This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
The Remote-Worker Paradox
A hybrid work environment is a great opportunity, but it also creates some difficulties in terms of honoring everyone’s individuality and optimizing for collaboration. One of the interesting stats that I’ve read, Project Include has done research. They found that in a hybrid work environment, when people are remote, they actually experience more bias, more prejudice, more bullying than they do when they’re in person. Because when someone is just a little box on a screen, it’s easier to make assumptions about that person. It’s easier to sort of treat them without respect. They don’t seem like a real person. You lose a lot of the context that you get in real life.
And at the same time, there has been a lot of research done by “Best Places to Work” that shows that people who are underrepresented, the people who are most likely to experience bias, prejudice, and bullying actually prefer remote work and hybrid work to working in person. So how do you how do you reconcile this data? Why would people prefer a hybrid work environment if they’re more likely to experience bias, prejudice, and bullying? And I think the answer is that there are a lot of people on your team who really don’t feel safe, physically safe at work, psychologically safe at work. And they feel more safe if they’re at home than if they’re in this space that you’ve created for them. So that’s important to be aware of.
Inviting Equal Participation
A more inclusive hybrid environment is one in which you make sure that everyone participates roughly equally. One of the ways that bias shows up is that there are some people who feel more comfortable taking up more than their fair share of the airtime, and this can almost become a form of bullying. We all know those people who come in and they talk and talk and talk, and nobody else has the opportunity to talk. When you are working remotely, it’s really important to quantify the kind of bias. And in some ways, working remotely makes it easier to quantify bias. If you’re having a meeting and you’re on Zoom, and you’re using an AI notetaker, the AI notetaker will tell you what percentage of time each person in the meeting talked. Asking people to use these tools to self-monitor can be one great way to make virtual meetings less likely to be hijacked by that one person who takes up all the airtime. So that’s one of the things you can do.
I think another thing, when you’re in a hybrid work environment, there’s a particular bias that is really useful to be aware of, and that is the bias towards the people who are physically in the room. It’s really hard if you’re on Zoom to get a word in edgewise if there are five people physically together. So make sure you’re going around and giving everybody an opportunity to talk if you’re in a hybrid work environment. You want to make sure that the people who are on the Zoom have an opportunity to talk. You want to make sure that the people who are on the Zoom who are underrepresented are not getting silenced, which I promise you is going to happen. So if you have only one Black team member, and they’re on the Zoom, be extra aware of how hard it is for them to speak up.