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.

The problem in most hybrid teams is not that people are not working; it is that the manager cannot see the work. In Microsoft’s special report on hybrid work, which surveyed more than 20,000 people in 11 countries in 2022, 87% of employees said they feel productive, while only 12% of leaders said they have full confidence that their team is productive. The report called this gap “productivity paranoia”. ^[1]

Employer surveys show the same effect. In the CIPD’s 2023 employer survey, managers managing remote teams from a wellbeing and performance perspective was the second most cited challenge (41%), just behind getting people back into the office when needed (42%) and ahead of the impact on collaboration and creativity (35%). ^[2] In the 2025 report, managers’ ability to lead teams effectively remained one of the areas employers were most likely to say hybrid working had affected negatively. ^[3]

The practical conclusion: leading hybrid teams is a different skill, built on clarity, rhythm and documentation rather than presence and observation.

From presence to outcomes: what should you actually track?

When people are out of sight, managers tend to measure what is easy to see: log-in times, the green status light in the chat app, speed of reply. These are indicators of activity, not delivery. GitLab’s guide for remote managers advises prioritising impact over activity and not encouraging long hours or weekend working. ^[5]

Microsoft’s report suggests shifting the question from “are people working enough?” to “are they working on what matters most?”. It found that 81% of employees think it is important for managers to help them prioritise, yet only 31% said their manager had given clear guidance in one-to-ones. ^[1]

So, at the start of each work cycle, write down three things for each team member:

• Expected outcomes: what must be delivered, to what quality standard and by when.
• Priority: what comes first if tasks conflict.
• Decision limits: what they decide alone and what needs to come back to you.

What follow-up rhythm works?

A fixed, published rhythm removes the need for surprise calls that make people feel watched. The idea is that everyone knows when they will be asked and about what, so they come prepared.

A few notes on this rhythm:

• The daily update is written, not a meeting: three lines on what was done, what is next and what is blocking. This lets the team move forward without everyone being online at the same time, which is the essence of asynchronous working and depends on strong documentation. ^[4]
• The one-to-one belongs to the employee: it is not cancelled when you are busy, and it starts with what they want to discuss. GitLab’s guide stresses its value and recommends a weekly one-to-one to build trust; if you choose fortnightly for a settled team, do not let the gap grow longer, and leave room for informal conversation that builds the relationship. ^[5]
• The monthly review is about results, not people: the indicator against target, and what needs intervention.

When should you choose a live meeting? GitLab’s guidance suggests synchronous time for urgent matters and incidents, live troubleshooting, brainstorming, relationship-building and final discussions before important decisions, with the outcomes recorded in writing. ^[4] The rest can usually happen in writing.

The team agreement: written rules instead of assumptions

Most friction in hybrid teams comes from unstated expectations: a manager who expects a reply within minutes, and an employee who thinks end of day is fine. The fix is a short document the team writes together and reviews every few months.

Office days deserve their own place in the agreement. In Microsoft’s report, 73% of employees said they need a better reason to go in than company expectations, and 84% said socialising with co-workers would motivate them. ^[1] So write down the purpose of each office day, such as planning, workshops or welcoming new joiners, and do not let it become a day of video calls taken from the office.

The CIPD recommends involving employees in designing hybrid working practices, setting clear and transparent rules on who is eligible, and monitoring how decisions are made and applied, with continual review. ^[2]

Remember that the agreement sits inside your organisation’s regulatory framework, which differs between countries and sectors. In the UAE federal government, Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2020 governs the remote work system, and entities decide which jobs are eligible in coordination with the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources. ^[6] In the private sector, or in other Gulf countries, check your organisation’s policy and the competent official body in your country, such as the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in Saudi Arabia.

How do you build trust without surveillance?

Microsoft’s report found that hybrid managers were more likely than in-person managers to say they struggle to trust their employees (49% versus 36%) and that they have less visibility into their work (54% versus 38%). ^[1] Poor visibility easily turns into poor trust; the remedy is to create visibility in a way that does not damage trust.

