Wowing the boss: being seen onsite is key, say 58% of workers

What does it take to impress your manager? Most career experts tell us to set ambitious goals, deliver on them and keep learning new skills. That’s fine advice. But maybe there’s a shortcut.

Being seen a lot by your bosses can boost your standing, too. More than a decade of academic research suggests that this crafty edge holds true — even in those moments when you aren’t doing much more than fetching a coffee, powering up your computer or walking the halls.

To be sure, most of those studies were done in pre-pandemic conditions, and it’s a different world now. Working from home has become far more common, while powerful tech tools such as Slack, Zoom and Teams have greatly expanded out-of-office contact and collaboration.?

For anyone wondering whether being visible is still a key part of being valued, the latest edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is rich with insights. This large-scale survey sounded out 25,468 U.S. professionals from Dec. 3, 2022, to March 10 of this year, asking if they agreed with the statement: “It’s important to be seen in person by your organization’s leadership team.”

As the chart above shows, a significant majority — 58% — of all respondents agreed. Only 20% disagreed. (Remaining responses consisted of those who declined to answer, plus persons choosing the “neutral” middle.)

Even when managers think they’re being equally attentive to the career growth of all workers — regardless of who’s onsite or off — proximity keeps skewing the picture, says Kimberly Elsbach, professor emerita at UC Davis’s graduate school of management.

“It’s an unconscious bias,” Elsbach explains. “People aren’t really aware of it.” Distortions are especially likely to occur in the most subjective categories, such as sizing up workers’ leadership potential, their strengths in teamwork, and anything related to what she calls corporate “citizenship.”

The remedy, Elsbach contends, is to evaluate workers’ performance strictly on objective criteria that can be quantified and compared in neutral settings. That centers on areas such as how much work got done and how it measured up on quality standards.?

I asked Elsbach if today’s digital tools could bring analytical rigor even to “squishy” areas such as teamwork. After all, digital calendars show how many meetings people are attending; email and Slack logs show who’s contributing. I’m not sure if emojis reveal whose contributions are most valuable — but there must be some markers that have good signaling value.

Maybe, Elsbach replied. She’s not about to get into the fine-grain details of creating a teamwork scoring system that treats remote and onsite workers equitably. “The simplest solution,” she contends “is to get rid of subjective factors. Evaluate everyone on the same criteria.”?

In the meantime, Workforce Confidence data shows that people who work mostly onsite were especially likely (68%) to believe in the power of being seen by the boss. That’s far ahead of remote workers at 41%.

Hybrid workers — who split their time between onsite and remote work — are the most intriguing subset. They’re nearly as convinced (60%) as their fully onsite counterparts that face time with the boss is important. Evidently, they’re hoping that being onsite intermittently is good enough in terms of staying visible and keeping their career prospects in good shape.

Lots of companies (and consultants) are working hard to come up with ways that hybrid workers can get the full-strength career and productivity benefits of socializing with colleagues and bosses onsite — without needing to show up five days a week. “Cohort schedules,” where hybrid teams all meet in person on a particular day of the week, are one popular way of doing so.

Are U.S. workers getting the full flexibility that they want? Another segment of the Workforce Confidence survey indicates that the answer, for now, is “sometimes.”

As the chart below shows, about two thirds of hybrid and remote workers say their managers let them choose where they work. That figure is far lower (29%) for onsite workers, however. A lot of that gap may reflect the inherent nature of certain jobs. Many onsite workers are in fields such as construction or agriculture, where remote and hybrid setups aren’t really an option.

But wait, there’s more!?

For a unique sense of labor market trends, check out this newly built digital library of insights from LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index: https://lnkd.in/WCI-data. You’ll find more than two years of attitudinal data relating to jobs, careers and finances.

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 3,000 to 5,000 U.S.-based members respond to each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for.

Allison Lewis and Sharon Resheff from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.