Creating Inclusive Remote Workspaces

"Sorry for messaging." I see this phrase multiple times per day from Filipino team members. They are not apologizing for a mistake. They are apologizing for what they thought was a hassle they are bringing in. This is not about confidence. This is about culture. Filipino workplace communication emphasizes smooth relationships and deference to authority. The concept of "utang na loob" (debt of gratitude) runs deep. When someone helps you or employs you, maintaining that relationship through politeness becomes paramount. Foreign managers often misread this. They see frequent apologies and assume the person lacks confidence or feels anxious about their performance. That is not what is happening. Some examples I see constantly: "Sorry for the inconvenience" when asking a legitimate clarifying question. "Apologies for the delay" when the response came 2 hours later, not 2 days. Multiple apologies in a single message for what amounts to normal work communication. The challenge is this. Remote work requires directness. When someone hits a blocker, I need them to state it clearly and immediately. Not apologize three times before getting to the actual issue. This is what I think works: Model the behavior you want. When someone apologizes unnecessarily, respond with "No need to apologize. This is normal work communication." Reframe apologies into statements. If someone says "Sorry to bother you but I am blocked," teach them to say "I am blocked on X and need guidance on Y." Create explicit norms. Tell your team directly: "Asking questions is part of your job. You never need to apologize for doing your job." Acknowledge the cultural context. Explain that global business communication values directness and that this does not mean disrespect. The goal is not erasing cultural communication styles. The goal is helping your team understand that directness serves everyone better in remote work environments. Frequent apologies are not a performance issue. They are a cultural communication pattern that you can help reshape through clear expectations and consistent modeling.

As a lab for distributed work, we have to stay curious, experiment with new things, and dig deeper—all in the spirit of optimizing work. While modern work continues to evolve, so do we. For our 2024 Virtual First Year in Review, we’ve highlighted some of our biggest learnings and lessons from the year: 1. Focus on the intention—it’s not enough to simply bring teams together; gatherings must be designed with intention and clear goals. Not only did we learn that different gathering modalities can yield different outcomes, but also that the right group size and mix can make all the difference. 2. Reimagine support systems for distributed teams—traditional workplace support systems no longer serve us. To be successful in distributed work, we have to build sustainable ways to support gathering; for us, this is through our Offsite Planning Team and self-serve resources like “Offsite in a Box.” 3. Improve collaboration to bridge digital divides—cross-functional collaboration is vital in modern work, but it can also be really challenging. Certain practices, like calendar-blocking, async communication, and intentional in-person time for cross-functional partners, are key. 4. Personal agency fuels success in distributed work—we learned there is a distinct connection between personal agency and performance. Those with an ownership mindset tend to be our top performers, and they utilize certain tactics and best practices to set themselves up for success. I’m so incredibly proud of our team and the work we’re doing every day. To read more about what we’re learning in Virtual First, you can find our full Year in Review below. What have been your biggest takeaways from navigating modern work? Would love to hear in the comments! https://lnkd.in/eE47jcpN

Following meeting agendas and keeping to agreed break times is my ultimate green flag as a disabled and neurodivergent person. They’re inclusive behaviours that are truly underestimated. “If we skip this break, we can finish 30 minutes earlier than planned.” or “Does anyone mind if I do this agenda in a different order?” Hands up if you’ve said one of the above. I know I have! Agendas exist for a reason. They tell people what they need to prepare in advance and give an idea of what will be discussed. Many attendees will plan their contributions based on the agenda’s order. Changing it at the last minute can be disorienting for many different types of people. Similarly, break times matter. Ideally, meetings should include at least a 10-minute break for every hour and a 45-minute lunch break (preferably an hour) for all-day sessions. More importantly, once break times are set, they should be honoured. Some disabled people plan personal care support around meeting breaks. Others need downtime to maintain focus, take a guide dog out, or step away from the meeting environment for other reasons. They shouldn’t have to publicly share their needs just to access time that was already scheduled. Disabled people shouldn’t suffer because of poor meeting management. If time needs to be recovered or a meeting needs to finish early, adjust the content – not the breaks. #DisabilityInclusion #Disability #DisabilityEmployment #Adjustments #DiversityAndInclusion #Content

