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🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

Have you ever felt forgotten or excluded because you work remotely? Or have you ever been part of a conversation, decision, or event, where other people were excluded based on their location?

💡 Concept

Proximity bias, or distance bias, is the tendency to favor people and ideas that are closer to us in time and space.

Left unchecked, proximity bias can harm morale and performance at work and even stifle careers.

Consider the following scenario:

Barbara manages a hybrid team of four, and she herself goes into the office three days a week. An opportunity arises for someone on her team to present at a conference, which would be a valuable career opportunity.

There are two senior team members with similar experience and expertise who would be good candidates: Sandy, who comes into the office regularly, and Maurice, who is a fully remote worker living in another state. Barbara immediately thinks of Sandy to present at the conference.

Now consider another scenario:

Ignacio is one of a handful of fully remote workers on a hybrid team. He’s only been with his company for a few months. Every time he has questions or ideas, he goes to the same core group of fellow remote workers to discuss them: Kim, Leo, and Josh. Lately, he’s been getting negative feedback stating that his contributions demonstrate a lack of understanding of the company’s priorities.

Both of these scenarios involve proximity bias—in the first scenario, proximity bias on the part of leadership is limiting professional development opportunities for remote team members. In the second scenario, proximity bias is keeping an individual contributor from developing a deeper understanding of his team and project based on the diverse perspectives of those involved.

🎬 Take Action

As an unconscious bias, proximity bias is not something that you can eliminate with one singular action. Combating proximity bias takes constant vigilance and practice.

Here are some things you can do to regularly combat proximity bias:

• Check every meeting agenda to make sure that everyone who should attend has been invited and will be able to participate, regardless of where they are located.

• Set up recurring reminders or tasks to send written updates to your team or supervisor, as applicable.

• Set up recurring reminders to check in with each team member the same number of times per week or month.

• Reflect at the beginning of every work day: when might there be opportunities to display or experience proximity bias? What can I do to minimize proximity bias as much as possible today?

Here are some sample scripts you can use to combat proximity bias on a regular basis:

• Have we invited everyone that should attend?

• How will we make this event (or meeting, decision, etc.) inclusive of everyone that needs to be there, regardless of location?

• What can we do to make sure that proximity bias is not a factor in this decision (or promotion, opportunity, etc.)?

📄 Additional Resources

Access the Remote Work Dictionary

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

If you’re a manager, enroll in our Leadplaceless eCourse to learn more ways to combat proximity bias on your team.

🆕 If you’re an individual contributor, we invite you to participate in beta testing the next update to our Growplaceless eCourse on remote career development, which includes in-depth guidance on overcoming proximity bias in order to grow your flexible career.

📰 News

Happening today (April 18) at 12 pm EDT! Join Workplaceless, Hubspot and Mural for a panel discussion about onboarding remote and hybrid employees.

💡 Practical tips and strategies for creating an effective onboarding process for your remote and hybrid workforce

🧗 Challenges and opportunities that come with onboarding in a remote or hybrid environment

🧰 Tools and techniques to ensure your new employees feel welcomed and included from day one

🤲 Benefits designed to help remote employees feel supported