Belonging is good for business and benefits the bottom line!

Guest writer Sonya Law brings back our human resources perspective with “Belonging is good for business and benefits the bottom line!”

According to Harvard Business Review: “If workers feel like they belong, companies reap substantial bottom-line benefits.”

The bottom-line benefits are:

High Sense of Belonging was linked to a whopping 56% increase in job performance.
A 50% drop in turnover risk
A 75% reduction in sick days

Raising questions?

Creating a Sense of belonging has been given more attention, post pandemic, because People are:

Wanting more from their jobs, getting paid is no longer enough. They what to align on Purpose and have meaningful impact.
Experiencing Burnout are also opting for the eject button, without even having a job to go to as a lag effect to working through the Pandemic that presented new stresses and strains. Relating to extra compliance and reporting and lack of staff.
Impacted more by Mental health and Psychosocial impacts of a disconnected workforce. Due to hybrid workplaces is having an impact on connection and healthy workplace relationships post pandemic and to collaboration and problem solving.
More aware, that there is another job just around the corner in this buoyant tight-talent market.

How do you create a sense of belonging:

Rituals – that it practices, traditions that define how you come together to celebrate wins and connection in the team, and this creates a sense of belonging.
Authenticity – that is it needs to be genuine in its efforts to connect and demonstrate inclusivity.
Culture – it needs to be regular, consistent, and embedded.

Creating a sense of belonging helps you to hold on to your Brightest & Best TALENT!

It is vital to ‘attracting and retaining talent’ in a tight candidate market.
Gives people a sense of belonging and understands the ‘relational aspects of teams and connection’ creates opportunities to develop talent and unleash People Potential.
Provides insights into the ‘employee experience’ and developing our Employee Value Proposition.

Develops cultural awareness – focusing on what employees are telling you in your employee survey, will guide your next steps!

Create a dedicated group – focused on creating a sense of belonging and employee engagement.
Culture Champions – this does not always have to be HR People. Consider a cross section and those passionate about culture and creating a sense of belonging.
Review your Culture Results – this is your best tool for putting you in touch with what employees want to see more of in the workplace.
Take risks – a lot of us think, that will not work, we did it before, it was a flop!
BE BRAVE try something new!
Stay the course, and be positive, be enthusiastic!

A sense of belonging creates unintended benefits:

Relational Benefits: Stronger relationships are benefits of creating a sense of belonging. Teamwork and high innovation and also increased discretionary effort in times of high stress. It also creates clarity in the role, clear purpose and sense of empowerment and achievement when we draw out these relational connections. Better and faster than any re-org!
Accountability, responsibility, and ownership: It creates an elevated level of accountability, responsibility, ownership, and reliability which are all fundamental in building trust and present in high performing teams. A strong relational culture does not support toxicity, it supports high levels of engagement.
Tolerance and people stickiness of your high potentials! Builds tolerance; in 2023 there needs to be a focus on building tolerance for organisations to thrive. High work demands and burnout, leads to feelings of overwhelm and can be a key factor for people leaving their jobs and not taking up leadership positions.

“A sense of belonging helps create resilience and ‘people stickiness’ to the organisation of your high potentials!!”

‘Take care of your people and they will take care of your business.’

Discover more from Learning Without Scars