The demands of today's workplace-long hours, constant availability, selfsacrificial dedication-do not match the needs of today's workforce, where workers struggle to reconcile competing caregiving and workplace demands. This mismatch has negative consequences for gender equality and workers' health. Here, the authors put forth a call to action: to redesign work to better meet the needs of today's workforce and to redefine successful work. The authors propose two avenues for future research to achieve these goals: research that (a) builds a more rigorous business case for work redesign/redefinition and (b) exposes the underlying gender and class dynamics of current work arrangements.

Flexibility bias and the “ideal worker” norm pose serious disadvantages for working mothers. But, are mothers the only ones harmed by these norms? We argue that these norms can be harmful for all workers, even “ideal” ones—men without caregiving responsibilities who have never used flexible work arrangements. We investigate how working in an environment where workers perceive flexibility bias affects their job attitudes and work-life spillover. Using representative survey data of U.S. workers, we find that perceived flexibility bias reduces job satisfaction and engagement and increases turnover intentions and work-life spillover for all types of workers, even ideal workers. The effects of perceived bias on satisfaction, turnover, and spillover operate beyond experiences with family responsibilities discrimination and having colleagues who are unsupportive of work-life balance. We show that workplace cultures that harbor flexibility bias—and, by extension, that valorize ideal work—may affect the entire workforce in costly ways.

The masculinity contest is a set of organizational norms that fosters competition, work devotion, strength, and dominance. Here, we explore pluralistic ignorance as a mechanism by which these norms persist. Pluralistic ignorance occurs when individuals privately reject a norm, but mistakenly believe others endorse it. This then discourages individuals from criticizing norms that perpetuate unpopular behavioral standards. Drawing on data from U.S. workers, we find masculinity contest norms are prone to pluralistic ignorance. Workers believe their coworkers’ endorsement of these norms exceeds their own private endorsement, although pluralistic ignorance levels differ by workers’ gender, parental status, and the sex composition of their job. Further, employees’ pluralistic ignorance about masculinity contest norms predicts decreased job satisfaction and engagement, decreased mental health, and increased relationship conflict. Discussion considers the implications of these findings for policies that may bring organizational norms into alignment with workers’ ideals.

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Ideal-worker norms permeate workplaces, guiding employers' evaluation of workers and perceptions of workers' worth. The authors investigate how an ideal-worker norm violation-working anything but full time-affects workers' perception of unfair treatment. The authors assess gender and parental status differences in the relationship. Analyses using Midlife Development in the United States II data reveal that women who violate the norm when they have children perceive greater unfair treatment than women who violate the norm but do not have children in the study period. Men who work anything but full time do not perceive unfair treatment. The authors' findings inform efforts to challenge ideal-worker norms.