Five practices help:

1. Make work visible through documentation: a shared task board and written decisions, so nobody needs to ask “where are you up to?”. ^[4]
2. Agree a communication rhythm with each person: frequent check-ins without agreement can feel like surveillance, and people differ in how they prefer to be managed. ^[5]
3. Be honest and clear: 85% of employees in Microsoft’s report ranked authenticity as the top quality a manager can have in supporting them. ^[1]
4. Ask for feedback and act on it: employees who see their feedback drive change report higher satisfaction. ^[1]
5. Plan informal contact: corridor conversations do not happen by default when people work remotely. ^[5]

How do you protect fairness between office and remote staff?

The hidden risk in a hybrid team is that whoever sits closest to the manager gets the high-profile work and the recognition, simply because they are more visible. The CIPD recommends assessing equality and inclusion risks with an action plan, and making learning and development, reward and recognition equally available regardless of where or when people work. It also sees significant risks in paying a premium to those who attend the workplace, because this could disadvantage groups such as disabled people and carers. ^[2]

In practice:

• Run hybrid meetings with one set of rules: if some attendees are remote, everyone joins through the same platform and questions are taken in turn.
• Review each quarter who received the work that is visible to senior leadership.
• Record achievements in a shared place before the annual appraisal, so you do not rely on memory.

Training managers themselves is worth the investment. The CIPD recommends equipping them to lead flexible and hybrid teams in performance management, remote communication, collaboration and relationship-building, and employee development and progression. ^[2]

Hypothetical example: a service team split between office and home

Hypothetical example: a section head leads a team of eight, half of whom attend the office three days a week. She was calling those working from home several times a day; they felt distrusted, and transactions were delayed because priorities were unclear.

She changed three things. She set monthly goals for each person in terms of transactions completed and turnaround time, replaced the calls with a daily written update and a fortnightly one-to-one, and used the shared office day for planning and reviewing difficult cases. Two months later, her conversations with the team were about delayed transactions and their causes, not about who was online and when.

Conclusion

Leading hybrid teams starts with clarity: written outcomes, published priorities and a follow-up rhythm everyone knows. A team agreement and good documentation then create the visibility that builds trust, and fair access to opportunities stops the team splitting into those in the room and those on the screen.

OKRs (objectives and key results) are a way of stating what an organisation wants to achieve and how it will know it has done so. The objective is simply what is to be achieved, ideally concrete and inspiring. Key results measure progress towards it: they should be specific, time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, and measurable and verifiable, so it is clear whether each one was met. ^[1]

The usual formula is “I will (objective) as measured by (key results)”, with three to five key results under each objective and, typically, a quarterly cycle. The method began at Intel under Andy Grove, and John Doerr introduced it to Google’s founders in 1999. ^[1]

How do OKRs differ from government KPIs?

Government entities in the Gulf do not start from scratch. In the UAE, for example, the General Framework for Government Performance Management sets out linked levels of indicators: national indicators, strategic indicators that measure whether a federal entity achieves its strategic objectives, operational and service indicators, and government enabler indicators. It requires at least two strategic indicators per strategic objective. ^[4]

The framework calculates achievement as the actual result divided by the target, and the ADAA system colour-codes it: green above 95%, yellow from 75% to 95%, red below 75%. ^[4] These thresholds appear in the version of the framework written for the 2017-2021 strategic cycle, so confirm the ones your entity currently applies. ADAA has evolved through several versions since its launch in 2008, and on 9 July 2025 the Proactive Government Performance System was launched, using AI analytics to track targets and the implementation of national strategies. ^[5]

So OKRs should not be presented as a replacement for the official KPI system. A KPI tracks performance that must be sustained and for which the entity is held accountable; an OKR states what management wants to change over a short period. Other GCC states have their own national frameworks and bodies for measuring government performance, so check the one that applies in your country before designing an extra layer.

Why would a government entity need OKRs at all?

Government policies and directives are often written as actions rather than outcomes, leaving appointed and career officials to translate them into measurable targets, and the intended result can be lost in translation. ^[3] OKRs help turn a directive into a result the public can notice.

The same source distinguishes between OKRs written by policymakers alongside the policy itself and OKRs written by the implementing agency when the policy arrives without measurable results, which it says is often the case. ^[3] The second kind is what most government departments need: a team that knows the directive and has to decide what will change this quarter.

Steps for implementing OKRs in a government entity

1. Start from the approved plan: every OKR should serve an existing strategic objective or official indicator, so staff can see how their work fits the whole picture, which the UAE framework pursues by linking levels through cause and effect. ^[4]
2. Choose a few priorities: Google recommends three to five objectives with around three key results each. ^[2] In the first cycle, start with one or two departments and fewer objectives.
3. Classify every objective: a committed objective is expected to be delivered with a passing grade; a stretch objective may not be fully met and may span more than one cycle. ^[1] Label each one, because departments that depend on your work need to know they will get only about 70% of a stretch objective. ^[2]
4. Write results that describe impact, not activity: “launch a platform” is an activity; “70% of applications completed online” is a result.
5. Check in regularly: Google describes a mid-quarter check-in that shows each team where it stands and an end-of-quarter check-in that prepares for final grading. ^[2] Ask each key-result owner to state their confidence in achieving it, not just the percentage complete.
6. Grade and learn: Google scores each key result from 0 to 1 and takes a rough average for the objective. ^[2] More important than the score is recording why something slipped and carrying the lesson into the next cycle.

Hypothetical example: a municipal licensing department

The department already has an official strategic KPI on customer satisfaction, and this quarter it wants to improve trade-licence renewal for small businesses. The figures below are illustrative inputs:

If the quarter ends with 60% of renewals online and processing at two and a half days, that is good progress on a stretch objective, yet it would show as yellow, meaning behind, if entered unchanged into a traffic-light system designed for committed targets. That is why the two layers must be kept apart.

What are the main pitfalls?

Mixing stretch goals with traffic lights

Google treats a grade of 60% to 70% as the sweet spot for stretch OKRs ^[2], whereas the UAE framework’s colour scale marks anything below 75% as red. ^[4] Grade stretch objectives by the same standard and managers will quickly learn to write safe ones.

Tying OKRs directly to rewards

What Matters describes OKRs as divorced from compensation, and Google says they are not synonymous with employee evaluations. ^{[1, 2]} Some government systems, however, build them into individual appraisal. In the UAE, Cabinet Resolution No. (161) of 2025 on the Injazati system, in force since 1 January 2026, sets three to five OKRs for each federal employee, each with two to five KPIs. OKRs make up 80% of the appraisal for leadership roles, 70% for supervisory, expert and special-grade roles and 60% for technical and administrative roles, and achievement below 65% of target is rated “unacceptable”. ^[6] In that case, keep individual objectives committed and realistic, and keep stretch objectives at team level, outside individual appraisal.

Business-as-usual OKRs

Mistakes Google identifies include OKRs that restate current work rather than priorities, objectives that can be met without real effort, low-value objectives that would not matter even if achieved, and too few key results to reveal a miss early. ^[2]

Too many objectives and mechanical cascading

Cascading objectives mechanically from sector to department to section to employee produces hundreds of OKRs and destroys focus. Limit OKRs to the levels that genuinely need coordination.

Excessive secrecy

At Google, OKRs are public so that everyone can see what others are working on. ^[2] In a government entity it is enough for departmental OKRs to be visible internally to related departments; that exposes conflicts and dependencies early.

Checklist before launching the first cycle

• Every objective is linked to a named strategic objective or official indicator.
• Each objective has one owner, and each key result has a known data source.
• Every objective is labelled committed or stretch, and the label is visible.
• Key results describe impact on the customer or service, not activities.
• The way scores are read is documented and, for stretch objectives, differs from the traffic-light system.
• Mid-quarter and end-of-quarter reviews are in the calendar.
• The relationship with the employee appraisal system that applies in your country is clear and written down.

