The best employee is not always the one nearest your desk

Proximity bias is the risk of giving more attention, trust or opportunity to people who are physically nearby, regardless of their actual contribution. An office can support useful collaboration. It can also make presence easier to remember than results. The management task is to define the contribution and make relevant evidence visible wherever the work happens.

CIPD's hybrid working guidance discusses proximity bias as a practical risk. Stanford SIEPR's 2025 report on return-to-office plans also cautions against treating prominent corporate mandates as the whole labour market. The wider context keeps changing; neither source proves that a single location policy suits every team in 2026.

Ask what the office day is supposed to achieve

Some work genuinely benefits from shared physical space: particular workshops, equipment-dependent tasks, sensitive conversations or early relationship building. Some needs can be met remotely, and some require a deliberate mix. Name the activity before deciding that all attendance is equally valuable.

If the intended outcome is collaborative problem solving, arrange the people, information and time needed for that work. Asking employees to commute and then spend the day on separate video calls may satisfy a presence metric without delivering the stated benefit.

For a wider choice of working model, read remote, hybrid or office work. This article addresses a different question: once the arrangement exists, how do you avoid confusing the visibility it creates with performance?

Write a contribution standard before reviewing people

Agree the outcomes, quality expectations and collaboration responsibilities for the role. Include work that enables others, such as mentoring, reliable handoffs and resolving a shared problem. Avoid measuring only individually visible output, which can discourage exactly the cooperation a team needs.

Use a record of relevant examples over the review period. A delivered improvement, an avoidable error caught early or useful support for a colleague can be discussed with evidence. “Always around” and “seems committed” need much more explanation before they influence promotion or reward.

Do not replace proximity bias with a crude dashboard. Ticket counts, messages and online status can also mislead. The point is to improve judgment through clearer evidence, not find a new convenient proxy and call it objective.

Check who receives the good opportunities

Promotions are influenced by which work people get to do. Examine who is invited to important discussions, trusted with customers, given a stretch assignment or introduced to decision-makers. If these opportunities are allocated through corridor conversations, a remote employee may be disadvantaged before the formal review begins.

Publish relevant opportunities and explain the selection criteria. Invite interested people to express a preference. Keep access proportionate to the role and business need, while checking whether physical proximity has become an unnecessary gate.

This connects to internal mobility. A company can advertise an open talent market while still allocating the interesting work to whoever happens to be standing beside the manager when the idea appears.

Make meetings usable for the whole team

For mixed-location meetings, ensure remote participants can hear, see relevant material and contribute. Capture decisions in an accessible place. Do not let the formal call end and the real decision happen afterwards among the people still in the room.

Choose the right format for the task. A written proposal can let people consider evidence before a discussion. A difficult or ambiguous topic may need a conversation. Neither asynchronous work nor office conversation is automatically superior; the format should help the decision and the people involved.

Account for time zones and agreed working hours. Repeatedly scheduling important discussions outside one person's normal day creates a practical disadvantage even when an invitation technically exists. Rotate inconvenient times where appropriate and make the decision route clear.

Treat coffee badging as a signal to investigate

Coffee badging usually describes briefly attending the office to satisfy a presence expectation rather than spend the intended day there. It can indicate a mismatch between the rule, actual work and how attendance is measured. It does not, by itself, establish that the employee contributes little.

Clarify the policy and discuss the actual pattern through an appropriate process. Ask whether the office time serves its intended purpose and whether expectations are understood. Avoid turning badge-swipe data into a performance verdict without context or relevant review.

CIPD's wellbeing guidance includes working patterns and job design in its wider framework. The practical implication is to examine the arrangement as a whole: collaboration needs, workload, accessibility and the cost of satisfying the rule. Any policy still needs to meet the organisation's obligations.

Calibrate performance decisions across managers

Ask managers to bring evidence for their judgments and identify what they did not observe. Compare how similar contributions are described for employees in different locations. Watch for an assumption that being less visible means being less ambitious or less available for responsibility.

Review development and promotion outcomes carefully with the appropriate HR specialists. Differences deserve investigation, but a small number of cases does not automatically establish a cause. Combine the data with process review and specific examples of how decisions and opportunities were allocated.

Workday's October 2026 adaptability report adds context on changing work and skills. My recommendation is to keep role expectations current as work changes. An old performance model based on visible activity may become even less useful when AI changes how the activity is produced.

If a promotion discussion is approaching, prepare evidence and a clear request. If the working arrangement itself creates friction, I can help map which activities need live contact and which need protected focus. Tell me what the office policy is meant to improve. That is a better starting point than deciding who owns the most frequently occupied chair.

Questions people ask

What is proximity bias in a hybrid workplace?

It is the risk of favouring people who are physically nearby when judging trust, commitment, opportunities or performance. Reduce it by defining job-related contribution, collecting evidence over time and checking how valuable assignments and decisions are shared across locations.

Does office attendance prove better performance?

No single presence measure establishes contribution. Some tasks require physical presence, and agreed attendance expectations can matter, but performance also involves outcomes, quality and collaboration. Examine the purpose of office time and assess relevant work rather than relying only on badge swipes or visibility.

How can hybrid teams make promotions fairer?

Make expectations and development opportunities visible, capture decisions accessibly and calibrate reviews using specific evidence. Check whether important work is distributed through informal proximity. Review patterns with HR while recognising the limits of small samples and avoiding simplistic activity metrics.