How Working Remotely Might Reduce Microaggressions

Source: Unsplash/Mimi Thian

The last few years have fully challenged our expectations about how we work, where we work, and why we work. The pandemic, in particular, accelerated new trends. Suddenly, working from home has become the norm, in hybrid and fully remote roles. Companies have found themselves not just allowing, but truly adapting, to a workforce that doesn’t come to the office every day. And most of the conversation, unsurprisingly, has been about how that affects traditional measures of corporate health: for example, employee productivity and company culture. But what if working remotely offers other important, but less pleasant benefits? Specifically, working outside of the office might reduce microaggressions, due to the nature of when and how such behavior arises.

Working from home might have unexpected benefits by removing unwanted dynamics

Like most new behaviors, it can take some time to fully realize all of the benefits and consequences of changed habits. Working from home during the pandemic was mostly considered in the context of a major health event. We focused on how to stay safe, not whether we were being as productive. Then, as the pandemic began to ease, we considered how it affected the positive effects of being in the office: were we connecting with others, mentoring and being mentored, building trust, and other advantages of a shared workplace. But only now are we beginning to realize the ways in which we removed the negative impact of being at work together. In particular, being out of the office may discourage some of the day-to-day minor interactions that can lead to distressing experiences. Microaggressions by definition usually occur as smaller, quieter moments. They can be a verbal or behavioral slight that is relatively subtle but nonetheless hurtful. These experiences happen more frequently in casual interactions. And the reality is, we have fewer informal moments when we interact over scheduled Zoom calls or via online workspaces like Slack.

For example, some of the more common microaggressions at the office are questions or comments that come up in small talk more than in official meetings. People of color, for example, are more likely to be asked “where they are really from” or “complimented” about how well-spoken they are. But those kinds of comments – while never appropriate – probably come up at lunch, or after a meeting, or at some other casual moment. It’s hard to imagine interrupting someone during a presentation to ask a personal question or make an off-topic remark. This doesn’t mean this kind of offensiveness has ceased. But it is possible that it’s more difficult to do it. And in some cases, these microaggressions occur due to ignorance, not malice. The nature of being at the office means we witness each other engaging in non-work-related behaviors. When those actions don’t align with our biases, some of us remark upon it aloud. These so-called small comments reflect bias when someone expects a person—based on their ethnicity, gender, or age—to eat certain foods or like certain types of music. But when we work remotely, we are less likely to see colleagues’ personal choices, and the chance to comment on them is diminished.

Working remotely won’t end bad behavior, but it might discourage it

The benefits of spending less time together aren’t a sufficient reason to stop working at offices. There are many benefits to in-person experiences—including the opportunity to be more sensitive, and responsible ways of interacting with each other. We don’t want to create a reality where we must have obstacles to bad behavior as opposed to holding people accountable for their decisions. That would be like suggesting we never use the camera on Zoom calls because it would reduce racial bias. However, there is some evidence that remote work has helped improve the office environment—by taking away the office. The interesting question might be: Reducing the opportunity for bad behavior could create a long-term shift, even if and when opportunities arise, it may happen less often. Could this new norm change old habits? We won’t know for some time the full effects of working in a new way. It simply takes time to see the long-term impact. In the meantime, it might be a welcome, if unplanned, relief for many employees. If we actually learn and grow from this experience permanently, we could meaningfully change the workplace in ways we never anticipated.