Belonging Is About Knowing You Matter—Here’s How to Create It

This month, I presented a webcast through the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Chamber of Commerce’s Women in Business initiative on the importance of belonging for employee engagement and innovation. In these times of global uncertainty—in which people need to rely on their teams and companies more than ever—this topic has become even more important, with heightened meaning to organizations and the people in them.

Over the past decade, companies and their leadership teams have launched diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives, with goals of driving greater employee innovation and engagement. But when it comes to creating a greater sense of belonging—the gateway for employee engagement, retention, and innovation—many companies are realizing that it’s not enough to invest in D&I. Today’s successful organizations are evolving their D&I initiative to prioritize ensuring that all employees feel welcomed and experience a true sense of belonging at work.

To understand what companies should be trying to achieve by creating a culture of belonging, it helps to parse the distinction between three key terms:

Diversity, according to Gallup, “represents the full spectrum of human demographic differences: race, gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or physical disability.” Anything that makes an individual unique creates diversity.

Inclusion is about a leader’s action and choice: how well an organization succeeds at incorporating those differences so that everyone has a voice. Inclusion is fostered through organizational practices such as hiring and feedback, as well as through practicing behaviors that demonstrate respect and dignity to all. But inclusion comes down to an individual leader’s choice of whether or not to include you. It’s whether those who have power in an organization choose to invite diverse viewpoints to the table, or if your manager values your unique strengths and opts to tap into these.

Belonging is about knowing you matter. When you feel like you belong at work, you know that your manager respects you and has your back, and that your voice will be heard when you contribute. Because of this sense of belonging, you can show up to work authentically, with your whole self.

As Evan W. Carr and coauthors write in their Harvard Business Review article on the value of belonging at work: “Social belonging is a fundamental human need, hardwired into our DNA. And yet, 40% of people say that they feel isolated at work, and the result has been lower organizational commitment and engagement … U.S. businesses spend nearly 8 billion dollars each year on diversity and inclusion trainings that miss the mark because they neglect our need to feel included.”

Carr and his coauthors note that belonging is not only good for employees; it’s also good for business, pointing out the following statistics that affect the bottom-line when people feel a sense of belonging:

• 56% increase in job performance
• 50% drop in turnover risk
• 75% reduction in sick days

The authors noted that these three variables alone would save the company more than $52 million a year.

Another finding was that “employees with higher workplace belonging also showed a 167% increase in their employer promoter score (their willingness to recommend their company to others).”

SHAMBAUGH has also conducted independent research on belonging that helps flesh out this picture. We helped one of our clients—a major Fortune 150 global organization—build upon their existing D&I strategy to cultivate a conscious culture of belonging.

To gather information for this research, we conducted listening tours with the company’s employees in six countries and part of the U.S., focusing on learning about people’s experience at work: career opportunities, meeting dynamics, relationship building, having a mentor or sponsor, receiving manager support in their career, receiving feedback, having access to opportunities, and whether or not they felt that they could bring their true selves to work.

What did we learn? On the positive side, employees really appreciated the fact that the company’s leadership was interested in their well-being, based on its efforts to cultivate a culture of belonging. However, our research unearthed some challenges that the leadership team still needs to solve:

• Many employees revealed that they did not feel comfortable bringing their whole self to work.
• Some expressed that they lacked constructive feedback from their managers.
• In terms of meeting dynamics, some did not feel that their view was valued; they didn’t feel listened to, or felt uncomfortable speaking up for fear of their view not being valued.
• Many expressed feeling that they “didn’t fit in” and weren’t part of the dialogue.
• Lack of confidence came up as a recurring theme among a number of women employees. As a result, many talented women in the company didn’t try for opportunities outside of their current team, and/or failed to speak up, reach out, and build key relationships to support their goals.
• Many pointed to the importance of a manager who “has their back” in helping them to map out their strengths and career goals, and then guiding them toward reaching those goals.
• Employees also valued transparency around relationships—having access to ambassadors and networks to expand their knowledge, and opportunities for mentorship and sponsorship.

In my next post, I’ll share some of SHAMBAUGH’s key practices and recommendations that we offered to this organization for how to improve their culture of belonging—along with other tips and strategies that any company can leverage to help people know that they matter.

Contact me at info@shambaughleadership.com or visit our website at www.shambaughleadership.com to learn about SHAMBAUGH’s trainings in women in leadership, executive coaching, inclusive culture, executive presence, and leadership development.

Rebecca Shambaugh is President of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, Founder of Women In Leadership and Learning. She is an author and speaker on Creating High Performance and Engaged Work Environments Through Equitable and Inclusive Work Cultures. Rebecca is a contributing writer to Harvard Business Review, the HuffPost, and a TEDx speaker. Rebecca has been featured on CNBC, Forbes, Training Magazine, and US News and World Report.  

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