Last week of the quarter. You're reviewing your quarterly recognition reports, and something feels off. The same names keep appearing — mostly people working on the same building as you. And your remote team in Denver? Two recognitions in three months. A little bit of digging reveals that your field managers who haven't set foot in headquarters since 2022 are almost invisible.
Before you reach your conclusions, let me tell you this: This pattern isn't because your managers or others giving out recognition are bad people. It's because recognition systems built for the office don't work for hybrid teams. You're dealing with proximity bias — and it's quietly undermining your entire engagement strategy.
I get this. I once watched a brilliant remote employee get passed over for recognition three quarters in a row while her in-office counterpart received monthly shoutouts for nearly identical work. Nobody noticed until she resigned.
The story I shared is from 2005, when remote work was an anomaly. Two decades later, hybrid workplaces is the new normal. According to Robert Half's 2025 research, 88% of U.S. employers now offer at least some hybrid options. And Gallup's 2024 data shows hybrid employees report the highest engagement rates at 35% compared to just 27% for fully in-office workers. So hybrid workplace are here to stay. The question is whether your recognition practices will catch up before you lose the people you can't afford to lose.
Here's the problem with proximity bias: it's invisible until it isn't.
SHRM research reveals a troubling pattern — two-thirds of supervisors acknowledge treating remote employees differently than their in-office counterparts. What is even more concerning is that according to Select Software Reviews' analysis of proximity bias, 42% of managers admit they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks.
Not intentionally. Not maliciously. They just... forget.
This isn't a management failure. It's a design failure.
When your recognition systems rely on visibility, water-cooler conversations, and "catching someone doing something great," you've built a system that structurally disadvantages anyone who isn't physically present. Aka your remote and frontline teams.
The business impact is significant. Research cited by Hubstaff found that remote employees are 38% less likely to receive bonuses than their in-office counterparts. They report feeling overlooked for promotions, excluded from key decisions, and disconnected from the recognition moments that make work meaningful.
And when employees feel invisible? They leave. Research from Workhuman and Gallup found that high-quality recognition could prevent 45% of voluntary turnover.
That's not a small number. That's half your retention problem potentially solved by fixing how you recognize people.
The inequity runs deeper than individual missed moments. According to YaRooms' workplace analysis, 67% of supervisors see remote employees as more replaceable than in-office employees, highlighting how managers often confuse visibility with value.
When certain team members consistently receive more attention and recognition based on physical presence rather than performance, it creates resentment. Remote workers start to disengage. Collaboration suffers. And the hybrid model that was supposed to give you the best of both worlds becomes a two-tiered system where location determines who gets seen and who gets forgotten.
So how do you build recognition practices that work for everyone regardless of where they sit?
Here's my take: It starts with acknowledging that traditional recognition doesn't translate to hybrid.
The spontaneous "great job in that meeting" that happens in the hallway? Your remote team never hears it.
The manager who notices someone staying late and mentions it in the next team meeting? That visibility doesn't extend to home offices in different time zones.
Equitable recognition requires intentional design.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
The right digital recognition platforms create a shared space where appreciation travels across geography.
When a manager in Chicago recognizes a team member in Phoenix, everyone sees it — not just the people who happened to be in the room. This visibility matters. It signals that contribution, not location, determines who gets celebrated.
As HR Cloud customer Danielle Nickerson noted about the Kudos feature: "It allows our Associates to provide peer to peer recognition across the company and encourages a culture of gratitude."
Build recognition into the workflow, not around it
If recognition depends on managers remembering to do it, proximity bias wins. The people managers see daily get recognized. The people they don't see... don't. Instead, integrate recognition into existing processes.
After project milestones.
During performance check-ins.
Following client feedback.
When recognition becomes part of how work happens — rather than something slapped on as an afterthought — it becomes more consistent across the entire team.
Enable peer-to-peer recognition at scale
Here's something managers often miss: peers see contributions that leaders don't. The colleague who helped debug code at 9 p.m. The team member who jumped in to cover a call during someone's family emergency.
Peer recognition captures these moments and it reduces the dependency on manager visibility that creates inequity in the first place. Teamflect's 2025 research found that among remote employees who receive regular recognition, 57% report higher motivation and commitment to their team.
Track and audit recognition patterns
You can't fix what you can't see. Pull your recognition data. Look at distribution by location, by team, by work arrangement. If your remote employees are receiving significantly less recognition than in-office staff, that's a signal that your systems that aren't capturing their contributions.
Organizations using HR Cloud's Workmates platform report 97% monthly active usage and measurable improvements in engagement visibility across distributed teams. Check it out now.
I need to be honest with you: even the best recognition platform won't solve this problem if your managers don't know how to use it.
Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workplace report shows that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. That's an enormous number. It means your recognition culture is only as strong as your weakest manager, and in hybrid environments, many managers simply weren't trained for this.
Managing distributed teams requires different skills. Recognizing people you don't see daily requires different habits. And most managers are still operating on instincts built in fully co-located workplaces.
Here's what effective manager enablement looks like:
Train managers on recognition equity specifically. Don't assume they understand proximity bias. Name it. Show them the data. According to Inc. Magazine's analysis, in-office employees are more likely to receive public praise simply because their work is more visible, not necessarily because it's better. Help managers see how their natural patterns might be inadvertently favoring in-office employees. Then give them specific practices to counteract it. Like reviewing recognition distribution monthly or scheduling deliberate time to acknowledge remote contributions.