Conclusion

In a government entity, OKRs are a tool for deciding what must change this quarter, not a new measurement system competing with official KPIs. Link them to the plan, classify each objective, and keep stretch goals away from traffic lights and rewards, and you will get real improvement instead of safe numbers.

A manager says “You need to be more professional”, and the employee hears a judgement of who they are without knowing what is expected. A general statement does not describe behaviour that can be changed, and it pushes the listener to defend themselves instead of thinking about their work.

Feedback does not always work either. CIPD’s evidence review notes that a classic review of hundreds of feedback instances found a positive effect overall, yet performance got worse after feedback in more than a third of the studies. The difference often lies in how it is delivered and how the recipient reacts. ^[3]

What is the SBI model?

The Situation-Behaviour-Impact model was developed by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) to give clear feedback that reduces anxiety for the giver and defensiveness for the recipient. CCL adds a fourth step: asking the employee about their intent. ^[1]

1. Situation

Pin down the time and place: “In this morning’s 11 am team meeting”. Avoid “always” and “every time”; they invite an argument about exceptions instead of a conversation about the situation. ^[1]

2. Behaviour

Describe only what you saw or heard, as a camera would record it. “You interrupted me while I was presenting the budget item” describes behaviour; “You were rude” judges the person. ^[1]

3. Impact

Explain what followed from the behaviour: for the work, the team or you. “I lost the thread of the presentation and approval of the item was delayed” is clearer than “That annoyed me” on its own. ^[1]

4. Intent

Ask an open question, such as “What were you hoping to achieve?” or “What was going on for you?”, then listen. You may find the employee was trying to correct a wrong figure in the presentation. The question turns one-way feedback into a conversation and can open a development discussion. ^[1]

How do you reword your usual feedback?

The new wording is longer, but it answers the employee’s question before they ask it: “What exactly do you mean?” It also separates the person from their behaviour in one specific situation.

What does the evidence say about effective feedback?

CIPD’s review sums up the research in points a supervisor can apply: ^[3]

• Specific beats general: detailed feedback on the task, its requirements and results works better than comments on overall performance.
• Explain why: negative feedback is more effective when it explains why performance fell short.
• Fairness drives acceptance: employees accept and act on feedback more when they see it as consistent, accurate and unbiased, and when they can respond.
• Source credibility: feedback carries more weight from someone who knows the job, saw the performance first-hand and is trusted.
• More is not always better: in one study, professionals who received monthly feedback improved more than those who received it weekly; quality matters more than frequency.

That explains the value of SBI: it forces you to be specific, ties the feedback to an impact on the work, and leaves room for the other person.

When should you give feedback?

CCL recommends giving feedback regularly rather than saving it for the annual review; some of the most valuable feedback is given in the moment about everyday behaviour. ^[2]

Still, choose the setting. Corrective feedback is given in private; positive feedback can be given in front of the team if that suits the employee and the team culture. And do not give feedback while you are angry; wait until you can describe the behaviour without judgement.

A hypothetical example from a Gulf workplace

An employee in the procurement section has twice this month sent the bid comparison late. Her supervisor might say:

“Last Tuesday, the comparison of bids for the equipment supply arrived two days after the agreed date. As a result, the purchasing committee postponed its decision to the following week. What happened on your side with this file?”

She might reply that one supplier sent an incomplete bid and she waited for it to be completed. The conversation now moves from “being late” to “what do we do when a supplier is late?”: Should she tell her supervisor earlier? Should the section set a final deadline for suppliers? That outcome would never have surfaced if the conversation had opened with a judgement.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Talking about personality: “You’re hasty” instead of describing what happened.
• Saving it all up: opening a long list of old incidents in one session.
• Written messages for sensitive feedback: email loses tone of voice and closes the door to asking about intent.
• No follow-up: feedback with no agreement on what will change and when you will review it.
• Neglecting positive feedback: specific praise tells the employee what to keep doing, and the same model works for it. ^[2]

Conclusion

Before any piece of feedback, write three sentences for yourself: the situation, the behaviour and the impact, plus a question about intent. That minute of preparation makes the conversation shorter and tells the employee exactly what is expected.