Let’s Talk About: Belonging
Belonging is an often overlooked dimension of diversity.
Bonavox is in the business of change management so we’re asking the question: How do you change a company’s culture to include belonging? Here is what our team of experts, who have over two decades of experience in diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DI&B), have to say.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Katherine Wallace (KW): In a prior client engagement I surveyed employees and asked what it meant for them to belong. The most common response I heard was that belonging means feeling heard and being valued for who you are and what you bring to the workplace. There are a lot of different ways this gets coded in the workplace, from education level to dress code to racial identity. I remember one woman saying she knew early on at the company that she belonged there because she saw in a meeting that people could express dissenting opinions. That told her it was okay to belong.
Ron Kraft (RK): Diversity of thought is another dimension of diversity we don’t often consider. And I want to distinguish here between belonging and homogeneity. They are not the same and actually one serves to diminish the other. But I’m curious why should a company care about belonging in the first place?
Samantha Curley (SC): This is perhaps somewhat obvious, but when people feel like they belong, when they feel valued, they bring their best ideas and are motivated to contribute to the success of the team. I imagine this is a big driver for why a company would want to think about belonging.
RK: You need a catalyst too, right? What causes a company to start asking these questions? For an organization to pivot and put a greater emphasis on belonging, there needs to be thought leadership. There has to be someone driving it, and that person either needs to be the CEO or have the ear of the CEO. I think that you also need to look at your hiring practices, right? If you're trying to create a certain cultural shift, one of the ways that you change the culture over time is by hiring people who fit your vision for the future.
“You can’t change what you don’t measure.”
SC: Hiring is crucial, but you also have to consider how to shift the culture of the people who are already there. If adjusting your hiring practices is one way to create cultural change, you need separate tactics and strategies to do this for the people who have been around for a long time.
RK: Yes, this makes me think about how you create reward systems for people to change their behavior. That's another way of getting people to be part of a cultural pivot.
KW: You can also create inclusive behaviors through training.
SC: How about meetings? I think meeting culture – the format, structure, and expectations of meetings (whether explicit or implicit) – speak directly to belonging. Changing your company’s meeting culture can go a long way to creating culture change across the board. Also, how feedback is given.
Daniela Peltekova (DP): I don’t have as much experience in diversity and have been quite curious about the distinctions between inclusion and belonging. I can speak from my personal experience of not having been brought up or raised in the United States. I have an accent and the questions people ask (or don’t ask) inform how much I feel like I belong somewhere.
KW: We have different kinds of stereotypes about different accents. In a corporate environment, Daniela, someone might assume you’re highly educated because of your accent. But would that be the case if your accent was from a different, non-European country?
“For an organization to pivot and put a greater emphasis on belonging, there needs to be thought leadership. There has to be someone driving it, and that person either needs to be the CEO or have the ear of the CEO. ”
RK: I’m thinking about how most companies know exactly how many women work for the company, in which departments, and which levels of leadership. The same for Black employees, and others from different racial or ethnic backgrounds. But disclosing that information is another question.
KW: Yes, some companies are very transparent about it and some are not. What's more difficult, though, is you can’t change what you don’t measure. There are many dimensions of diversity that are hard to measure. For example, in my current engagement we are thinking about people who are disabled and how we make the workplace more inclusive so they feel like they belong. Disability is difficult to measure and most often needs to be self-reported. Are there avenues for employees to self-report this kind of information? And do they feel secure doing so?
RK: So we talked about hiring practices, compensation practices, training, and meeting cultures. What other ways can you drive cultural change in an organization?
KW: I’d say transparency about who you are and where you have to go.
“Adjusting your hiring practices is one way to create cultural change, but you need separate tactics and strategies to drive change for the people who have been around for a long time. ”
SC: I think it it's about being transparent, but also being explicit. And if you're not going to be explicit about where you are currently, at least being explicit about where you want to go. Letting the entire company rally around a vision is a powerful way to change culture. Like we talked about with political discourse in the workplace, you have to make commitments and then actually take action steps towards them. Lip service will never drive cultural change.
RK: I agree. Lip service just makes people cynical about any effort to change the culture.
A diverse and inclusive workplace – where all employees feel like they belong – is worth the effort.
Not because people are watching and counting (they are), or even that it’s the right thing to do (it most definitely is), but because it’s a business imperative. And after all, what business doesn’t want to maximize its potential for success?
Please join the conversation in the comments of this LinkedIn post.