“Simply telling men that their peers support parental leave and flexible working, increases their intention to share care."

An amazing headline from The Behavioural Insights Team. The key idea behind the research was the concept of "pluralistic ignorance."

"the tendency of people to hold a particular opinion privately while mistakenly believing the majority of people disagree with that opinion. For example, if men mistakenly think that their colleagues and managers would disapprove if they worked flexibly, then they avoid doing so, anticipating negative social and career repercussions."

Despite the pandemic creating a sea change in men's attitude towards flexible and remote working, the fear of being seen as "uncommitted" runs deep.

How powerful would it be for individuals, families and business culture to know that your peers actually support your decision to take leave or work flexibly?

Some key takeaways... from the Santander UK example

👍 Survey respondents would encourage men they work with to take 8 weeks of leave, BUT thought their male colleagues would only encourage around 6 weeks.

👍 Men thought that roughly 65% of their peers would encourage male colleagues to work flexibly, while in reality 99% would do so.

Sharing the baseline survey attitudes with a new cohort of men lead to a step change in intention...

👍 "We saw a 62% increase in the proportion of men intending to take 5-8 weeks of leave in the group that received feedback."

(The average level of leave taken was 4 weeks.)

Extended parental leave, flexible and remote working is good for mental health, equality at home and equality at work and all those benefits could be just a small step away.