Treating employees differently if they have children has been easy to justify for too long

While significant progress in calling out race and gender discrimination in the workplace has been made in in recent years, the momentum hasn’t always extended to this particular bias, writes Caroline Bullock

The practice traditional skew towards working parents or arbitrarily assigned perk (Getty)

Interesting how the most vociferous proponents of the office return post-Covid are rarely tied to the nine-to-five grind themselves.

Millionaire plumbing boss Charlie Mullins is a case in point, ruing the “laziness” of remote working – from his Spanish villa, sentiments echoed by TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp tweeting that people should be eager to get back to the office and “prove their worth”.

Of course, those far better acquainted with the daily commute tend to feel differently. Even when the job is good and a company culture and environment supposedly dynamic, a certain drudge inevitably seeps in – the rules, routines and politics that sap energy and spirit. It’s not a huge surprise that a survey from Strathclyde Business School found fewer than one in 10 of 3,000 workers questioned want to return to the office full-time having experienced a sustained and more flexible alternative over the last couple of years. A hybrid workplace is set to be the most palatable compromise.