Revisiting Flexibility Stigma: How Framing Remote Working Shapes Bias Against Remote Workers

ABSTRACT Despite the steep rise in working from home practices across the world, stigmatized views against remote workers still exist and are slowly coming back as evidenced by managers' requests for workers to return to the office. Drawing on a national sample of managers in Singapore, this study uses a factorial vignette experiment to examine how the framing of remote working may change managers' bias against remote workers and for whom such framing matters more. The results show that remote working is associated with significantly worse managerial perceptions in commitment, productivity, team spirit, and promotion opportunities for all gender‐parenthood groups (i.e., mothers, fathers, and childless men and women). The scarring effects are more pronounced for fathers and childless workers compared to mothers because managers hold negative views against mothers regardless of their remote working status. When remote working is framed as a policy for all workers, the scarring effects are significantly mitigated for all groups. By contrast, in the context where remote working was framed as a policy only for mothers, or only for parents, the scarring effects remain significant for all groups and are even intensified for mothers. These findings highlight the importance of “de‐coupling” remote working as specifically being for mothers or parents, to remove biases that may hinder good practices.