How a Culture of Belonging Fortified this Startup During COVID-19
Interview with Jane Violette, a Startup Marketing Manager, for Sharehold’s Redesigning Belonging Research
Curated by Sarah Judd Welch
This post is part of an ongoing series in which Sharehold is publicly sharing our in-progress research that seeks to explore and answer the question: What does it mean to belong at work in a time of uncertainty? Are you interested in receiving our research insights when they’re released? Sign up here.
Meet Jane Violette
Jane Violette is the Marketing Manager for an online learning startup where she manages a growing team across multiple remote locations. Jane began as an intern five years ago with the startup’s sister organization. Over the course of her journey with the team (including a six-month stint elsewhere), she’s grown in leadership among her peers, and more recently, helped to shape the direction of the new company.
As part of Sharehold’s research on redesigning belonging at work for uncertainty, we interviewed Jane both as an employee and a manager navigating crisis. Her interview touches on a few themes:
- The correlation between belonging, ownership, and value
- The behaviors of practicing belonging
- How mental health has become a priority in the workplace
Take a peek into our interview with Jane:
How do you define belonging?
“Belonging is a sense of comfort and knowing that what you’re contributing matters. In the context of the workplace, it’s knowing that what I say is going to be valued, heard, and then acted upon, rather than passively talked about and then moved on from.”
You shared that the startup that you’re currently with split off from the sister organization you joined five years ago. How has that influenced your sense of belonging at work?
“Being part of that core group that determined what this new company was going to be, having my voice heard in that, and then for those ideas to be turned into action… that has created this whole sense of ownership and value.”
“If you’re in a group of people, and they’re hearing what you have to say, valuing that, and really caring about your work and your career growth — that’s where the belonging feeling comes from. Ownership is within that. I was given opportunities to have ownership over certain projects that gave me voice and value. They’re kind of all intertwined. Having a sense of ownership increases your sense of belonging.”
How do you define loneliness at work?
Loneliness is kind of the opposite of belonging. It’s when you don’t feel like you’re heard at all, you don’t feel like you’re valued, and you don’t have someone actively listening to you. People can talk all day long to one another, but unless it’s a meaningful conversation, or you’re feeling heard, you’re going to feel lonely.
We understand that your team invested in belonging and DEI initiatives prior to COVID-19. What does that look like?
“We have a lot of remote staff. Maybe half of the staff is in our headquarters and then we have some people in New York, Chicago, Kansas, California, Colorado. We are remote-first in all of our meetings. Even when people were in the actual office, everyone was on their own computer. We’re against the large camera that goes into the conference room with one person up on the screen. That’s always isolating. That’s one way that we tried to create belonging — everyone’s voice was heard across all meetings.
“One other area we identified in our DEI strategy is that a lot of people don’t feel like they knew people across departments as well or had space for casual conversations. We tried out a couple of things… We found that what worked best was randomly-assigned, remote coffees for an informal time like going on a walk, eating lunch together, or just talking to each other. We found that this was better. Well, at least, I found more belonging in it compared to remote happy hours where everyone’s faces are on the screen and there can be awkward silences.”
How as COVID-19 impacted your and your team’s sense of belonging with your company?
“Uncertainty has created more of a sense of belonging. As crazy as everything is, at the end of the day, I’m like, wow, I still love these people. I love what we’re doing. This is stressful as hell, but it’s worth it to be able to be part of this thing.
I have seen my coworkers who didn’t work remotely before expressing a lot more empathy in the shift to remote work and how we approach schedules, care for one another, and reach out. It’s been great to see, and it’s fantastic how we’re prioritizing well-being.”
Interesting! Because of this period of time, do you now talk about mental health as a team?
“We have a spot in our daily stand-ups where we have a mental health check. We either write in ‘Hey, here’s how I’m feeling today. I need help with this. I can’t do this today’ — that kind of thing. I would say, half the time we’re honest, but the other half we may be reluctant to share exactly how we’re feeling. It’s all about making the space for when people are ready to share.”
Further Reading
Throughout our research, we’ll continue to share peeks into interviews and resources.
More on Sharehold’s Redesigning Belonging Research:
