---
title: Fostering Inclusive Remote Workplaces
teaser: 'Learn strategies for fostering an inclusive culture when working remotely.

  '
tags: remote,inclusivity,culture,eq,playbook
author: Hawley Brett
published_on: 2020-04-13
---

In these times, many teams are now figuring out how to best work together
remotely, perhaps for the first time. As we’re thinking about strategies for
remote work, it’s important to consider how we can make our remote workplaces
inclusive. This is especially important now because many people are not only
dealing with the abrupt change to remote work, but also may be balancing child
and family care, or dealing with any number of changes and difficulties due to
the pandemic.

The good news is that as we shift to working remotely, we can practice
strategies to help make our meetings, processes, and cultures inclusive. This is
going to be a time of change, and one thing we can do that’s positive is to look
towards ways we can grow. We should be open to ideas about how we can better
work together and foster an inclusive remote working environment. We should be
empathetic, compassionate, and understanding of others. At thoughtbot, we
already have in our playbook some resources on inclusivity, including a
[printable pdf for running inclusive
meetings](https://tbot.io/inclusive-meetings-pdf),
and [guides on inclusive
culture](https://github.com/thoughtbot/guides/tree/main/inclusive-culture),
but with the shift many companies are making to remote work, I want to share
some strategies for fostering inclusivity that are especially relevant to
working together remotely.

## Running remote meetings

### Use the chat to say “next” to line up who speaks next

It’s important that everyone in a meeting gets a chance to offer their ideas. In
a remote meeting, this can be challenging when there’s lag between talking, or
there are more people in the meeting than you can see on screen at one time.
Ideally, everyone should be able to speak uninterrupted.

One strategy is to use the chat feature in video conferencing apps to say “next”
when you want to talk. Then, people speak in order of the list. This ensures
that everyone will get a turn to speak, and it’s important to really stick to
it, rather than speaking out of turn. If you do speak out of turn and realize
you’ve done so, you can simply say sorry and wrap up to let the next person go.
To manage the next up list, either participants can keep track of when they’re
up next and jump in, or, after one person is done speaking they can call out the
next person to go.

### Switch who takes notes

Switch around who takes notes, so one person doesn’t become the default note
taker, which can be a microaggression if it’s happening consistently. If there’s
a rotation instead, you can share the responsibility evenly.

### Step up, Step Back

This one may be familiar! We include it in our [inclusive meeting
guidelines](https://tbot.io/inclusive-meetings-pdf),
and it’s worth remembering as we shift to remote -- “After you speak, let others
speak. If you are speaking often, make sure others have had a chance to say
something.” The way this translates to using the “next” in line strategy is that
you should be mindful if you’re saying “next” more than others, or, if you want
to speak up more, feel free to jump in more often with a “next”.

### Include the young people

If children/young people at home are curious about the big party going on on the
screen, let them be introduced and check out what’s going on. They’re not going
to remember the IP anyway! Be understanding if they’re running around in the
background of a video, or a parent needs to tend to them. We were all thrown
into suddenly being at home, so it’s good to be understanding of whatever that
means for your colleagues.

## Managing Schedules

Scheduling meetings should be inclusive too. Many people are adjusting to new
schedules right now. This might be especially true for parents who have kids at
home. And if you’re used to being in person at the office, it may feel harder to
know what your teammates’ schedules are like. Keep in mind these tips when
scheduling meetings in order to bring everyone in.

### Use a calendar app

If everyone is in the office, it’s easier to know if someone is available. While
remote, using a calendar app is crucial.

Block out your schedule on the calendar so that your colleagues can see when
you’re available (and, importantly, when you’re not). If you’re feeling like
meetings are getting scheduled at times that are unsustainable for you, consider
blocking out more time to let your teammates know your schedule. For example,
people might schedule you for a meeting at 11, noon, and 1 -- but then when are
you going to have lunch? Adding “Lunch” to your calendar will help show your
teammates that you’re going to be taking a break then. Keeping your schedule up
to date will help you establish your schedule, and it's a courtesy to your
teammates for when they are looking to schedule meetings.

When you’re booking a meeting, look at your colleagues’ calendars to find a time
that fits for everyone. Check their time zones to make sure you’re not asking
them to come to a meeting outside of their working hours, or ask them when a
good time would be if you’re unsure. Be understanding about rescheduling, since
we’re all adjusting to very abrupt changes, and many are caring for children at
home.

### Invite everyone who should be there, avoiding silos

In an office it might be easier to get everyone together. When scheduling remote
meetings, make sure you’re inviting all relevant people. You don’t want to be
having side conversations and leaving colleagues out of discussions. Instead,
aim so that everyone is able to participate.

### Respect people's hours, and work at a sustainable pace

Often when working remotely, people struggle with maintaining boundaries around
when they are working, and when they're not. We can help each other maintain
these boundaries by not pressing others beyond their stated boundaries. That
means things like not sending messages outside of work hours, finding meeting
times that work for everyone, and using asynchronous communication tools as much
as possible.

