What You Need to Know About Belonging

Sharehold’s Literature Review for our Redesigning Belonging Research

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?

We throw around the word “belonging” like we know what it means. Spoiler: as a culture, we don’t.

Most of us have an innate sense of what belonging feels like. Maybe you’d describe this feeling as warm, fuzzy happiness resulting in being lovingly tethered to someone else, akin to the interconnected intimacy of deep eye contact with someone who truly sees you. At work, it’s common to describe the feeling of belonging with statements like:

• “I feel seen, heard, and recognized.”
• “I can be myself at work. I fit in.”
• “I am accepted for who I am.”
• “I am welcome.”

At one time or another, most of us have felt the opposite of belonging at work: the sting of being excluded by your peers (or worse, upper management), the casual discovery that everyone — except you — went out for drinks last night, the lack of acknowledgment of your contributions, the hiding away of your full identity so that you can better fit in. This lack of belonging is also typically accompanied by feelings of shame, discouragement, anger, and sadness.

We also often talk about belonging in the same breath as loneliness, as if the two are opposing experiences. However, researchers Bonnie M. Hagerty and Kathleen L. Patusky suggest that loneliness is a potential outcome of a lack of belonging; a cause and effect relationship. Author of Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, Dr. Vivek Murthy, describes loneliness as “the subjective feeling that you’re lacking the social connections that you need,” and he writes about three kinds of loneliness: intimate, relational, and communal. When we feel lonely at work, most people speak about the experience in terms of collective loneliness, what Dr. Murthy calls “the hunger for a network or community of people who share your sense of purpose and interests.”

The nuanced conversation with which Dr. Murthy discusses loneliness doesn’t yet exist for belonging, especially in the context of the workplace or times of uncertainty such as what we’re experiencing today (including COVID-19, US police brutality and the murder of Black civilians, global protests, and increased unemployment and financial insecurity). In Sharehold’s initial interviews for our research on what it means to belong in a time of uncertainty, we see that while we can all, more or less, describe the outcomes of belonging at work, most of us can’t quite define what it is or how it happens. Nearly all of us want to belong at work, but beyond the fundamental human motivation of belonging… Why do we feel a need to belong at work? How do we fulfill that drive? And, how did COVID-19, and all that followed (and is still happening) influence our sense of belonging?

Sharehold aims to open a more subtle conversation around the concept of belonging. Some of the questions we’re exploring in our research include:

• Do times of uncertainty increase or decrease our sense of belonging?
• Is it possible to belong too much? What’s the downside of belonging?
• How does belonging relate to authenticity and inclusion?
• What’s the value of belonging at work in relation to retention, inclusion, and job satisfaction?
• What’s the relationship between belonging and power?

A Sampling from our Literature Review

Sharehold began collecting and reviewing resources on belonging in 2019. Now, our library on belonging includes more than 70 academic studies, whitepapers, and resources — and it is still growing.

At the beginning of this new phase of research, our research team completed an abbreviated literature review of the pieces of research most relevant to belonging at work. These resources created a shared knowledge base across our team around belonging at work in preparation for exploring what it means to belong at work in a time of uncertainty.

Here are a few of the sources that most surprise us and progress our thinking:

“Fitting in or Standing out? A Conflict of Belonging and Identity in Intercultural Polite Talk at Work”, by Stephen J Moody

This is an analysis of data from work activities and interviews with American interns at Japanese companies using honorifics to assimilate to an unfamiliar cultural and professional setting. This study suggests that the attempt to try to belong can emphasize and showcase the ways in which you do not belong — attempting to fit in can be counterproductive. Therefore, is it better to maximize for belonging or authenticity?

“Inclusion: Conceptualization and Measurement”, by Wiebren S. Jansen, Sabine Otten, Karen I. van der Zee, and Lise Jan

As the title suggests, this study validates a measurement of inclusion. The study raises interesting questions around personal vs. group agency and responsibility in creating a sense of belonging and inclusion, as well as how belonging does or does not differentiate from conformity. How can we belong and be unique at the same time? When everyone belongs, is it possible to remain uniquely ourselves? How does this change when the ways in which are different or marginalized are magnified?

“A Question of Belonging: Race, Social Fit, and Achievement”, by G.M. Walton and G.L. Cohen

This study includes the results of two experiments designed to test how stigmatization, or “belonging uncertainty,” impacts the motivation and achievement of white and Black students. The results show that the mere suggestion that a student might not belong creates “belonging uncertainty” and that our personal perception that we do not belong negatively impacts performance. Meanwhile, the majority group, white students, benefit from a personal assumption of belonging. This study sparked a conversation within our team about the power of narrative in shaping our perception — and the outcomes of — belonging. The way we speak about belonging and the impact of uncertainty matters!

“Teachers’ Feeling of Belonging, Exhaustion, and Job Satisfaction: The Role of School Goal Structure and Value Consonance” by Einar M Skaalvik and Sidsel Skaalvik

This is a study of teachers in Norwegian schools and how their perception of shared values with the school influenced their sense of belonging, burnout, job satisfaction, and motivation to continue teaching. Unsurprisingly, emotional exhaustion is negatively correlated with job satisfaction, and value alignment increases overall motivation. However, the kicker is the suggestion — which differs from other studies in our review — that belonging and job satisfaction do not have a significant correlation. Can this be true? What would happen if extreme, collective stress were added into the mix?

If you’d like us to share more about any of the above sources or the other studies included in our literature review, please let us know!

Soon, we’ll begin to share initial learnings from our research interviews. We’ll include a more robust appendix of our literature review sources in our whitepaper to be released this summer. We’re excited to add to the conversation!

Meanwhile, follow along on our research journey in Sharehold’s newsletter and sign up to be the first to receive our insights on what it means to belong at work in a time of uncertainty.

For those interested in partnering on this research or bringing this research into your work or team, please email us at hello@sharehold.co.