Proximity Bias is Alive and Well and Needs to be Managed!

With fully remote or hybrid workplaces becoming the norm for so many companies, most people managers have had to take a second look at their management tool kit – what they need to do differently to get the best out of off the people who count on them for support. Yep, we’ve all heard the warnings about PROXIMINTY BIAS from the companies who had been managing remote workforces for some time – many even before COVID. Many had already expressed concerns about issues with productivity and employee development.

If you’re like most of us post COVID, you didn’t give the warning much attention not knowing what kind of workforce we would be asked to manage in the future – remote, in office, some hybrid in between. Many of us in Seattle were actually a little giddy about the opportunities we saw to keep our employees off clogged freeways even before our company’s policy decisions were formally made. At PACE, wearing our recruiter hats, we experienced first hand how hard it was to entice workers back to the office. If a candidate had a choice of where to work, the one who offered the most and best remote work arrangements got their nod. Today, we’re still seeing employees take pay cuts to get access to the flexibility that comes from working from home.

While true that Amazon’s recent decision to return employees to the office 5 days/week has the potential to re-set the bar, from our perch, it sure seems like the pandemic opened the barn door, the horses bolted, and its not been easy to get them back in the barn (so to speak…and no, I’m not implying that employees can identify as horses.)

When PACE made the decision to “stay remote” post COVID, we were blessed with a highly seasoned team of recruiting and staffing professionals. Honestly, we made this decision because we couldn’t think of a good reason to bring them back into the office given that so much of the recruiting process was already being managed remotely. Somewhat by default we kept our employees remote and for at least a couple of years thought nothing of it. We thought we were good (not necessarily great) at managing a remote work environment. Okay we thought we were “good enough.”

Fast forward to late 2022 and early 2023, when we started to uncover that when it comes time to add staff to your team – to bring in folks who had never experienced our culture and might have not worked for a “public recruiting firm” before – many of the benefits we enjoyed by allowing our seasoned employees to work from home – started to show up as challenges for our new folks. How do we get new staff trained??How do we expose them to our culture??How do we allow someone new to our business the opportunity to learn our business when they no longer have the benefit of hearing a seasoned professional handle the many nuances of our craft when they’re not working within ear shot.

We not only came face to face with what consultants were calling PROXIMITY BIAS but also the shortcomings of getting new staff assimilated into a new team and new work standards when they’re not working up close and personal, in close physical proximity.?

We’re still learning, making changes, trying new things and learning in a very up close and personal way the downsides and upsides of physical PROXIMITY. We now can see the issues that so easily can creep into the fray in a partially hybrid, sometimes fully remote work environment.? ??

What is Proximity Bias?

Simply stated, PROXIMITY BIAS describes the difference in time, energy and support that is given to an employee who their boss and peers can see and interact with on a physical (f/f ) level compared to the time, energy and support that is given to an employee where their boss and peers don’t see them on a regular basis. ?The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” comes to mind as a lot of anecdotal data started to reveal that PROXIMITY BIAS is a real thing.

What I’ve personally observed is how quickly a leader, even a experienced leader, can get out of touch with the soul of the business – its people. It isn’t always easy for a leader to learn what they need to know about an employee’s strengths, talents and work habits when they don’t have visual or auditory access to their behavior on a daily basis.? If an employee’s results start to suffer, its often difficult to know where to focus your coaching interactions when you don’t quite know what the employee needs.?

What I’ve concluded is that to effectively manage remote employees you need a new or revised set of management tactics with clear expectations for results, timely reporting on those results, and effective course corrections for those who get off target. Unfortunately I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that some of these management tactics look a lot more like micromanaging than I had to do the in the past. For sure the discipline of regularly looking at objective data regarding results has become far more important to me than it once was when that same data was used to confirm the truth about my own observations – not signal a problem long after the fact.

But before we get started on techniques, let’s ask ourselves if our current hybrid arrangements are inviting some form of PROXIMITY BIAS…..

1) Are the employees who are spending the most time in house getting access to information about what’s going on in the organization that their remote counter parts do not? We believe that some of the most powerful conversations leaders have with their people happen are unscripted and unplanned. How do employees working remotely get access to that kind of information or attention.? ??

2) Do you think that employees working in house get more and better coaching on the nuances of your business or their job as compared to employees working remote? In our environment we like our leaders to catch employees in the act of doing things that are likely to impact outcomes. We want to make sure they can be either quickly acknowledged or an alternative approach suggested – all in real time. We all know that an essential element of any training or development process is timely feedback. ?

3) Are the employees who work in house more likely to get assigned new work opportunities or be put into project teams as compared to their remote counterparts? Assignment of work, delegating to others plays a key role in developing others. When considering who you assign to do what its often the people who you see on a regular basis who get the call.

4) Who do you tend to form personal and trusting relationships with on your team – the folks you interact with daily or folks who work for you remotely? Or does it make a difference? We know that issues with PROXIMITY get created by shortcomings in the number of ways we can interact with workers based on their physical proximity.

What is the psychology driving PROXIMITY BIAS?

