What if you could:
- Increase employees’ job performance by an average of 56%
- Reduce their sick-day call-ins by 75%
- Cut workforce turnover by 50%
“Higher performing workers who stick around longer” sounds like a no-brainer. In fact, the most recent definitive studies—many cited in the Harvard Business Review, among other publications—show there’s a single factor in the business world that achieves all of these benefits. Fortify this foundational aspect of your company culture, and you’ll see the payoff in your corporate treasury.
What is this mystery ingredient? The secret to supercharging your workforce?
Belonging.
A sense of belonging is vital to maintaining an engaged and productive workforce. But it’s not easy to create, and glib efforts to declare it have a record of backfiring.
What belonging really means, and why it’s hard to build
“Belonging” is often discussed in social contexts, but what does it mean in a business context? As described by the Academy to Innovate HR, “belonging means that employees feel seen, heard, respected, and valued …. Belonging in the workplace ensures that employees not only see themselves represented and treated equitably but also experience acceptance, a meaningful connection, and commitment to their team and organization.”
According to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America workforce survey, 94% of respondents reported that it’s important to them that their workplace be somewhere they feel they belong. A prior study from Ipsos, a global market research company, also found 88% of respondents agreed that a sense of belonging leads to higher productivity at work.
Why “work as a family” is a problem
For years, employers have tried to sell their employees on the idea that they are one big, happy family. But, as articles in Fast Company and elsewhere have pointed out, the dynamics of work relationships and real family relationships are simply not the same.
And when we-are-family statements are followed by events that betray a pure bottom-line focus, they fall flat. Recent organizational actions – including mass layoffs, stagnating wages, and eliminated pensions – combined with the rising cost of living have left employees interpreting attempts from organizations to make them feel like family as mere window dressing.
In a seminal 2014 article on this topic in the Harvard Business Review, “Your Company Is Not a Family,” LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and coauthors wrote, “Using the term family makes it easy for misunderstandings to arise.” In the event of layoffs, for example, “Regardless of what the law says about at-will employment, employees will feel hurt and betrayed—with real justification.”
Subsequent research has confirmed this assertion. Many workers have become wary of their employers. Just 53% of employees trust their organization, according to Gartner, and a 2024 Gallup poll paints an even grimmer picture: Just one in five employees strongly agreed with the statement “I trust the leadership of this organization.”
How to build genuine belonging in the workplace
It’s a conundrum: belonging has real payoff, yet corporate efforts to build it often backfire.
So how do organizations create real belonging in a working world defined by mistrust and skepticism?
First, accept the current state of employee trust. Then, chart a new course focused on actions first, communication second. Here are eight ideas to create genuine belonging.
