How To Build Belonging at Work

Why Is Belonging in the Workplace Important?

Belonging — the belief that we are connected, supported, and respected — is both a basic human need and an organizational capability. When leaders build belonging at work, people feel included and contribute more fully to drive collaboration and innovation. When they don’t, the cost shows up in engagement, retention, and performance.

Only 20% of employees globally are engaged at work, according to Gallup. Behind that number, in many organizations, is a belonging gap — the quiet, persistent uncertainty that leads people to hold back rather than bring everything they have.

Most leaders have a rough idea of what belonging is, but the true importance and value of belonging at work is probably more complex than it might seem. Beyond just “Do I fit in here?” having a sense of belonging in the workplace involves answering multiple questions, such as:

• Can I connect with my peers professionally and socially?
• Do I trust my peers, supervisors, and leaders?
• Do I feel like my perspective and experiences are valued?
• Am I able to share my authentic self?
• Am I free from worries about fitting in?

The Value of Belonging at Work

Research on workplace belonging suggests that both belonging and uncertainty about belonging are important, as they influence everything from job satisfaction and self-esteem to performance and workplace wellbeing.

When everyone consistently feels included and certain that they belong at work, people are more willing to take risks and more comfortable asking for (and giving) help. Belonging fosters the psychological safety that makes honest conversation, creative thinking, and commitment possible

The sense of belonging at work is also linked to increased persistence through challenges, bouncing back after failure, resilience through organizational shifts, and reduced employee turnover. In one partnership with a leading global automotive organization, our researchers found that employee perceptions of inclusion, belonging uncertainty, and belonging at work were the strongest predictors of turnover intentions, burnout, and work-life integration.

In another study, building connection and belonging with other participants was highlighted as one of the most valuable outcomes of leadership development. Separately, in a study of 238 people who attended our Leadership Development Program (LDP)® and more than 1,500 of their colleagues, nearly three quarters reported observable improvements in feeling valued, respected, listened to, and trusted.

There’s an important distinction to make: inclusion and belonging are related but not the same. Inclusion is structural access — ensuring people have a seat at the table. Belonging is felt connection — the experience of being valued once they’re there. Systems and policies can support inclusion, but belonging is primarily built through the quality of human interactions over time.

Research confirms that belonging uncertainty and belonging in the workplace can both be influenced by organizations and their leaders.

By intentionally working to decrease uncertainty around belonging, leaders invite others to set aside worries and contribute fully to the work.

The Impact of Uncertainty About Belonging at Work

Belonging & Belonging Uncertainty: 2 Sides of the Same Coin

We often talk about belonging as a single concept. But feeling as if you belong is only one side of the coin.

People experience belonging uncertainty when they aren’t consistently sure whether they fit in at work. This vacillating sense of security can arise from feeling different from others around you, either in appearance or cultural experiences. Belonging uncertainty is especially common when employees come from backgrounds different from those of everyone else on the team.

These individuals may worry about being treated negatively based on stereotypes, or perceive subtle messages about who can and can’t be successful at work, causing them to feel less welcome and experience belonging uncertainty. Other team members who don’t perceive such messages don’t carry that burden.

Belonging uncertainty often leads people to hide aspects of themselves or hold back their contributions. That makes it tricky to detect. A key indicator is when someone seems hesitant to participate, a signal that the environment might not feel welcoming to them.

Without intentional support, employees experiencing belonging uncertainty may feel almost as if they’re carrying around a heavy backpack, weighing them down and causing them to struggle to engage fully, think creatively, or bring their full selves to work. This is a drain on cognitive and emotional energy that shows up in performance, collaboration, and commitment.

Some of the most instructive examples of belonging in the workplace involve not dramatic exclusion, but the accumulation of small neutral moments interpreted through the lens of uncertainty. Imagine 2 employees who give a big presentation at a quarterly meeting, and neither receives applause when they finish.

• An employee with low belonging uncertainty may not really notice, or attributes the lack of applause to an audience eager to move on.
• An employee who experiencing belonging uncertainty might interpret the silence as feedback that their presentation was poorly received, or that they’re not cut out for their job or the organization.

Even if the second employee counters those negative thoughts with positive self-talk, the mental energy required is a burden they carry on top of the work itself. That burden accumulates, and it compounds across teams and organizations when belonging uncertainty is widespread and unaddressed.

Belonging in a Distributed, Global & AI-Accelerated World

The conditions that once allowed workplace belonging to develop naturally — shared physical space, consistent proximity, stable teams — no longer describe most organizations. A sense of belonging in the workplace now must be built deliberately.

As AI handles more of the communication volume in organizations, human presence becomes more consequential. The interactions that are still led by people are the ones where belonging gets built or erodes.

Global organizations face an additional layer of complexity: belonging looks, sounds, and feels different across cultures. What signals respect and inclusion in one cultural context may not in another. The assumptions embedded in many belonging initiatives — share your failures publicly, join the team social event, bring your whole self to work — don’t always translate universally.

Building belonging across geographies requires cultural intelligence alongside relational intention. A shared set of organizational values doesn’t automatically create a shared sense of belonging in the workplace, and global expansion without cultural design actively undermines it.

How To Create a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace

3 Tips for Leaders

The good news: Building belonging in the workplace doesn’t require expensive gestures. The most effective belonging interventions are often the most consistent and human, small acts of attention and inclusion that accumulate into a felt sense of safety and connection over time.

For maximum impact, the most powerful experiences foster all elements of belonging: connecting with peers, building trust, valuing every voice, and decreasing belonging uncertainty.

