Top 10 Practices for Building Inclusive Remote Work Structures

When teams are spread across the globe, building an inclusive and cohesive workforce requires intention and effort. While remote work offers many benefits, fostering a sense of belonging and equity in a decentralized workforce requires special strategies that bridge time zones and geographic divides. 

Certain practices and tools can help companies overcome the logistical challenges of building cohesive teams. By using technology to gain insights, implementing data-driven belonging efforts, and setting well-supported goals, even fully remote teams can create the connections and understanding necessary to promote a healthy, inclusive work environment.

Common Remote Work Inclusivity Challenges

In the years since the world took a pandemic-era crash course on remote work, we’ve learned a lot about how to make working from home successful and productive. We’ve also identified some of the most prevalent challenges leaders face regarding promoting inclusion goals while managing a remote workforce.

No Opportunity for Casual Interactions

At best, remote work changes the natural interpersonal communication occurring in the workspace. At worst, it eliminates it altogether. While casual chats may not boost productivity, they are important for team-building and community. 

When employees in diverse teams connect on a personal level, they can collaborate more effectively, increasing innovation, engagement, and retention. 

Visibility Silos and Recognition Gaps

Recognizing and celebrating employees in a remote environment can be challenging, yet failing to do so can lead to culture silos. 

Without intentional culture-building in a remote setting, teams may become insulated from other departments’ success or colleagues’ accomplishments. Creating a culture of recognition through communication channels helps everyone feel more connected. 

Cultural Misunderstandings

Without organic exchanges natural to physical workplaces, remote teams might struggle with cultural misunderstandings that become roadblocks to inclusivity and teamwork. 

For example, during virtual trainings, a team member from one geographic area might use sarcasm or self-deprecating humor to attempt to connect. However, colleagues from cultures where communication is more direct may interpret these remarks literally. 

Cultural gaps paired with the difficulty of inferring tone via a screen can cause confusion. Boosting cross-cultural understanding through good communication can help remote workers overcome this obstacle.

Social Isolation

While the allure of home-based work appeals to many, it can take a toll on mental health. Without an on-site role, some team members may feel isolated due to a lack of informal social interactions. 

A third of remote workers say their biggest struggle is staying home too much since they don’t have a reason to leave. Loneliness is the next most common struggle, with 23 percent of remote workers citing it. Building remote socialization and providing strong communication channels helps teams overcome these challenges. 

Inequity in Information Sharing

Research from Zoom shows that 75 percent of employees feel their company’s communications technology needs upgrades. Yet despite tools like Airtable, SharePoint, and Slack helping remote workers collaborate and organize tasks, information silos are still a persistent issue. 

Without proper communication practices, important information might get ineffectually or inequitably disseminated, leading to some team members being uninformed. Overcommunication and regular check-ins can help get all team members on the same page even if they can’t meet face-to-face. 

10 Remote Work Practices To Incorporate for More Inclusion

The success of an inclusive remote work structure relies on strong systems, intentional leadership, and excellent communication. Creating and disseminating policies around remote practices can help alleviate struggles that cause friction within organizations. 

The following tips for inclusive remote work environments address common pitfalls of remote or hybrid work to foster a more inclusive workplace culture. 

1. Document and Implement Inclusive Policies

Documenting and implementing inclusive policies provides clear guidelines to ensure all team members understand expectations and feel valued. Policies should cover communication norms, accessibility resources, and equitable opportunities for growth.

2. Budget for Remote Work Success

Allocating a dedicated budget for remote work success is essential. This includes investing in technology, providing stipends for home office setups, and funding professional development. Financial support boosts productivity and demonstrates a commitment to employees’ comfort and career advancement.

3. Ensure Parity in Remote Benefits

It’s crucial that remote employees receive the same benefits as their in-office counterparts, including health insurance, paid time off, and retirement plans. Parity ensures team members feel valued and supported, promoting a cohesive and motivated workforce.

4. Implement Inclusive Hiring

An inclusive remote hiring process is essential to building a diverse and dynamic remote team. Inclusive hiring involves actively seeking candidates from various backgrounds, ensuring accessible job postings, and using unbiased screening practices. This approach fosters innovation, reflects a global customer base, and enhances problem-solving.

5. Practice Remote Employee Recognition

Practicing remote employee recognition is crucial for maintaining morale and motivation. Acknowledging accomplishments, celebrating milestones, and providing feedback through virtual channels ensures employees feel appreciated. Even in a dispersed work environment, recognition reinforces positive behaviors, fosters a culture of appreciation, and strengthens team cohesion. 

6. Establish Flexible Work Policies

Flexible work policies help staff members create work-life balance. Accommodating diverse needs opens the door for a broader applicant pool, increases job satisfaction, reduces turnover rates, and helps level the playing field for those with mobility challenges or invisible disabilities.

7. Build Open Communication Channels

Open communication channels are vital for a successful remote work culture, promoting transparency and collaboration among team members. Tools like instant messaging, video calls, and project management software help teams stay connected, ensuring everyone stays informed and engaged.

