The Belonging Gap

We have a Belonging Gap in the workplace and it’s something leaders need to spend a lot more time thinking about. (click here to watch my video) Belonging is when team members feel a true sense of community at work, believe they can bring their full values/self to work and where they feel seen/valued for who they really are. The experience of belonging has strong links with engagement, retention and performance yet in a hybrid/virtual workplace with a workforce with high expectations, many organizations are at a loss on how to create belonging.

The desire for belonging isn’t new. When I wrote my first book Awakening Corporate Soul (1994), we interviewed over 1,000 people about their best times at work. One of the four trends that emerged was community - when people felt a deep connection at work and felt they could be themselves, they thrived. But while the desire isn’t new, the workplace has changed. We have a more diverse, less in-person and a higher expectation workforce. In 2023, 83% of employees said that being seen as a person was important to them but less than 45% said they felt that way (Gartner Future of Work Trends). Diversity is critical but belonging is essential. Unless people can bring their full self to work and feel included, diversity won’t help us. There’s the gap.

I could spend hours talking about creating belonging, which I do in my in my new talk, The Power of Connection - Creating Belonging in the New World of Work - but here are three top tips:

First, manage people as an “n” of one. The people who work for us are not a category, they are a unique individual, the confluence of a set of rivers that made them who they are. We need to take the time to know people - their values, their purpose, their needs and what matters to them at work. We can’t create belonging if we don’t take the time to know people. In fact, the perception that my manager knows me as a person is a strong driver of engagement.

Second, belonging takes intentionality. Leaders complain that the virtual/hybrid workplace makes creating community harder, and they are right. So, we need to be even more intentional about it. We need to create space in meetings for personal connection, we need to truly touch base with people not just manage tasks and we need to be intentional about what we do when people are in the office.

Third, we need to understand that people are motivated by their values, not ours. Research shows that when people say I “get to live my values” at work they engage and stay. We spend too much time on the company values (important as they are) and nowhere near enough time understanding the purpose and values of those we lead. Once we get their values and purpose, we can help them connect that to what the organization does. That is where the magic begins.

Finally, we need to create spaces that are safe for people and ideas that are different. Diversity brings richness but without a truly safe environment to be different or to differ, almost all the benefits of diversity are lost.

So, how is belonging going where you work? How are you creating belonging with your team? We would love to hear some of the ways you are creating belonging in the new world of work.

Please watch the video and let me know. And keep on leading.