{"id":37762,"date":"2022-08-23T12:34:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=37762"},"modified":"2022-08-23T12:34:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:34:24","slug":"how-to-ensure-your-remote-workplace-helps-not-hinders-dei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/how-to-ensure-your-remote-workplace-helps-not-hinders-dei\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Ensure Your Remote Workplace Helps, Not Hinders, DEI"},"content":{"rendered":"
Futurist Chris Herd<\/a> recently tweeted, \u201cRemote work should be the best DEI initiative in history. Single parents, people caring for others, health conditions or impairments = office impossible. Everyone should be able to access the best opportunity + it not relying on access to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n True, in theory. While remote work offers an opportunity to make the workplace more diverse, equitable and inclusive, there are also significant hurdles to overcome to ensure no one is left behind.<\/p>\n Being remote can expand what it means to be professional, making the workplace a more comfortable environment for people with significant non-work responsibilities and those who feel they need to perform the hard emotional labor of \u201ccode-switching<\/a>,\u201d or changing to fit in with their colleagues.<\/p>\n No surprise, then, that in a study of 10,000 workers<\/a>, the Future Forum from Slack found a preference for remote work is highest among underrepresented groups:<\/strong><\/p>\n Additionally, when companies go all-in on remote work, they can theoretically hire workers from anywhere, extending opportunities to more people. Lower-income individuals, for instance, can access good jobs without having to move to an area with a high cost of living.<\/p>\n Creating a workplace culture that\u2019s inclusive of all team members is the biggest challenge for DEI initiatives, regardless of whether an organization is remote.<\/p>\n Most employees, like most Americans, live in districts and neighborhoods that are racially, ethnically and economically homogenous<\/a>, despite increasing diversity across the U.S. The presence of diversity without substantive, diverse interactions leaves many employees under-skilled in the cultural competency needed to form an inclusive sense of team unity, to have difficult discussions, make decisions together and evaluate each other without bias.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the office, employees have opportunities to interact with a broader group of employees, including those outside their teams or with a different identity or perspective. Those opportunities are harder to come by in the remote setting, where we can essentially curate our interactions, limiting them to only the people we want to engage with.<\/p>\nHow Can Remote Work Improve DEI?<\/h2>\n
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Big DEI Opportunities, Big Challenges<\/h2>\n