How to Manage Microaggressions While Working From Home (CEO’s Insights)
Microaggressions can be a culture-killer at work. They’re so subtle that they often go unnoticed and may even be unintentional. Today, while most of us work from home, they can be even more difficult to recognize.
A snide comment here, a dismissive glance there, even while video conferencing can lead to unintended negative consequences. Regardless of intent, and especially while we work from home, these microaggressions can quickly undo days, weeks, and even years of culture and relationship building.
A better understanding of what microaggressions are, the new challenges remote work brings, and how to prevent them, will lead to a more inclusive, diverse, and overall better place to work for everyone involved.
What are microaggressions?
By definition, microaggressions are, “a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group.”
In other words, microaggressions are all those little things a person may not mean to say or do that make others feel discriminated against. It could be as small as commenting on the decorations in a person’s room that are important to their heritage (“Hey, what’s that strange statue behind you?”). It could be joking about someone’s appearance (“Wow, someone’s showing a few extra grey hairs today.”).
It could even be commenting on a person’s personal situation in an attempt to be funny (“You’re a better employee than me. I couldn’t get any work done with a screaming kid like that.”).
While statements like these aren’t always meant to hurt someone, they often do.
Why do microaggressions matter?
Microaggressions can do irreparable damage to not only the person on the receiving end but to the entire team and company culture. They’re often compared with paper cuts — while no single cut is likely to be the end of the world, each cut hurts, and their combined effect, especially over time, can be devastating.
One of the most dangerous aspects of microaggressions to a team is that they’re easily overlooked. Microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations, as defined by Columbia professor Derald Wing Sue in 2007, all start with the word “micro” for a reason. No single instance is egregious enough to be set off alarms. Incidents like these rarely call for investigations. Those involved may not even notice them, let alone find it important enough to involve human resources.
The danger to your team lies in the surreptitious nature of microaggressions, a trait often magnified while working from home.
How does working from home affect microaggressions?
Working from home has required that we all become video conferencing gurus. Doing so multiple times a day provides our peers with a window into our homes that we likely never expected. Our employees see our families getting ready for school. Colleagues see our furniture and home decor.
Teammates hear the background noise from our partners or neighbors. We’re all much more aware of it, and go to great lengths to maintain professionalism, but the reality is this: our team sees and knows more about us now.
This new level of exposure, combined with the lack of the office environment’s distractions, amplifies those microaggressions that we may have missed before.
