How HR can promote belonging in the workplace

Do you remember what it felt like to sit alone at lunch in school? (No? Just introverted me?) Well, the adult equivalent may be feeling a lack of belonging in the workplace.

Some 41% of workers believe their workplace is where they feel the greatest sense of belonging (outside of their home), and 56% feel uncomfortable bringing their full selves to work, but 75% have felt excluded, according to an EY survey of more than 5,000 employed adults in the US, UK, Germany, Singapore, and India.

HR teams can help workers feel like they belong, said Karyn Twaronite, global vice chair of diversity and inclusiveness at EY. And it’s a smart business move.

Big biz investment. “[Belonging] sounds like a squishy word, but it’s actually been a tremendous business lever for us,” Twaronite told HR Brew. “It proves valuable for many business reasons, like innovation, employee engagement, productivity, and it improves physical and mental health and well-being, so that’s a real win-win for companies and employees.”

When employees feel a sense of belonging and can confidently use their voice, Twaronite said, they’re more likely to be engaged, and this can have a huge impact on their work, interactions with clients, and ability to innovate and create—and all of this can grow the business and improve the bottom line.

EY considers belonging part of inclusiveness and incorporates it into its DE&I initiatives, Twaronite said. The firm has a DE&I committee made up of 50 global executives from different departments and geographic areas who discuss employee belonging. The feedback from the committee informs the work that Twaronite implements across the firm.

Where you can start. Twaronite said HR can start cultivating a culture of belonging during the recruiting, hiring, and onboarding processes, by teaching hiring managers to treat employees as individuals. Employees will have a greater sense of belonging, she said, if “uniqueness is appreciated” and they can be themselves “fully without conformity.”

And if managers honor this, all employees will feel it, she said.

After employees have been onboarded, HR pros can continue facilitating a sense of belonging by checking in with them. “That doesn’t mean check[ing] up on their work,” Twaronite said, “but checking in with them as an individual.” Employees are more likely to feel connected to their workplace if they feel valued as an individual.

While individualization and value recognition contribute to belonging, Twaronite said highlighting employees’ accomplishments and contributions can also help. Offering flexibility can help, too. Nearly one-half (45%) of employees surveyed by EY said the freedom to choose when and where they work “is a top motivator for instilling DE&I.”

HR pros can also work to prevent what Twaronite called “belonging busters,” or seemingly unintentional or small actions that negatively affect a worker’s sense of belonging.

“The most exclusionary ones are being left out of a meeting when your peers are included, not being recognized for what you’ve contributed to a project…when you’re not included in after-hours events with your peers, [like] birthday parties, celebrations, retirement, or… important networking events,” she said. “Those slights can go a long way to making people feel really excluded.”

Twaronite said that EY surveys employees on a quarterly basis about what is and isn’t working. One quarter, she said, a leader in the firm’s Brazil office gathered from the survey results that employees didn’t feel free to be themselves, so Twaronite worked with him to have belonging conversations to help his team members feel more confident using their voices. These conversations simply started with the leader taking temperature checks on belonging in town halls and regular meetings.

“Sometimes people don’t want or need a lot of things, but they do need to be treated as an individual so that they can really bring their full self to work,” she added.