Covid-19 abruptly transformed working lives. For years, businesses had contemplated flexible working measures, but had only partially implemented them. Then the pandemic came along and, through sheer necessity, instantly dismantled institutional barriers to flexible working such as lack of C-suite buy-in or weak HR policies. Now, a 18 months on, for many people working from home has become the norm and indeed is here to stay.  But recently the nature of how and when we work from home has shifted.

As businesses scale back office space and consider hybrid working models, we are at risk of a segregated post-Covid workforce, with two tiers of workers: office-based and home-based. With many men and young people possibly keen to get back to the office and many women, single parents, carers and people with health problems and disabilities potentially wanting (or having no alternative) to working from home, companies will need to be aware of the difference in visibility and networking opportunities for home-based workers, and will need to anticipate these shifts and take measures to offset them.  Further they need to be aware of the inherent danger ahead…

We’re talking about proximity bias!

‘Proximity bias’ in its truest form is an unconscious bias whereby we favour the things and people that are close to us, and undervalue those that aren’t. As human beings, we react positively to familiar people around us physically and to those who visibly follow our lead.  In the workplace, it’s an issue that has been affecting remote and part-time workers (typically women) and their managers for considerable years.

True to the phrase out of sight, out of mind, remote workers have long battled against perceptions that they are less reliable, less hard working and less team-oriented than their office-base counterparts, even when statistical evidence has proven otherwise. Two different surveys both found that around two-thirds of employees said that they’re more productive when working from home.

If proximity bias is leading managers to pay more attention to the requirements of an employee in the office instead of someone working remotely, it’s also skewing their vision when it comes to performance assessment.  This is also bourne out in other biases – foe example, pre-pandemic a common pattern of promotions favouring on-site employees or on-premises workers getting the more highly sought-after assignments was the norm.

Why is it potentially damaging?

For many reasons. Thanks to proximity bias, remote workers have often been unfairly overlooked for promotion, work assignments, receive more negative feedback and become isolated from their team mates.

Many aspects of career advancement are invisible, strengthened by unconscious assumptions. For example, an employee choosing to not immediately return to the office when given the choice or having children in the background during video meetings can lead to an unconscious assumption that they’re less committed to their work.

Even before Covid, proximity bias impacted talent attraction and retention. Now, as hybrid work has become mainstream, the stakes are even higher. For most businesses, long-term hybrid working will not be a choice: making it a success will be the difference between thriving and failing in the years to come.

Right now, though, the biggest threat to performance management is that it can drive a wedge between managers and employees, impacting negatively on collaboration, communication and productivity and ultimately skew the performance process.

Collaboration

A 2008 study found that hybrid work groups are less cohesive than fully remote or in-person teams. Further in 2013 Yahoo! CEO ended their flexible working trial early as it experienced notable detriment to collaboration.    It’s thought that the mix of working situations interfered with group identity. When everyone is working from home, they are all in the same boat. When some are in the office, and others aren’t, it can create an ‘us/them’ mentality – and it’s important for managers to deal with this quickly and effectively.

Communication

Remote and hybrid workers need to be kept in the loop just as much as those in the office, but sadly as some trickle back to the workplace a quick ‘office announcement’ or informal meeting excludes those that are working from home. If employees are left out the loop regularly, over time this will build up to them working towards very different goals and objectives and with differing senses of personal value and relevancy. If remote workers struggle with inconsistent working practices and miscommunication, it’ll skew the performance process and…

Productivity

Businesses need to create conditions of  a level playing field, and this means taking actions to make sure you are including others, no matter where they are. If several barriers hinder effective remote work, say for example over-reliance on email, in-person micro meetings, insufficient or blurred communication and a lack of feeling part of an effective team, then  the sense of belonging, common purpose, and shared identity that inspires all of us to do our best work gets lost.  Productivity is bound to take a hit and so will overall business performance.

What you can do about it:

  • The benefits that working remotely brings to one person’s productivity are balanced by the perks that office-based work gives to another: by instilling one-to-ones and a people-centric approach to your business’s performance management, you can better connect your managers and employees, effectively breaking down unconscious proximity bias. Enabling everyone to recognise each other as individuals that are bring value to the business, whether they’re in the next desk or another county.
  • Listening exercises, in the form of focus groups or interviews or simple surveys, can be helpful in raising awareness of the perceptions in the workplace. This data can provide a strong foundation for identifying meaningful actions to counter any issues.
  • Managers should be clear about which meetings are mandatory or optional and, as companies rethink their real estate footprint and physical office space, they should build hybrid meeting options into their plans. Equipping workplaces with rooms and technology that allow both in-person and virtual participation, will allow both home and office workers to equally and fairly participate in meetings. It will also mean that the cost of participation isn’t half a day’s travel to the office and back for an hour of productive face time.
  • Managers and directors need to be leading from the front, and including home workers in meetings, strategic planning and recruitment.
  • The spontaneity of workplace social interactions can lead to unexpected solutions and fresh ideas. Informal friendships and alliances can also be very important to career advancement so creating the conditions in which remote and hybrid workers get exposure to informal support of colleagues and mentors is critical. With many digital natives in the workforce who are used to communicating via social media platforms, collaboration tools like Slack or Teams are a great way to encourage informal or “watercooler” chat – it’s just a matter of setting up a channel. If you want to take things a step further, plenty of teams have successfully organised Zoom socials and cocktail hours. Even a 15-minute daily stand-up where people can check in with each other encourages a feeling of sociality.
  • Reviewing pre-pandemic performance criteria to ensure measures are aligned with what is realistically achievable can help to relieve stress and ultimately improve productivity.
  • It’s incumbent on managers to set healthy boundaries around work, and to draw the line under communication outside of normal office hours, limiting the number of emails and messages. Managers should role model switching off and enforce windows of unavailability as a healthy and important boundary for all.
  • Make flexible working actually flexible. Being flexible on working hours and allowing earlier or later start and finish times could go a long way to redress disparities between home and office workers. So could allowing for the flexibility to make doctor’s appointments, prepare children for new school terms, etc.
  • Managers should also take time to check in on their remote workers. This could involve leaving free time for a catch-up at the end of meetings, or organising regular 1-2-1s, so employees can informally chat to their managers.
  • To avoid creating any stigma around flexible working or the use of benefits such as extra childcare days, senior leaders should walk the walk and be seen to take advantage of these opportunities themselves. Such examples encourage greater uptake of these opportunities and help to normalise time out for family and caring responsibilities for both men and women.

Conclusions

We now have a choice. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine the structure of our working lives, to question long-held assumptions about presenteeism and the nature of the workplace, and to reshape organisations to better suit a 21st century workforce. But as we rebuild, it’s essential we don’t lose hard-won gains for women in the workplace or inadvertently create a segregated, two-tier workforce.

Now is the time for each of us to push hard to redefine working norms and build better, healthier and more productive workplaces that work for all employees. There is no room for complacency. We need to act now before the old norms begin to re-establish themselves.  I’d love to help you so please do reach out.

 

 

 

 

Hannah Powell