Proximity Bias in Hybrid Teams: How Managers Allocate Opportunities and Appraisals Fairly Between Office and Remote Staff

What is proximity bias, and where does it show?

Proximity bias is the tendency of people in authority to favour employees who work physically close to them; a common example is rating office-based staff more highly than remote workers regardless of results. ^[1] The bias needs no bad intent: it is enough that the manager sees some employees every day, hears about their achievements in the corridor and asks them for help because they are nearer.

It usually shows up in three places: high-profile tasks handed out in passing conversation, information and decisions that reach those in the office before everyone else, and appraisals that reward the person the manager saw working rather than the one who delivered. A manager may hand out an important task during an office chat, then treat its outcome as proof of the office-based employee’s initiative, without noticing that the remote colleague never had the chance.

This article focuses specifically on fairness in opportunities and appraisal. The rhythm of follow-up and building trust in hybrid teams more generally is a separate topic.

Why does this deserve management attention?

Hybrid working remains widespread. In CIPD’s 2025 survey, 74% of organisations said they had hybrid working in place, compared with 84% in a similar 2023 survey, and the ability of managers to lead teams effectively was among the areas employers most often said hybrid working had affected negatively. ^[4]

The evidence suggests the problem lies more in perceptions than in performance. In a randomised trial of 1,612 employees at a Chinese technology company in 2021-2022, published in Nature, hybrid working cut quit rates by about a third, with no effect on performance reviews or promotions over the following two years. Strikingly, the participating managers estimated before the trial that hybrid working reduced productivity by about 2.6%; afterwards they estimated an increase of about 1%. ^[3] In other words, a manager’s view of remote staff may be worse than reality, and that is exactly what feeds proximity bias.

An SHRM article reported a Future Forum survey of 10,000 white-collar workers in which more than 4 in 10 executives ranked inequities between remote and office-based employees as their top concern. ^[1]

How do you allocate opportunities fairly?

The basic rule is that an important opportunity is never handed out in a side conversation. The SHRM article advises against reserving the most interesting projects and development opportunities for office-based staff, and recommends considering when team members in different time zones are available before announcing new opportunities. ^[1]

In practice:

• Announce opportunities in a shared channel, with a description of the task, the experience required and a deadline for expressing interest.
• Write the selection criterion before looking at names, so criteria are not shaped to fit a particular person.
• Keep an opportunity log: who applied, who was chosen and why.
• Offer small experience-building tasks to those who missed earlier opportunities, so “previous experience” does not become a permanent barrier.

Hypothetical example

A manager at a Gulf organisation reviewed his team’s nominations for a new project and noticed that last year’s high-profile tasks had gone mainly to staff at head office. Checking the record showed that most invitations had been verbal, and branch staff had learnt of some only after work had begun. The team agreed to announce every opportunity in the shared channel with two days to express interest, to define the experience required, and to set aside a sub-task in each project for someone building experience. The opportunity log was added to the team’s quarterly review.

Hybrid meetings: where are remote staff sidelined without anyone meaning to?

Many decisions are made in the minutes before or after a meeting among those in the room, or in a side discussion that people on the call cannot hear. The SHRM article recommends bringing remote employees into important meetings, encouraging them to speak on calls, and setting clear protocols for involving them so they do not feel excluded. ^[1]

Practical rules for hybrid meetings:

• Send the agenda in advance so remote colleagues can prepare as well as those in the room.
• Give someone the role of facilitator for those on the call, bringing them in rather than leaving them to wait for a chance to interrupt.
• No decisions after the call ends: if discussion continues in the room after the meeting, it is not a decision until it has been put to everyone.
• A written summary of decisions and responsibilities reaches everyone at the same time.

When most of the team is in the room and only a few are remote, that is the situation that needs the most attention, because the majority in the room easily forgets those who are not in front of them.

How do you appraise performance without rewarding visibility?

CIPD explains that objectives motivate and improve performance when they reflect a clear view of good performance, and that subjective assessments should be reliable and valid. ^[5] On proximity bias specifically, an SHRM article on appraisals suggests setting clear performance criteria, holding regular one-to-ones with everyone including remote staff, giving specific examples rather than vague feedback, making the review a two-way dialogue, discussing career progression honestly and training managers on this bias. ^[2]

Add one simple question for yourself at each appraisal: if this employee sat next to me every day with the same results, would I give the same rating? If the answer is no, go back to the written evidence.

When is attendance a legitimate requirement?

Preventing bias does not mean abolishing attendance. Some tasks need on-site presence for operational reasons, such as serving visitors or working with equipment or sites. What matters is that this requirement and its reason are written clearly when the task is announced, so everyone knows the choice rested on the role’s needs and not on who happened to be in the office when the decision was made.

Rules on remote and flexible working differ between Gulf countries and between the government and private sectors, so check your organisation’s policy and the competent authority in your country before deciding who may work remotely and on what terms.

How do you track the effect?

Each quarter, compare how high-profile opportunities, appraisal ratings and training nominations are distributed between people in similar positions, both office-based and remote. Do not stop at the numbers: look at the nature of the role, available capacity and who expressed interest. If an unexplained gap appears, examine the process rather than the people: how the opportunity was announced, when, and who knew about it.

Make the review part of how the organisation works rather than a manager’s personal initiative. Where there are several hybrid teams, HR can collect the same data for every team and present the results to managers together, so each can see their team’s distribution alongside others. Share the results with the team in aggregate form that does not reveal individual ratings: knowing that the distribution is reviewed regularly builds trust in the process and encourages remote staff to put themselves forward rather than assume opportunities are already decided. CIPD says managers need to be suitably skilled and supported by fit-for-purpose HR practices to manage performance. ^[5]

Conclusion

Proximity bias is not cured by good intentions alone, but by procedures that make opportunities, information and appraisal independent of where people sit. Announce opportunities to everyone, write criteria before names, and review the distribution regularly against the evidence.