Stop wasting meetings! Too many meetings leave people unheard, disengaged, or overwhelmed. The best teams know that inclusion isn’t accidental—it’s designed. 🔹 Here are 6 simple but powerful practices to transform your meetings: 💡 Silent Brainstorm Before discussion begins, have participants write down their ideas privately (on sticky notes, a shared document, or an online board). This prevents groupthink, ensures introverted team members have space to contribute, and brings out more original ideas. 💡 Perspective Swap Assign participants a different stakeholder’s viewpoint (e.g., a customer, a frontline employee, or an opposing team). Challenge them to argue from that perspective, helping teams step outside their biases and build empathy-driven solutions. 💡 Pause and Reflect Instead of jumping into responses, introduce intentional pauses in the discussion. Give people 30-60 seconds of silence before answering a question or making a decision. This allows for deeper thinking, more thoughtful contributions, and space for those who need time to process. 💡 Step Up/Step Back Before starting, set an expectation: those who usually talk a lot should "step back," and quieter voices should "step up." You can track participation or invite people directly, helping create a more balanced conversation. 💡 What’s Missing? At the end of the discussion, ask: "Whose perspective have we not considered?" This simple question challenges blind spots, uncovers overlooked insights, and reinforces the importance of diverse viewpoints in decision-making. 💡 Constructive Dissent Voting Instead of just asking for agreement, give participants colored cards or digital indicators to show their stance: 🟢 Green – I fully agree 🟡 Yellow – I have concerns/questions 🔴 Red – I disagree Focus discussion on yellow and red responses, ensuring that dissenting voices are explored rather than silenced. This builds a culture where challenging ideas is seen as valuable, not risky. Which one would you like to try in your next meeting?  Let me know in the comments! 🔔 Follow me to learn more about building inclusive, high-performing teams. __________________________ 🌟 Hi there! I’m Susanna, an accredited Fearless Organization Scan Practitioner with 10+ years of experience in workplace inclusion. I help companies build inclusive cultures where diverse, high-performing teams thrive with psychological safety. Let’s unlock your team’s full potential together!

Is your leadership's management philosophy stuck in the 1960s? Let's redefine it: Leadership by Being Engaged. The concept of "management by walking around" came from Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (HP founders) in the 1960s, popularized by Tom Peters in 1982, and gets used today to describe what's missing in #remote work. "The expected benefit: by random sampling of events or employee discussions, managers are more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of purpose, productivity and and quality... compared to remaining in a specific office area, or the delivery of status reports." The literal concept doesn't work if your managers have people who are working in multiple locations, now the majority case. 60 to 80% of all "enterprise" company managers now have #distributed teams. 100% of Fortune 500 Execs have teams that are #distributed today, according to Atlassian (kudos Molly Sands, PhD). #RTO mandates rooted in this philosophy are trying to return to a world that no longer exists. Leaders need a both/and approach. Get employees together to jump-start #belonging, and build better #culture and #performance by being involved in the digital #collaboration tools that your teams use every day. Let's redefine a philosophy rooted in co-location into one for the #digital age. Four starting points for leaders looking to get digitally engaged: 🔸 Increase transparency. Internal transparency around clear goals and realistic progress against them drives focus on outcomes, and builds trust. 🔸 Get engaged in the work. Execs need to stop saying "Teams/Slack etc are for the kids; you'll find me in email" and get into the tools people use every day to work through account issues, project updates, and problem solving. 🔸 Participate in digital communities. Social forums at work build belonging. That cuts across everything from an Abilities ERG to Sneakerheads. Finding community at work boosts retention; even leaders need to find that. 🔸 Get a reverse mentor. Being available and engaged digitally can feel foreign as a leader, and initially scary to a team. Find a digital native in your organization who can coach you! What's your take? Retire the phrase, or revive an important concept?

Everyone glamorises global teams. But here’s what most people won’t tell you: It’s hard work. Different time zones. Different expectations. Different public holidays. And if you don’t build with intention, it falls apart fast. Right now, around a third of our team is in the UK. A third in South Africa. And a third in India. It sounds exciting on paper. But sometimes reality tells a different strory... Time zones aren’t flexible for us, they’re fixed. We serve UK clients. That means the team needs to work UK hours. Not some vague “core hours” concept, actual alignment. It’s not about micromanaging. It’s about being available when customers need us. But here’s the flip side, some people prefer it. Especially in India or South Africa. They use their mornings for school runs, life admin, or just time to themselves and start work in the afternoon. It works, if you set the expectation early. Public holidays? Another minefield. Every country has its own list. And no, we can’t shut down every few weeks for every national holiday. So we’ve simplified it. Everyone gets a set number of public holidays. Take them when it matters to you. Skip Christmas if you don’t celebrate it. Take time off for Eid, Diwali, or whatever matters most in your life. Remote work? Great in theory. But isolation is real. Working from anywhere sounds ideal until you start feeling disconnected. We’ve felt it too. That’s why we’re now building in ways for people to connect, virtually and in person. Not because culture can’t exist remotely but because we’re human, and connection matters. Global teams bring fresh thinking, diversity, and reach. But they also bring friction, logistics, and trade-offs. That’s the full picture not the polished version. And if you’re not designing for the challenges, the benefits won’t matter.

