Research Report Summary: Creating a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace

A cross-cultural study of why some employees feel they belong and others feel alienated

How many people in your organization feel as if they belong there? And is that sense of belonging related to other key areas, such as supportive work policies? To help answer these and other questions, HR.com’s HR Research Institute partnered with Ultimate Software, a leading fully featured HCM provider, to conduct a cross-cultural survey of employees in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

•    Most employees agree, at least to a moderate extent, that they feel a sense of belonging at work, but this does not always preclude feelings of burn out.
•    A few key elements have a major impact on promoting or inhibiting employees’ sense of belonging in the workplace.
•    Generally speaking, co-workers are more important than leaders for creating a sense of belonging.
•    There are some striking national and cultural differences in employees’ sense of belonging when we look at responses from Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the U.S.

Forty-five percent of employees say they strongly agree that they feel they belong at their organization, and another 37% moderately agree that they do. That leaves almost 20% who don’t feel much sense of belonging.

 

Employees are most likely to credit co-workers with making them feel like they belong. Direct managers are important in creating a sense of belonging. Almost half of the HR professionals say those managers play a key role. However, co-workers are more important than the direct manager. Sixty-two percent credit co-workers with creating a sense of belonging.
 


Only about half of the employees are familiar with the values of their organization. Given how important most CEOs say the organization’s values are, it is surprising to see almost half of the HR professionals saying they are not familiar with those values. Just as concerning is that only about half say their organization is supportive, and only slightly more feel that people are generally honest with each other.

Fewer than a quarter say leaders are compelling storytellers. Leaders who are good storytellers are relatively rare. Less than a quarter of respondents strongly agree that leaders are good at storytelling. This weakness might explain why only 37% strongly agree that they understand their supervisor’s work objectives or vision. Despite the lack of storytelling skill, however, 32% strongly agree that their leaders are effective and another 38% moderately agree.

Fewer than half are proud to work with people in their organizations. A little less than half of respondents say they are proud to work with people in their organizations. This suggests a fairly high level of alienation among many employees. Perhaps an even larger warning sign is that only about four in ten employees (38%) say they associate their organization’s successes with their successes.

Only 26% of HR professionals strongly agree that their organization's communication programs and techniques are effective. If organizations are looking for ways to improve a sense of belonging, then the top two barriers to address are overwork and lack of recognition. 

Roughly 80% of people feel engaged and feel they are viewed as productive; and almost three-quarters feel empowered to do the job the way it should be done. What is of concern is that 12% strongly agree they feel lonely at work and 20% strongly agree they feel burned out. These factors represent too big a percentage of the working population to ignore. If we add in the moderately agrees, then 31% feel lonely and 47% feel burned out.

More than anything else, a sense of belonging is driven by being recognized for accomplishments and feeling your contributions are valued.

Why do people stay with their organization? About 58% say feeling valued and recognized is a factor that made them stay. This is the top reason for staying. The second most common reason for staying in a company is having a good direct manager (48%).

The top three communication methods for helping people feeling connected are the classic tools of in-person meetings, emails, and phone calls.

One needs to be careful when interpreting differences in survey results between countries. It can be hard to tell if a finding suggests a difference in the underlying reality or a difference in how different nationalities describe the reality. For example, in the findings that follow, France routinely has lower scores than Germany on factors related to a sense of belonging in the workplace; we can’t be sure if that suggests German workplaces are better or if the French are simply more likely to express discontent with the conditions at their workplace.

Nevertheless, the findings do show differences in perceptions between countries and these are interesting, particularly for global companies.

 
 

To learn much more about the survey on The Sense of Belonging in the Workplace and to get 4 key insights and strategic takeaways, we invite you to read the complete report.