We know that PROXIMITY BIAS gets created by managers who don’t really know how to form relationships, get influence over, or even exert control of the work performed by the remote folks who report to them. We also see a lot of assumptions that get made about remote workers that doesn’t always drive accurate beliefs about what they’re doing or treat them fairly. These are real life and unfortunate forms of BIAS.? ??

These biases are driven by several psychological factors, including visibility, social connections, cognitive shortcuts, perceptions of effort, and a sense of control. Human brains are wired to notice and focus more on what is immediately visible. Employees who are physically present are more likely to be seen by managers or coworkers, making them more visible in daily work life.

This heightened visibility can translate into being perceived as more engaged or productive, even if it’s not true. The brain tends to take cognitive shortcuts to conserve energy.

Evaluating performance or contribution is often complex and often involves preparing data, proximity provides an easy, though inaccurate, shortcut. It’s easier for managers to assess and interact with people they see regularly, leading them to favor those who are nearby.

Face-to-face interactions tend to grow stronger social bonds, create more opportunities for casual interactions about their personal interests and feelings which are then used to build rapport and ultimately trust. Familiarity is one of those factors that contributes to our willingness to favor those nearby.

People often associate physical presence with effort and commitment. Employees who are in the office may be perceived as working harder simply because their work is more visible, while remote workers might be viewed as less dedicated, even if they are equally or more productive.

Being able to closely observe someone gives a feeling of control. Managers might feel more comfortable and confident in their ability to oversee the work of employees who are physically close because they can monitor their activities more directly.

Why is PROXIMITY BIAS a problem for individual employees??The organization???

For larger companies, their strategies for awarding, promoting, and reviewing the performance all workers is always on full display. This means a proximity bias opens up some legal liabilities for not mastering the techniques of remote employee management.?

For smaller companies, proximity bias can have particularly harmful effects due to their tendency to form tight-knit teams with an ongoing need for agility. Important decisions often happen informally and quickly which means that remote employees may miss out – not involved with spontaneous interactions leading to exclusion and reducing their chances to influence the company’s direction.

Also in small companies, where the opportunities for advancement and new projects are fewer, proximity bias can restrict access to these opportunities, stunting an employee’s professional growth in an environment where each role is vital. With fewer employees, when a small business loses a chance to capitalize on one employee’s talents can be damaging. And if a remote worker starts to feel underappreciated or disadvantaged, they are more likely to disengage or even leave – creating big and unexpected gaps in getting work done.

Bonds with one another, while those working remotely may feel like outsiders. This can lead to group favoritism, where those in the “in-group” are more likely to be trusted, given opportunities, or receive promotions. This is a dynamic that works against efforts to build a cohesive team.

What can managers and leaders do to counteract the impact of PROXIMINITY BIAS?

• Focus on Results, Not Location: Establish clear, measurable performance expectations based on the results you need the employee to achieve, regardless of where they do their work. Make sure you are doing everything you can to ensure that employees results are evaluated objectively. Now might be a great time to share the team and individual results in ways that sparks competition but also gets rid of wonderment about who is contributing what.
• Regular Review of an Employee’s Performance and Results: Conduct periodic reviews of each employee’s accomplishments and outcomes. Make sure you are always aware of the measured data that shows in real time how the employee is doing and to suggest where they might need a constructive insert. Keep in mind that employee’s are also learning how to optimize their results in a remote work environment. They may need your help.
• Encourage Flexibility: If geographically possible, make sure your employees are invited into the office periodically to balance out the visibility and relationship gaps. Make sure you get to see them face to face at least once or twice each month for deeper conversations about what they see as the pluses and minuses of their work agreements. Don’t be afraid to adjust an agreement if its clearly not working to both the employee’s and your organizations benefit.
• Inclusive Events and Meetings: Organize virtual activities and team meetings that combine remote and in person employees – making sure each have opportunities to build relationships with their colleagues. Make sure both team and individual achievements are highly visible to all workers. At PACE, we like to have end of month celebrations that allow all employees to see what results each person created that month.
• Recognize that not every conversation that is important to outcomes needs to be a full blown meeting. One of the things that helps us here at PACE is that when we need to huddle our inhouse and remote employees around a decision that needs input, we can quickly call what we call a SNAP to talk thru an issue and go quickly to next steps. We are not big fans of standing meetings where agendas get created to fill up the time allotted. We prefer our shorter more focused SNAPS that can bring the right people together faster and more efficiently than spontaneous conversations over a water cooler that often leave out important people and points of view.

In Summary…

As we all try to work thru the complexities of remote and hybrid work environments, we think addressing the psychological biases that can get created out of different degrees of proximity are essential for creating a productive and results-focused workplace. By proactively recognizing the challenges posed by this bias, you are in a place to create strategies that counteract their downsides and still retain your hybrid workplace. Only when there are more benefits than loses that accrue to the organization for keeping its remote worker models in tact can you rationalize efforts made to bring everyone back into the fold. At PACE we’re working hard to make it make business sense to keep most of us working happily and productively but not always in an office.