Making your meetings Neurodivergent-friendly is crucial for fostering an inclusive and productive workplace while also recognizing and respecting the varied cognitive processes and sensory experiences of your Neurodivergent employees. By adapting meeting structures and practices to be more accommodating, you not only empower Neurodivergent employees to participate more effectively, but you also enrich the quality of discussions by adding a fuller range of perspectives. This type of organizational inclusivity leads to a more collaborative atmosphere overall, where all voices feel heard and valued. Creating Neurodivergent-friendly meetings is relatively low-cost and low effort. It simply means adopting practices that give thought to diverse cognitive styles and sensory sensitivities. Here are a few ways you can get started: 1. Provide a clear written agenda in advance: This allows participants to prepare mentally and manage anxiety as well expectations. 2. Develop a structured meeting format: Include items like designated speaking times, links to related documents, and any rules or reminders. 3. Offer written or recorded transcripts: Post-meeting, make a summary of the meeting available for those who benefit from revisiting information and instructions. 4. Be flexible with communication methods: Encourage written contributions as an alternative to speaking. Also remember to be flexible with required on camera presence. 5. Actively seek feedback from Neurodivergent participants: This allows for continuous improvement in the inclusivity of your meetings, demonstrating a commitment to a welcoming and productive environment for all. Remember, adopting Neurodivergent-friendly practices in meetings can reduce anxiety and stress, which leads to improved well-being and job satisfaction for your Neurodivergent employees. Ultimately, however, embracing inclusive practices like this one not only benefits Neurodivergent individuals but also enhances the overall creativity, problem-solving ability, and productivity of the entire team, driving organizational success by creating equity. Looking for more ways to create AND sustain #DisabilityInclusion in the workplace? Hit the ‘follow’ button! I’m an openly Autistic #DEIB Facilitator and Speaker on a mission to close the disability leadership gap. Want to make your organization truly #inclusive? For Consulting, Speaking, Training & Workshops, email me at Becca@TrulyInclusiveLeadership.com or visit my website https://lnkd.in/ggFshWks Document description: in a dark green background, first pages reads "5 ways to create neurodivergent-friendly meetings", and the remaining pages repeat the 5 tips from text above. #Autism #AutisticAdults #neurodiversity #TrulyInclusiveLeadership

👩🦰 Designing Accessibility Personas (https://lnkd.in/evVnB4hd). How to embed accessibility and test for it early in the design process ↓ We often assume that digital products are merely that — products. They either work or don’t work. That they help people meet their needs or fail on their path to get there. But every product has its own embedded personality. It can be helpful or dull, fragile or reliable, supportive or misleading. When we design it, willingly or unwillingly, we embed our values, views and perspectives into it. Sometimes it’s meticulously shaped and refined. And sometimes it’s simply random. And when that happens, users assign their perception of the product’s personality to the product instead. Products are rarely accessible by accident. There must be an intent that captures and drives accessibility efforts in a product. And the best way to do that is by involving people with temporary, situational and permanent disabilities into the design process. One simple way of achieving that is by inviting people with disabilities in the design process. For that, we could recruit people via tools like Access Works or UserTesting, ask admins of groups and channels on accessibility to help, or drop an email to non-profits that work in accessibility space. Another way is establishing accessibility personas for user journeys. Consider them as user profiles that highlight common barriers faced by people with particular conditions and provide guidelines for designers and engineers on how to design and build for them. E.g. Simone, a dyslexic user, or Chris, a user with rheumatoid arthritis. For each, we document known challenges and notable considerations, designing training tasks for designers and developers and instructions to simulate experience through the lens of these personas. By no means does it replace proper accessibility testing, but it creates a shared understanding about what the experiences are like. You can build on top of Gov.uk’s profound research project (https://lnkd.in/evVnB4hd) — it also explains how to set up devices and browsers, so that each persona has their own browser profile. Once you do, you can always switch between them and simulate an experience, without changing settings every single time. All Accessibility Personas (+ Tasks, Research, Setup) https://lnkd.in/evVnB4hd Accessibility doesn’t have to be challenging if it’s considered early. No digital product is neutral. Accessibility is a deliberate decision, and a commitment. Not only does it help everyone; it also shows what a company believes in and values. And once you do have a commitment, and it will be much easier to retain accessibility, rather than adding it last minute as a crutch — because that’s where it’s way too late to do it right, and way too expensive to make it well. [Useful pointers in the comments ↓] #ux #accessibility

