The Promotion Gap: Keeping Remote Workers Within Sight

A promotion gap exists for fully remote employees who are generally overlooked for promotions. Remote workers represent a sizable group with an estimated 33 million American workers operating from home. Recent studies exposed that fully remote workers are 24% to 31% less likely to be promoted than on-site employees.

Woman on virtual call with multiple employees

Recent research conducted by Harvard found that working remotely could be particularly detrimental to the careers of remote workers. Manager bias is one factor to help explain the disparity. Remote workers are viewed as less committed and poor performers when compared with their colleagues. While there is no proof to support this belief, the promotion gap does exist.

The challenge for organizations is to change the mindset of their managers. Those who decide who gets a raise and who gets promoted will need to be trained to recognize performance bias. When managers are presented with employee performance data, hybrid workers are just as likely to receive raises and promotions as full-time in office employees.

However, there is a long way to go before both sets of employees reach compensation parity. There is a long-held belief that the most productive employees are those that put in the longest hours and the maximum amount of facetime demonstrating serious commitment. A supportive workplace culture is important in changing this misperception with managers dedicated to building teams in a virtual environment. Here are some best practices from those who have successfully bridged the promotion gap:

Provide structure – Keeping all employees performing as a team requires a clear structure that includes setting deadlines and defining roles. One such deadline is to set daily goals to keep the employee engaged. Make the goals manageable and achievable for all employees.
Determine eligibility - Determine what the criteria is for being able to work from home. Decide upfront if the employee will be working remotely full-time or will they be dividing time between home and office.
Offer feedback -All employees need to be made aware of when and how performance reviews will take place. Mangers should set up 1:1 scheduled meetings with all reports, not just those working remotely. Employees must know whether they are meeting expectations and what corrective action they can take if they do not.
Invest in personal development – Working at a distance can foster feelings of not being part of the team. Whatever professional development and training is offered in-house must be offered to those working off-site. Investing in remote employees sends the message that there careers matter to the organization. Research has shown that more than 90% of remote workers say that training programs have a positive effect on their engagement with the company.

There is an opportunity for employers to overcome the promotion gap by first recognizing that it exists and then deciding to take demonstratable steps to overcome it. The goal is to create a fair and equitable system for promotion and raises for all employees, not just the ones we see in person every day.

Interested in learning more? Chat with a Connectify HR expert today.