Create recognition prompts and reminders. Managers are busy. Recognition slips. Build triggers into your systems that prompt managers to recognize team members, especially those they haven't acknowledged recently. This isn't about forcing inauthentic recognition; it's about creating space for recognition that might otherwise get lost in the daily chaos.
Model recognition from leadership. Your managers watch what executives do. If senior leaders only recognize people they see in person, that's the standard you're setting. Make remote and hybrid recognition visible at the leadership level, and you'll see it cascade through the organization.
And here are 100+ Recognition Message Templates your managers can start using immediately. Just copy and paste.
Will implementing these practices eliminate proximity bias entirely? No. Will it solve every recognition challenge in your hybrid workforce? Absolutely not.
Here's what won't change: Humans are wired to notice what's in front of them. Managers will always have to work harder to recognize people they don't see regularly. And some recognition moments — the spontaneous celebrations, the impromptu acknowledgments — will remain easier in person.
And that is alright to some extent because employees opting for remote work, know the downside of their choices.
But here's why it's still worth doing: The organizations that figure this out gain a massive competitive advantage. Right now, according to Gallup, only 23% of employees globally are engaged at work. That's an enormous opportunity. Companies with highly engaged teams see 51% lower turnover, 23% higher productivity, and 68% improvement in employee wellbeing.
Recognition is one of the highest-leverage tools you have to move those numbers. But it only works if it reaches everyone and not just the people who happen to work near the executive suite.
The data is clear: Workhuman and Gallup's joint research found that employees who receive recognition fulfilling even one key pillar — whether it's authentic, personalized, or equitable — are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged than those who receive recognition meeting none of these criteria.
That's a nearly three-fold improvement from getting even one element right.
If you're reading this and thinking, "This all makes sense, but I don't have time for a massive recognition overhaul," I hear you.
Here's where to start:
This week: Pull your last quarter of recognition data. Look at distribution by work location. If you don't have this data, that's your first problem to solve. You need visibility into the patterns before you can change them.
Download this free Recognition Program Starter Kit if you are want to start with a fresh set of eyes.
This month: Have a direct conversation with your managers about proximity bias. Share the SHRM stat — two-thirds of supervisors treat remote employees differently. Ask them to reflect on their own patterns. Make it safe to acknowledge that this is a challenge, not a character flaw.
This quarter: Evaluate your recognition systems. Are they designed for hybrid? Do they enable visibility across locations? Do they support peer recognition? If not, it's time to consider platforms built for distributed teams. Solutions that make recognition accessible on mobile, visible company-wide, and consistent regardless of where employees work.
The companies that get recognition right in hybrid environments won't just retain their talent. They'll attract the best candidates in a market where flexibility is now a baseline expectation. High5's analysis of job satisfaction data found that nearly 25% of employees say flexibility determines whether they stay or start looking elsewhere.
Here's what I know from watching organizations navigate hybrid for the past several years: The companies that succeed aren't the ones that figured out the perfect office-to-home ratio. They're the ones that redesigned their systems—including recognition—to value contribution over presence.
Your remote employees aren't asking for special treatment. They're asking to be seen for the work they do, the same way their in-office colleagues are seen. That's not a perk. That's equity.
And when you get it right, ie.
when recognition travels across locations
when managers notice contributions regardless of proximity
when peers celebrate each other's wins in shared digital spaces
you don't just solve an engagement problem.
You build a culture where everyone belongs.
That's worth the effort.
Ready to build recognition practices that work for your entire workforce? Explore how Workmates helps distributed teams celebrate wins, recognize contributions, and build culture across every location, whether your people are in headquarters, home offices, or out in the field.
Industry benchmarks suggest 1-2% of payroll. SHRM research shows companies investing at least 1% see up to 85% improvement in engagement. For hybrid teams, ensure your budget covers mobile-accessible platforms that reach distributed employees equally.
Shift from live recognition moments to asynchronous visibility. Use digital platforms that timestamp appreciation so everyone sees it regardless of when they log in. Rotate meeting-based announcements and ensure reward options include locally relevant choices for different regions.
Use the formula: [(Benefits – Investment) / Investment] × 100. Track turnover reduction (replacement costs run 6-9 months' salary per SHRM), absenteeism rates, and engagement scores before and after implementation. Most programs show positive ROI within the first year.
Weekly. Gallup shows weekly recognition dramatically increases engagement versus annual recognition. Yet 40% of employees receive recognition only a few times yearly. For hybrid teams, use async methods like quick messages or peer shoutouts.
Frontline workers need mobile-first platforms, offline capability, and peer recognition that captures contributions managers don't witness. HR Cloud's work with Veolia — 10,000+ field employees — shows mobile accessibility drives adoption where desktop-only systems fail.
Specificity and timeliness. Reference the exact contribution, explain its impact, and deliver recognition close to when work happened. Enable peer recognition because colleagues witness details managers miss, making appreciation feel genuine rather than performative.
Yes. Workhuman and Gallup research tracking 3,400+ employees found high-quality recognition made workers 45% less likely to leave. The key qualifier: recognition must be authentic, personalized, and equitable.
Mobile accessibility with full functionality, company-wide visibility across locations, peer-to-peer recognition, analytics segmented by work arrangement, and integration with existing communication tools matter most for hybrid teams. HR Cloud's Workmates reports 97% monthly active usage through mobile-first design.