Neurodiversity 101: Making meetings more neuroinclusive Meetings are meant to bring people together to share ideas, make decisions, and build connection. Yet, for many neurodivergent colleagues and often for others too meetings can be overwhelming, confusing, or simply unproductive. Have you ever been to a meeting and wondered why you were there or what was expected of you? Whether online or in person, more inclusive meetings benefit everyone. They create clarity, structure, and safety for diverse thinkers to contribute meaningfully. Here’s how to make meetings more neuroinclusive: 1. Clarity before you start Share the purpose, agenda, timing, and who’s attending where possible in advance. Make clear if attendance is optional or essential and what preparation, if any, is expected. Sending materials early gives everyone time to process and plan. 2. Structure supports inclusion Outline how questions will be handled and what turn-taking looks like. Minute key actions and share them promptly. End by explaining what happens next. Predictability reduces anxiety and ensures accountability. Be aware of the 'quiet ones' in the room and ensure everyone can participate. 3. Inclusive communication Use clear, plain language avoid “acronym fests.” Pause regularly to check understanding and invite clarification. Remember, silence doesn’t mean disengagement; some people need more time to formulate ideas. Some people may need time after the meeting to come back with their responses too. 4. Online inclusivity Show participants how to use platform features like captions, transcripts, or chat. Encourage written contributions and offer the option to keep cameras off to reduce sensory load/allow movement/ or just not seeing your own face all the time! Provide recordings or transcripts afterwards so people can review at their own pace. 5. Make space for every voice Avoid putting people on the spot. Allow time after the meeting for those who prefer to reflect before responding. Remember: the “quiet ones” may hold the most valuable insights. **Small changes, big impact Microaggressions — such as dismissing someone’s idea or using “humour” that excludes can and do erode trust. Inclusion grows when meetings feel psychologically safe and respectful. Neuroinclusive meetings are not just a “nice to have.” This is a universal design concept in action. They are cost-effective, efficient, and fair improving engagement, retention, and creativity. When everyone can contribute in their own way, we get better decisions and stronger teams. 🟣 Inclusion isn’t about changing people. It’s about changing the conditions so people can thrive. Can you add any other ideas of what works too?

What is your view about anonymised recruitment? We are increasingly asked to work in this way, but I can't help but feel it can remove the essence of the candidate. Anonymised recruitment aims to reduce bias by removing personal details from the hiring process so that decisions focus solely on skills, experience, and suitability for the role. This often involves removing information such as names, addresses, gender, photos, and sometimes education dates. Reviewing applications should then take place without access to any identifying information. Recruiters and hiring managers should be encouraged to assess candidates based purely on their relevant experience, achievements, and qualifications. To support this, it helps to use clear, job-related selection criteria and to communicate these criteria consistently across the recruitment team. Structured and standardised interviews also play an important role. Preparing a set of predetermined questions linked directly to the role’s competencies allows each candidate to be assessed fairly and consistently. Any form of informal questioning that may inadvertently reveal personal details unrelated to the job should be avoided. Supplementing interviews with skills-based assessments—marked anonymously—can further ensure that decisions are grounded in evidence of capability. It is also beneficial to involve a diverse interview panel, as this reduces the influence of individual biases and encourages more balanced decision-making. Providing training on equality, diversity, and unconscious bias helps ensure that everyone involved understands both the purpose and the principles behind blind recruitment. Ongoing monitoring is essential. Regularly analysing recruitment data can help identify patterns or stages where bias may still be creeping in, allowing organisations to refine their processes accordingly. Gathering feedback from candidates and hiring managers can also highlight opportunities for improvement. Ultimately, embedding anonymous recruitment practices should not be about eliminating all human judgement but about creating a system where that judgement is as fair, objective, and inclusive as possible. Over time, it is hoped that these practices contribute to a more diverse workforce and a more transparent hiring culture.