If you're a manager, consider allowing for flexible schedules, and lead by
example by not pushing people to respond to messages outside of their hours.
Recognize also that [working remotely is a
skill](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/working-remotely-is-a-skill) in and of
itself, and skills take time to learn and cultivate. Allowing for some
flexibility for adjusting to remote work will help improve the team's ability to
do good work at a sustainable pace -- otherwise, people will be on track towards
burnout.

While this may seem like general remote working advice, I wanted to include it
in the discussion on inclusivity, because no-one can really show up to work, as
themselves, or fully, if they're being pushed too far, especially in this time
of transition. Moreover, the effects of the pandemic will likely hit people
differently based on respective privileges -- people dealing with anything on
top of the transition to remote work, like housing insecurity, child or elder
care, struggles with mental health, or even having less space in their home to
work versus others, are going to be hit harder. It's important that we all
respect one another's boundaries and be sympathetic to what colleagues might be
going through. Don't assume that your colleagues have the same privileges as you
might have, which might make it easier for you to work remotely or at certain
times than it is for them. What you can probably safely assume is that this
situation is really hard for most people, and thus we should seek to be
empathetic and compassionate in all our interactions.

## EQ & Remote Communication

At thoughtbot, I recently joined the Emotional Quotient task force (EQ - like
IQ, but to be honest I didn’t get the reference at first because there are so
many acronyms these days, you never know)! And though not an expert in this
topic, I think that EQ is an ever more important skill to cultivate as we go
remote.

### Slow down, over-communicate, and consider the impact of your words

When communicating over text, it can be hard to determine tone and other subtle
forms of communication, like facial expressions and body language. This means we
should all slow down to consider the impact of our words, and make sure that
we're using language that is clear and respectful. If you've typed something and
have pause about how it could be read, that's probably a time to step back,
analyze the text for implicit or explicit bias or offensive content, and adjust
it to instead be clearly stated and free from biased assumptions. If you think
of a joke that might offend someone, it's probably wise to not make the joke at
all. Think about how you can make sure that your intent matches the impact of
your words. If they don't match, and either you realize it or somebody points it
out, apologize and make a commitment to do better going forward. Remember that
impact is more important than intent -- even if you didn't intend to offend
someone, if you did end up doing so, you should take responsibility for that
impact. This is of course all true in in-person communication, but when working
remotely, and in these stressful times, you should be especially mindful of how
your words will be received.

In remote communication, it can also be helpful to assume good intentions if
someone comes across in a negative way. That should not be at the cost of
holding people to account for what they say. But if it's a situation where
you're comfortable doing so, you can ask for clarification if you think somebody
said something they didn't mean or wouldn't wish to imply, giving them a chance
to clarify or apologize. Doing so can help create a cultural norm of resisting
discrimination and harassment, which is a great norm to have. Of course, if
somebody has crossed a line, it's on them, and not you, and appropriate actions
should be taken. Assuming good intentions doesn’t mean giving a pass on
inappropriate behavior. Rather it’s just a good place to start for resolving
minor miscommunications and trying to understand where someone else is coming
from, especially when we don't have other contextual clues like we do for
in-person communication.

### Set up Slack to promote inclusive language

Relatedly, one way we encourage inclusive language at thoughtbot is by setting
up our Slack to detect when exclusionary terms are used, and to respond with
suggestions for what else to say instead. For example, if you say "lame", which
is stigmatizing, the slack bot will suggest other words, in this case, "boring"
/ "uninteresting" / "monotonous" / "uncool". We all may make mistakes, but we
can cultivate a culture of inclusion by acknowledging them and learning how to
do better. The slack bot is one way to help make it cultural norm to call out
biased language and teach inclusive language instead. [Here is the list of words
we currently use for
replacements](https://gist.github.com/lady3bean/a5c2305ad291cff7a13b397466817f5c).
It's not exhaustive, but everyone on the team can add to it over time. You can
set up your own replacements under `your-slack-
workplace.slack.com/customize/slackbot`.

## Be open to change

If you don’t already have a venue where your team can propose changes to
processes and company culture, it’s ever more important now to have one.
Probably, most companies don’t already have a playbook for switching to 100%
remote overnight! And with people adjusting to the circumstances, it’s really
important to listen to what they identify as ideas for improvements.

At thoughtbot, we use Github issues on our company handbook as a place where
people can make suggestions and have discussions about how we do things. We also
have a monthly chat in each of our studios, where we reflect on how we’re doing
and have space to ask questions. Making space for these types of conversations
will allow for ideas to be shared and new strategies to be identified.

At a former job, we built in time in our weekly sprint planning for reviewing
any company process or norm people wanted to talk about. We didn’t always take
that time, but it was important to have a dedicated space for it, because that
encourages these types discussions to happen, and invites everyone in. Overall,
we should be looking for ways that everyone can contribute to our new remote
work cultures.

We’re going to be dealing with lots of changes -- to our work, our home lives,
our emotions, our world. To some extent, these changes won’t be under our
control. But we can take this opportunity to make sure we change in ways that
are positive, and ways that grow our teams to be even more inclusive, even more
compassionate, and even better at teamwork and collaboration.