As people who work in HR, we continue to see significant transformations across the full spectrum of the working world. It is important that all members of the team feel like they belong. When people feel they fit in, they experience a greater sense of wellbeing. By belonging, I mean being part of a group, a team, a cohort, or a tribe that exists internally or externally.
When people feel they belong, it supports attraction and retention, develops leaders to take a holistic and intentional approach and enables talent to grow and prosper personally and professionally. Belonging enables sustainable performance, guides employer/employee value propositions and delivers on financial metrics that correlate to employee health, wellbeing and fulfillment.
So, where to next for HR? How will we know people feel they belong and what actions can HR or the organisation adopt? The following are seven pillars to be used as platforms to create a greater sense of belonging for yourself or anyone else.
- Lead with purpose. Operate from a foundation of daily purpose, future vision and core values. This takes daily check-ins at all levels. If the leader knows their purpose and how it aligns with the organisation and the team/s itself, then purpose will be obvious as we see leaders asking questions, listening with intention to learn and using their learnings as they go about their daily tasks.
- Empower employees to embrace their authentic selves at work. Allow employees to discover and articulate their purpose, vision, and values in the workplace in authentic ways. Being honest, open and transparent and allowing employees to be who they are, by bringing their whole selves to work is the new work life balance. Employees who are empowered to be who they are become increasingly authentic in their workplace. Authenticity builds on diversity, inclusion and productivity.
- Upskill team leaders and executives. Both executives and team leaders are role models for the entire organisation. Teach them how to coach and empower small teams, make them feel like they belong too. Recognise and reward employees so they can create a higher sense of belonging to their teams and the whole organisation.
- Reward team leaders and hold them accountable. Embed a net belonging score (NBS) into your performance management platform, benchmark progress and amplify success stories both internally and externally. Include this as part of the organisations EVP, measure the employee experience and link it to cultural change.
- Leverage a Trust Accelerator mindset. Advance the journey toward purpose realisation for every team member by regularly investing graciously and kindly in actions that help team members embrace their authentic selves. This will have an accelerated affect on the entire organisation and with time, changes will become obvious and embedded.
- Hold company executives accountable. Evolve executive compensation to hold team leaders accountable for achieving minimum KPIs related to creating and sustaining High-Belonging Teams. Include the compensation up and down and right across the organisation. This ensures a holistic implementation and accountability framework.
- Evolve your employee value proposition. Create a culture that better enables workers to satisfy the human need to belong. Include it from beginning to end of the employee lifecycle and measure its effectiveness by being curious on a daily basis.