An employer can approve flexible working and still leave an important question unanswered: will employees who use it receive fair consideration for advancement?

Flexibility stigma is the assumption that employees who use flexible work arrangements are less committed, motivated, or productive than colleagues who do not. It can concern flexibility over working hours as well as location (Chung & Seo, 2024).

For employers, the issue is how an approved arrangement influences judgments about the person using it.

How Is Flexibility Stigma Different From Proximity Bias?

Proximity bias concerns the advantage of being physically close to decision-makers. Flexibility stigma concerns the meaning attached to working flexibly: an assumption that someone is less dedicated because they use that arrangement. The two can overlap (Wang & Chung, 2026).

Consider a hypothetical employee who meets agreed deadlines while working adjusted hours. If a manager interprets the schedule itself as evidence of low ambition, the concern is the assumption being made about commitment.

What Does Research Show?

A study published in 2026 asked 473 managers in Singapore to evaluate hypothetical candidates. The scenarios compared office-based work with working remotely two or three days a week for family reasons.

Remote-working candidates received less favorable assessments of commitment, productivity, team spirit, and promotion prospects. The pattern appeared across the gender and parenthood groups studied. Negative assessments were reduced when remote work was framed as a policy supporting all workers (Wang & Chung, 2026).

These were judgments about fictional candidates, not measurements of actual performance or promotions. The findings identify a potential bias mechanism; they do not establish its prevalence in U.S. workplaces.

Does Flexible Work Always Harm Career Progression?

No. A different study, published in 2024, examined a randomized trial involving 1,612 employees at Trip.com in China. Conducted in 2021–2022, the trial compared a schedule allowing two work-from-home days per week with five office days.

Researchers found no evidence of a difference in promotion rates over the following two years. Performance reviews were also unaffected, while quit rates fell by one-third during the trial (Bloom et al., 2024).

That finding concerns one employer and a specific hybrid arrangement. It does not prove that every flexible arrangement works equally well. It does show why employers should avoid treating a career penalty as inevitable.

Why This Matters for Fair Opportunity

For Diversity.com, an inclusive workplace should give employees a fair opportunity to contribute and progress under the arrangements their employer has approved.

A useful question is whether assessments reflect the requirements of the role and the employee’s work. When a review uses words such as “committed” or “leadership potential,” what evidence supports them?

What Can Employers Review?

The following are practical review questions informed by the research:

• How is flexibility described? Explain eligibility through role requirements and operational needs. Avoid presenting flexibility as evidence that someone has stepped back from their career.

• What counts as performance? Set clear expectations for quality, deadlines, collaboration, and availability. Assess employees against the expectations agreed for their roles.

• What supports promotion decisions? Ask reviewers for specific examples. Examine whether an approved schedule is being used as a shortcut for judging ambition or readiness.

• Are opportunities discussed directly? Ask employees about their interest in projects and advancement, rather than infer their preferences from their working arrangements.

These questions are starting points for reviewing practice, not a guarantee of a particular outcome.

Final Thoughts

For employers, the practical challenge is to make flexible-work policies and everyday evaluation consistent with one another.

For employees, a useful career-development question is: What results and responsibilities will demonstrate that I am ready for the next step within my agreed working arrangement?

Fair opportunity becomes more concrete when both sides understand the answer.

For employers: Explore Diversity.com to connect with candidates from a broader talent pool.

For job seekers: Browse job opportunities on Diversity.com and ask prospective employers how flexible arrangements work in practice.

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Sources & References

• Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 630(8018), 920–925. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07500-2

• Chung, H., & Seo, H. (2024). Flexibility stigma across Europe: How national contexts can shift the extent to which flexible workers are stigmatised. Social Indicators Research, 174(3), 945–965. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03420-w

• Wang, S., & Chung, H. (2026). Revisiting flexibility stigma: How framing remote working shapes bias against remote workers. Gender, Work & Organization, 33(4), 1227–1244. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.70115