1. Create intentional opportunities for connection.

Consistency is key. Most organizations begin by creating opportunities to connect: team events, mixers, social gatherings. While those have value, their impact is limited compared to regular, smaller opportunities for connection.

Whether reserving time at the beginning of meetings for brief personal sharing, facilitating cross-group conversations, or creating space for peer connection across functions and levels, the goal is sustainable, authentic interaction and not performative togetherness.

In distributed and hybrid organizations, this intentionality is non-negotiable. Belonging emerges from moments where people feel genuinely seen and welcomed, and those moments must be deliberately created.

Belonging is also shaped by the systems around leaders. When promotion criteria, performance metrics, and meeting structures are aligned to reinforce connection at work rather than undermine it, belonging has room to develop. When they aren’t, belonging uncertainty spreads regardless of what individual leaders do. The design of the environment matters as much as the intentions of the people in it.

• TIP: Build small, ongoing opportunities for connection into your culture. Consistently focus on building leadership trust and create time for colleagues to make connections with one another. Set aside a few minutes to express gratitude publicly at the start of meetings, create space for others to do the same, and find a sustainable way for people to connect authentically and consistently. The impact compounds.

2. Flip the script on uncertainty and failure.

When people lack a sense of belonging, they often feel alone in that experience. Belonging uncertainty causes people to assume they’re the only ones questioning whether they fit, when in fact many people have experienced the same doubt at some point in their careers.

When leaders and colleagues are willing to share their uncertainties or even failures publicly, they normalize the feeling and help take away its power. This is particularly effective when it comes from colleagues further along in their careers: A manager sharing what they struggled with early in their career creates permission for others to acknowledge their own uncertainty.

In global organizations, it’s worth noting that what counts as appropriate vulnerability varies significantly across cultures. What feels authentic and open in one context may feel overly personal or professionally inappropriate in another. Leaders in global roles should develop the cross-cultural awareness to calibrate this, creating safety for honesty without imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to what openness looks like.

Mentoring is one of the most powerful belonging interventions during transitions — onboarding, promotion, new managerial responsibility — because it pairs a moment of high belonging uncertainty with a direct form of relational investment. When a more experienced colleague steps in to share their experience and provide ongoing support, belonging uncertainty drops and commitment rises.

• TIP: Normalize uncertainty as common. Encourage a culture where people can speak openly about handling stress, uncertainty, or setbacks. Encourage senior leaders to help bust myths around mistakes by reinforcing that failure is transient and to be expected. Model open and candid sharing of lessons learned, because that signals a willingness to make yourself vulnerable and encourages innovation, rather than sabotages it.
• TIP: Explore mentoring to provide support during transition points. During times of transition, could senior members of the team help reinforce and support other members? Coaching and mentoring programs can be used to develop new leaders, not only helping to support and onboard them, but also enabling both parties to benefit from mutual trust-building and an enhanced culture of belonging at work.

3. Show humility by not assuming others’ experiences.

Create opportunities for others to share. Leaders who consistently create space for connection and share their self-doubts are more likely to have employees who feel psychologically safe at work, and subsequently are more comfortable sharing their experiences with belonging and belonging uncertainty. This is particularly important for employees who are most often overlooked and underestimated.

Power dynamics can often come into place in group settings, with those who hold more senior positions or privileged social identities taking up the most time in meetings. In our research, we found that simply being labeled a “leader” increases speaking time by 150–300%.

Counteracting this requires active, intentional listening — not just creating space but protecting it. When someone shares an experience with you, resist responses that redirect to your perspective. A well-placed silence and a genuine follow-up question communicate more about belonging than almost anything else a leader can do.

Be mindful not to push employees to share more than they’re comfortable sharing. Your role is to provide the space. Finally, discourage people from speaking for others by asking everyone to focus on their own experiences. Give people a platform to share their experiences and perspectives, so others don’t end up talking for them.

• TIP: Don’t assume you have the answers. Compassionate leadership starts with listening, and leaders sometimes make false assumptions about employees they don’t hear from, relate to, or understand. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that someone is “just shy,” for example, consider other explanations. Foster a trusting relationship over time, so employees feel comfortable opening up at their pace. Build an organization that values different perspectives by modeling (and training your team in) inclusive leadership practices and active listening skills. Things to practice include listening for understanding, remaining present in the moment, withholding judgment, and speaking less to hear more.

Creating a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace: From Individual Practice to Organizational Design

Belonging in the workplace is built in moments big and small. But it doesn’t scale through individual effort alone. The organizations that build workplace belonging are the ones that treat it as an organizational leadership challenge: asking whether their systems, structures, and development investments reinforce the conditions where people consistently feel connected, valued, and safe. That means examining what gets measured, what gets rewarded, and what gets designed into how leaders are developed at every level.

The most powerful examples of belonging in the workplace come from leaders who notice, listen, and create the space for people to show up fully and consistently. When belonging becomes part of how an organization develops its leaders — not a module or an initiative, but an expected outcome of how leadership development works — it stops being a cultural aspiration and starts being a performance advantage.

We believe in equipping leaders to cultivate organizational cultures that truly support everyone in the organization — ensuring people are better than just okay. We’ve created a downloadable collection of leadership resources on compassion, wellbeing, and belonging with actionable tips gleaned from our research.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Take a meaningful step toward increasing belonging at your workplace by starting a conversation with colleagues on your team or at your organization. Download Our Belonging at Work Conversation Guide now.