Is remote working counteracting your company's DE&I initiatives?
For a selected view, remote working has always been part of their way of life. For the majority of us however, working remotely has only become a dominant factor in our lives during the last 2.5 years. Some have been getting quite attached to their home office, others can not wait to be on-site more often again. With Covid numbers stabilising, a lot of companies have to think about how they structurally want to set up their policies with regards to their employee's working location. In order to do so, they look at key indicators for advantages and disadvantages for all scenarios. Employee satisfaction and productivity being on top of mind. But what about the impact of remote working on our company's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives? If you are not the DE&I responsible for your organisation, you might not have considered this topic. Continue reading to see why you should do so nevertheless…
Looking at the research of the last couple of years it has become very clear that especially marginalised groups have benefited from remote working. Why? Because especially women and people of colour prefer working from home. This has varying reasons that can broadly be clustered in 3 categories:
Lower stress levels
Higher productivity
Better work-life balance
All three of them are of course somehow interrelated but consist of distinguishable contributors:
To start off with, people of colour state to experience less microaggressions when working from home or at least, feel better equipped to handle them. Microaggressions occur when someone from outside the minority group unconsciously talks or acts in a way that expresses prejudice toward a member of this marginalised group.
The commuting time which can be quite substantial for some is erased and thus leaves additional time of the day for other responsibilities like caring for family members and / or neighbours.
Being physically closer to one's children is especially for mothers a pre to be able to intervene in times of emergencies.
Working remotely gives employees automatically not just flexibility when it comes to their location but also when it comes to their time. Starting early to be able to take a longer lunch break to do the school-run becomes an advantage which just isn't attainable when working on-site.
Women more so than men state that working remotely gives them additional energy and drive.
Bottom line is that especially the people which from a diversity perspective we want to promote more in our organisations are the ones that prefer working from home or at least work in a hybrid model. But could there be a downside to this?
Traditional managers might have some difficulties with keeping the playing feel fair and square. They suffer in short from proximity bias, meaning that they focus on and maybe even prefer the people that are more often physically closer to them. And with predominantly white male employees being in the office, we can all do the maths. The result is that work is primarily assigned to the people more often working on-site, successes of people working from on-site are celebrated more, and even promotions are influenced in the advantage of the on-site working employees. Some managers even openly vocalise their viewpoint along the lines of "well, they can decide to work remotely more often but then they also have to live with the consequences."
Think again. Is that how you as a manager want to be perceived? Is that how you envision your organisation to handle matters of diversity and inclusion? Here are a couple of measures you can implement to counteract the proximity bias and really let the remote-working movement be a boost for your diversity and inclusion initiatives:
Leaders, walk the talk. If your organisation offers hybrid working models, take part in them. Model to your employees that working remotely is encouraged by going on a walk around your neighbourhood during the next team meeting or sitting at a local coffee shop when entering a video conference (always mind confidentiality of course…)
Make sure that from a technical perspective all employees are equipped with the needed technical facilities to enable them to take part in online interactions seamlessly. Note, this does not mean equal equipment, it means equal outcome.
Have either on-site meetings or online meetings. The deciding factor for one or the other is whether there is at least one participant dialling in online. If so, let all participants dial in online. There is nothing worse than looking at your screen and seeing a meeting room full of your colleagues minding their own business.
Find a substitute for your random but not so random coffee-machine check-ins with your coworkers. When being on-site it is so much easier to find that private moment to see how someone is doing. When working remotely this requires a little more effort but it is that much more appreciated when done authentically.
When advocating for a promotion, check yourself on proximity (and other) biases. If needed, ask a peer or someone from HR to assist. Together you can make sure that your suggested promotions are based on fair assessments. One way is to standardise the promotion request form and have questions around arguments and justifications be normalised.
When handled badly or even neglected and dismissed as the private affair of some individuals who try to cut corners, remote working will worsen the situation of marginalised groups considerably. When handled correctly however, remote working can be a driving force behind your DE&I initiatives. The choice is yours, what is your pick?