8. Implement Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)

Creating and supporting employee resource groups (ERGs) is a powerful way to support diversity and inclusion. These groups offer a platform for remote team members with shared characteristics or interests to connect and support each other, enhancing team cohesion and promoting a more inclusive workplace culture.

9. Create Blended Learning Opportunities

Blended learning opportunities integrate traditional learning methods with digital platforms, allowing remote teams to access a range of resources and training modules. This approach accommodates different learning styles and encourages continuous personal and professional development, fostering a culture of growth and adaptability.

10. Encourage Remote Socialization

Building social relationships within the office is important to creating a stronger company culture. Virtual coffee breaks, online team-building games, and video all-hands meetups can bring people closer even when they’re geographically distant. 

How To Gauge Remote Workplace Inclusivity 

To learn more about your current DEI programs or get tips for increasing remote inclusion, use the following steps to evaluate and invest in DEI for your remote teams. 

Analyze Baseline Diversity Data

Collecting and reviewing comprehensive workforce information helps organizations understand gender, race, age, and disability demographics. An initial analysis serves as a foundation for developing targeted strategies to enhance the culture of inclusivity and ensure employees feel supported.

Solicit Employee Feedback

Soliciting employee feedback through remote workplace surveys, interviews, and open forums helps organizations understand inclusiveness as employees experience it. Team member feedback provides insights into DEI initiatives and practices, enabling leaders to evaluate the company’s culture.

Identify Gaps and Opportunities

Examining baseline data also provides a clearer view of areas needing improvement. Identifying gaps helps organizations set realistic and impactful goals to foster a more inclusive workplace, helping drive innovation while improving retention and employee engagement metrics.

Use Technology To Identify Insights

Leveraging advanced analytics and AI-powered tools can help reveal insights into how diversity initiatives impact workplace culture and performance. These technologies analyze vast data sets, revealing patterns and trends unavailable through anecdotal evidence. By harnessing deep insights, companies can promote inclusion and make informed decisions that enable the many business benefits of diversity.

Monitor Diversity Metrics

Establishing clear, measurable goals for recruitment, retention, promotion, and employee satisfaction across different demographics ensures accountability and provides a framework for assessing the impact of diversity initiatives. 

3 Companies Using Technology to Promote Inclusion

Want to see the power of a centralized, data-driven inclusiveness program at work? These businesses used informational insights and accessible diversity education to promote DEI practices for better performance, improved employee satisfaction, and increased innovation. 

1. Guild

When an organization focuses on providing better education, skill-building opportunities, and career advancement, equitable practices become even more important. Guild partnered with Paradigm to use blended learning to increase inclusion. The partnership helped create a common DEIB foundation for every employee and aided the company in understanding how individual contributors could enhance and promote diversity initiatives. 

Guild took a top-down approach to the effort, educating senior leadership on biases, allyship, harassment, anti-racism, microaggressions, and other important topics, empowering them to champion the efforts. 

• The company boosted employee understanding of its DEIB goals by over 30%. 
• It promoted its DEIB tools and values through online and in-person trainings, allowing every employee to access information. 

2. Hologram

Cellular platform leader Hologram knew growing its headcount and operations required refining remote hiring processes to ensure equitable and efficient hiring at scale. 

The team used Paradigm’s consultancy services to assess current hiring practices and craft a new end-to-end playbook to ensure equity in talent acquisition. In part, this called for process changes to root out unconscious bias affecting the talent pool and access to employment opportunities. 

The company also focused on upskilling current employees, giving them tools and resources to improve their DEIB approach. Through online and live learning, Hologram imparted universal access to information and skill-building tools to increase engagement with DEI goals. 

• Hologram ensured an equitable hiring process and raised its percentage of underrepresented groups to almost 30%. 
• The company ensured people of color, women, and gender-diverse employees had equal access to technical roles during expansion, overcoming systemic barriers that traditionally keep these groups out. 

3. Advent International Global Private Equity

With 215,000 employees in 35 companies, private equity firm Advent International needed a way to enable long-term diversity initiatives across a portfolio. 

With the support of Paradigm and AI-enabled insights from Paradigm Blueprint, Advent set and monitored vital metrics over a three-year partnership. The firm evaluated DEI efforts in each company and created a tailored consulting approach to help the entire portfolio achieve better outcomes. 

• Advent realized a 9% increase in DEI maturity, taking action on over 50 recommendations to further its diversity goals. 
• Of the 15 companies that took advantage of the assessment, 14 saw improvements in their DEI maturity score. 
• The firm used the insights from Blueprint to build more equitable benefits, strengthen inclusive leadership, and improve employee experience. 

Leverage Diversity Training and Achieve Inclusive Remote Work Metrics With Paradigm

Whether your team is fully remote, hybrid, or decentralized, Paradigm’s diversity platform and expert consultants can help you craft a cohesive culture. To get more information about leveraging our blended learning platform and analysis tools, schedule a demo of Paradigm Reach and Paradigm Blueprint today. 

January 13, 2025

To learn more about building inclusive remote teams, contact us today!