000 people in the US and Europe during lockdown.

Their findings reveal an implicit bias even within families' home lives that is putting a disproportionate expectation on women.

According to the BCG, currently women are spending an average of 15 hours a week more on unpaid domestic labour than men.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has recently referred to this as "the double-double shift" women are working during the global pandemic.

In a Q&A with Lenovo UK&I SMB channel chief Jane Ashworth (pictured), CRN asks is this having an impact on women in the channel?

• CRN has reported that one of Forrester's top predictions for 2021 is that it expects that more than one-third of European white collar workers will work remotely full-time next year. (Up from just four per cent last year.) What can businesses do to ensure this "new normal" doesn't include a regression of women to "traditional" gender roles they haven't chosen?
• On the other hand, some channel leaders have found that the absence of "laddish" business sales events such as golf trips or late night drinks has allowed quieter or less social team members to shine. XMA commercial director Andy Wright told CRN earlier in the year: "COVID-19 could break down some of the old networks that people had gotten used to." Could changing dynamics in the workplace advance the cause of diversity in the channel?

This article has been published on partnership with Lenovo