{"id":40450,"date":"2022-12-28T07:12:22","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T12:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=40450"},"modified":"2023-02-01T07:15:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T12:15:24","slug":"25-percent-of-employees-feel-they-dont-belong-at-work-could-tech-solve-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/25-percent-of-employees-feel-they-dont-belong-at-work-could-tech-solve-the-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"25 Percent of Employees Feel They Don\u2019t Belong at Work. Could Tech Solve the Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this segment of \u201cOffice Optional with Larry English<\/a>,\u201d Larry discusses how technology can help all of your employees find a place of belonging in a remote or hybrid workplace.<\/h2>\n
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Belonging ranks high up on Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs\u2014humans are psychologically wired to seek acceptance. And when our efforts fail, the pain of social rejection is real, following the same neural pathways as physical pain.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many modern organizations have a belonging problem. Recent studies have found that 25 percent of employees<\/a> feel they don\u2019t belong at their workplace, and 40 percent of employees<\/a> feel isolated. When employees feel they don\u2019t belong, their performance suffers, and they\u2019re significantly more likely to seek employment elsewhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pandemic and the wave of companies going remote<\/a> without much strategy to ensure employees feel a sense of connection to the organization and to one another is one major contributor to a lack of belonging. Just as remote and hybrid companies<\/a> have learned to use tech to manage distributed teams and remote collaboration, perhaps it\u2019s time to apply the same problem-solving to belonging.<\/p>\n

The High Cost of Low Belonging<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a lot at stake for ensuring employees feel like they belong. Employees who feel they belong have a 50 percent lower turnover risk<\/a>, 56 percent better overall job performance and, on average, give their employers a 167 percent higher organizational promoter score compared to their peers.<\/p>\n

When belonging is missing, DEI initiatives fall flat, as well. Considering that U.S. companies spend almost $8 billion annually on DEI training<\/a>, the problem is as much a human one as a financial one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why is belonging so essential to DEI? First, without a strong sense of belonging, voluntary turnover increases, particularly among underrepresented groups. Belonging is also critical to fostering a sense of psychological safety<\/a>, which allows employees to be fully themselves at work\u2014including being open and authentic in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and more\u2014and feel comfortable voicing opinions and ideas. Additionally, research shows psychological safety improves team dynamics<\/a>, decision-making, innovation and creativity.<\/p>\n

Taking a Tech Approach to Belonging<\/h2>\n

Tech is starting to tackle the problem of belonging at work. One such startup is Helm, which has built software designed to foster employee belonging and give employees a space to be their authentic selves.<\/p>\n

The inspiration behind Helm came when co-founders Austin Drabik and Tommy Hillyer witnessed their friends, who had graduated college around 2020, be onboarded remotely \u2014 often poorly \u2014 and soon after leave for other jobs, often doing the same work for similar pay.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBesides a select few companies, no one knew how to do remote well,\u201d Drabik explains. \u201cImagine you move to a new country. You don\u2019t speak the language, you don\u2019t know anyone there, and you don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going. That\u2019s how these people felt getting onboarded\u2014lost, anxious, unsure who to reach out to. Looking at the research out there, we realized the common factor among these job hoppers was they didn\u2019t feel they belonged. They didn\u2019t know anyone at the company and didn\u2019t feel a sense of connection to anyone they were working with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helm tackles belonging in a few different ways. During onboarding, for instance, it automatically introduces new hires to the team, sparking interaction by providing information about the new hire and what they\u2019re into.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise, your manager might just tell you to introduce yourself, which can be anxiety-inducing because you don\u2019t know what to say or who to reach out to,\u201d Drabik says. \u201cIf you onboard remotely and don\u2019t do it well, new employees can become a high turnover risk, which is an expensive problem \u2014 it can cost as much as 200 percent of an employee\u2019s salary to replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because authenticity<\/a> can be easier said than done in a virtual space \u2014 if you\u2019re remote, all your coworkers see of you is a small video screen or photo \u2014 Helm also hopes to provide a space for people to be fully themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t feel like you can be yourself, if you\u2019re not authentic, you\u2019re not going to feel like you belong,\u201d says Drabik. \u201cLikewise, if you don\u2019t really know who you\u2019re working with, you\u2019re not actually able to show up as you are. We spend one-third of our waking hours at work, so if we can\u2019t be authentic in one-third of our waking life, what\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

Digital Tools, Human Relationships<\/h2>\n

Software designed specifically to encourage employee belonging may be new, but the idea of tech helping foster connections among employees<\/a> certainly isn\u2019t. I\u2019ve led a remote-first company for more than two decades, and I\u2019ve seen first-hand how the right tech tools used in the right way can help build strong relationships and communities, even among remote employees who rarely, if ever, meet face to face.<\/p>\n

For instance, Centric uses its collaboration platform, Microsoft Teams, as a home for Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs.<\/strong> This has helped redefine Centric\u2019s approach to DEI and belonging. This designated space for our Black Employees @ Centric, PRIDE @ Centric, Juntos, and Empowering Women @ Work ERGS \u2014 among others \u2014 create a sense of community that enriches the employee experience by enabling deep relationships and a sense of belonging. By offering different modes of connection, including virtual chat channels, employees have a variety of ways to share their personalities, helping everyone get to know everyone else a little better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile technology can never replace a sense of belonging, it can be a powerful tool to facilitate relationships; the goal isn\u2019t to replace social interactions but to complement them,\u201d Drabik says. \u201cIf you approach software as a tool and use it by design rather than default, you can make it work for you in the same way we figured out how to design offices to enable those spontaneous encounters.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally featured on Forbes.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n

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Larry English discusses technology can help all of your employees find a place of acceptance in a remote or hybrid workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":40456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20871],"coauthors":[15095],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-07-21 21:13:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40450"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}