How proximity bias disproportionately impacts the careers of people of color

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BY RICK HAMMELL

While much has been made of the benefits of remote work, it is not without unforeseen consequences. Remote employees worry that their careers will stagnate and strain to break through the “Zoom ceiling” while their in-person colleagues rack up promotions, raises, and corner-office real estate. Some are even “quiet quitting ” in large part because of a lack of connection to their work and company culture. Meanwhile, others are weighing the consequences of “proximity bias,” a phenomenon that is reshaping the dynamics of what a distributed work meritocracy looks like.

Proximity bias is managers’ propensity to promote and favor in-person employees over their remote colleagues. It can manifest in any organization, and it can often create barriers to advancement among people of color.

A?study ?published by University of Pittsburgh business professor David Lebel, who surveyed 1,729 of the school’s remote employees three times in 2020, has shown that while remote work increases employees’ work-life balance, it could be an obstacle to career advancement. “Research shows that people not connected to those at work don’t get promoted as often,” Lebel said.

This isn’t a new phenomenon.?Research as far back as 2015 ?finds remote workers don’t receive promotions at nearly the same rate as their in-office counterparts, despite higher performance.

While climbing the corporate ladder, I was the beneficiary of access to leadership at many of the companies I worked for before I started my own. My firsthand experience confirms what the data has uncovered: When you want to be in the inner circle, it helps to be within reach physically.

And in the global work environment in which many of us operate, the proximity debate has added layers of complexity from time differences to cultural nuances.

PROXIMITY BIAS IMPACTS BIPOC WORKERS

As the research indicates, the phenomenon of proximity bias has been around for a while, but the pandemic has brought it into the spotlight. But what does this latent form of bias have on workers of color?

Interpersonal connections between managers and employees have a positive effect on promotion and career advancement. For marginalized groups and workers of color, those connections can be hard to make with what are often white, male leadership teams. This holds true even when employees have the home court advantage of working in the office with their counterparts and bosses.?

Proximity to power has long been a hurdle for workers of color navigating largely white corporate spaces. People of color already have negative stereotypes to which they are relegated. These one-dimensional characterizations can often banish us to “otherness” within a group dynamic, putting distance between us and our peers and supervisors.

The early days of remote work as a norm held promise as a potential testing ground for a level playing field in terms of proximity. As it turns out, Zoom and its counterparts were complicit in furthering the phenomenon in the virtual office.

According to a?study ?by Amy Bonomi, a social science researcher from Michigan State University, and Nelia Viveiros from the University of Colorado, microaggressions are communicated in virtual meetings just as they are in face-to-face meetings. Microaggressions are short, commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory perceptions related to race and other identity points. The consequences of these systemic slights include lower productivity, higher attrition rates, and decreased morale.

People of color and women are often happier working at home as they feel more insulated from microaggressions, according to a?Harris Poll survey ?of professional workers across the U.S. Many who feel they are the target of microaggressions on video conferences solve the problem by turning off the camera, but I don’t advise that. When people hear voices of the marginalized without the visual cues that complement their tone of voice, they could be more unconsciously biased and misconstrue the person speaking as aggressive.

HOW TO BANISH PROXIMITY BIAS

Organizations must be proactive in implementing mechanisms to get around inherent biases, whether they’re related to proximity or other factors. Some effective strategies for doing that include conducting multiple interviews to get to know candidates on a deeper level when hiring and then using talent testing, which ensures employees have the resources and tools they need to have to do the job.

Panel interviews allow multiple people to assess the competencies and company culture fit of a candidate in ways that look beyond inherent biases. Hiring managers can then get a balanced perspective from a mix of panel members who bring to the table different backgrounds, thoughts, and experiences.

As a global company, we find that regional interviews work well for us. Ideally, we like to have members of the leadership team in each region—from Europe, the Americas, and APAC—be involved and feel invested in the process.

Talent testing, such as predictive index (PI) assessments, is another helpful tool. The PI assessment is not a pass/fail test, which means there are no right or wrong answers. However, one applicant’s answers could be more favorable than another’s, depending on the position.

A third way to banish proximity bias is to interview with intention. This means taking the time to evaluate candidates beyond a checklist of educational and professional experience. Organizations also need to look at each candidate’s ability to get the job done and celebrate the differences that will enrich the organization.

Finally, when it comes to managing a remote workforce based in countries around the world, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but technology can offer solutions to this very human problem. To address the pain points often associated with being a global employer, we created a cloud-based HR platform, which connects core HR, international payment management, flexible talent management, benefits administration, and people and country analytics to deliver individualized employee experiences for remote workforces. This kind of comprehensive program ensures that employees feel included even if they’re working remotely. It also creates opportunities for innovative companies and global talent to connect, particularly in locales where these opportunities weren’t previously available.

Now that remote work has become the norm for knowledge workers, there isn’t the jockeying for literal proximity that we often experience in office settings. While this may seem like a great equalizer, it’s important to safeguard against complacency. Even in virtual environments, people of color are contending with a world of unconscious biases, and companies need to create safe spaces in which inclusivity trumps proximity every day.

Rick Hammell is the founder and CEO of?Atlas .

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