Making sure women of color are seen and heard in a remote environment

For many women of color, working from home has helped protect their mental health. Home is a safe space, free of office microaggressions and the pressure to change their appearance or the need to code-switch in a predominantly white environment.   

However, even in a remote setting, bias and discrimination can be present. While women of color are less likely to want to return to the office, they still feel the pressure to remain visible. Proximity bias – which is the tendency for people in authority to show favoritism or give preferential treatment to employees who are closest to them physically – creeps in.  

Making sure remote employees feel a sense of belonging is critical to building a safe, equitable, and inclusive workplace. To help make sure there is a line of visibility for women of color and other historically underrepresented groups, Perfeqta outlined where company leaders and managers can focus their efforts. 

Train managers on addressing recency bias. 

Recency bias refers to our tendency to rely on recent events instead of previous historical observations when making decisions. In the workplace, this can look like a manager giving a leadership position to the person who attends all of the company's happy hours, rather than the remote employee in another state who has proven to be a high-performer. 

Recency bias is one of the toughest unconscious biases for managers to move away from. To combat this, companies can provide trainings to managers on how to:

• Create a standard rubric for measuring employee performance and progress towards their goals. 
• Identify when biases show up in decision-making, communicating with others, and leading teams. 
• Better understand the dimensions of diversity and unconscious bias that stand in the way of fostering inclusive workplaces.

Provide historically underrepresented employees with sponsors in the workplace. 

A lack of sponsorship can keep underrepresented employees out of C-Suite and leadership positions. Sponsors can provide employees with professional development opportunities, connect them with influential people in their network, and advocate for their needs in the workplace. 

Sponsors can amplify professional development opportunities for women of color by making sure leadership recognizes their contributions, regardless of their location. Sponsors can make sure women of color are present in important meetings, are being supported in their roles, and aren’t experiencing burnout trying to reach their goals.

For organizations with Employee Resource Groups, company leaders can make sure ERGs have an Executive Sponsor who is committed to building strategic alignment between ERG leaders and executive leaders. 

Amplify team members’ voices and recognize their achievements.  

In order to create an equitable workplace, companies need to move past superficial activism and move toward action. This requires company leaders and managers to:

• Publicly recognize the achievements of historically underrepresented employees and make sure they’re given credit for their ideas and contributions. 
• Reward employees for reaching their goals and hitting important milestones by providing gift cards, bonuses, catered lunches, wellness days, or hand-written notes. 
• Speak highly of underrepresented employees when they aren’t in the room to help reduce proximity bias and recency bias. 
• Invite historically underrepresented employees to meetings, lunches, and exclusive company events when they’ve reached a goal or important milestone so they’re able to see themselves in leadership positions. 
• Provide employees with a professional development stipend to spend on courses, training, conferences, or coaching as they work towards their goals. 

Provide employees with Career Coaches. 

Connecting your employees with Certified Career Coaches can provide them with a safe space to talk about their career goals and receive guidance on how to improve their communication skills and leadership skills. This 1:1 program can instill confidence in your employees so they feel more comfortable sharing ideas, advocating for their needs, and building relationships with influential leaders. 

Are you ready to build a long-term DEI strategy to help nurture an inclusive workplace and support diverse talent? Perfeqta is here to help.  

Through programming, consistent listening sessions, and an action-driven roadmap, Perfeqta has worked with dozens of organizations that have transformed their company cultures into workplaces where all employees feel seen, heard, and safe. 

Here’s what our DEI strategic consulting services provide: 

• A 3-year Strategic DEI Roadmap with prioritized initiatives 
• A DEI Communications & Engagement Strategy
• Quarterly DEI trainings to educate employees and nurture inclusive behaviors 
• Support establishing or refining a DEI Governance Structure 
• A personal DEI practitioner partnering to support the creation and implementation of the organization’s DEI roadmap 
• A DEI & Employee Experience Discovery Audit for current state analysis  

If you’re interested in working with Perfeqta for a long-term DEI strategic plan, get in touch with our team here.