‘Belonging’ is the buzzword in the modern workplace

Move over, “diversity”. Make room,

“inclusion”.

Today, the hot corporate buzzword in the diversity field is “belonging”.

The word is popping up everywhere in the United States. LinkedIn, Nordstrom, Hub Spot, Door Dash and other companies all now have executives with job titles such as manager of “diversity, inclusion and belonging” or vice president of “global culture, belonging, and people growth”.

Harvard and Yale universities have also been getting in on the idea, hiring faculty or staff with “belonging” in their titles.

The latest lingo — most prevalent among Silicon Valley companies — reflects millennial and Generation Z employees’ expectations about work, diversity experts say, as well as the impression that other concepts haven’t made enough progress retaining diverse employees.

Louis Montgomery Jr, of executive search firm Korn Ferry, says “belonging” has a warmer and more approachable feel to it. “‘Inclusion’ is a weird word, if you think about it. It’s not something we use outside of a work situation,” he says.

Christianne Garofalo, who leads diversity and inclusion recruiting at the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, says she’s seen the word take off in job titles within the past year. “Diversity is a fact, inclusion is a behaviour but belonging is the emotional outcome that people want in their organisation,” she says. “What’s fuelling it is a desire to have a sense of purpose at work and a sense of community.”

Yet some diversity experts worry that adopting the fuzzier word could be viewed by some as just the latest example of corporate speak.

“Senior leaders really understand diversity. Inclusion they understand, because it’s about behaviour,” says Laura Sherbin, managing director of the consultancy Culture@Work. “With belonging, they’re like, ‘I don’t know what that means’.

“It can also be hard to measure or hold employees accountable,” Sherbin says. “At the end of the day it’s about trying to induce a feeling in someone, which is incredibly hard to do.”

Indeed, what “belonging” looks like in terms of concrete practice is still pretty fuzzy. LaFawn Davis, vice president of diversity, inclusion and belonging at Indeed.com, which started using the term in the past three months, puts the distinction this way: “Inclusion is about having a

Diversity is a fact, inclusion is a behaviour but belonging is the emotional outcome that people want in their organisation.

voice that is heard, making sure you can voice a contrary opinion,” she says. “Belonging is about creating a sense of community.”

After learning women were often the only female employee on their individual teams, software company Atlassian matched up women with female peers for coffee dates and created “mentoring rings” to help create a sense of belonging. It says it has cut female attrition in half and that 20 per cent of technical roles are held by women.

“You can have that one token person that allows you to say we’ve got one of each of those,” says the company’s Jessica Hyman. “But if I show up and I’m the only [woman or minority on a team], we don’t really have a sense of balance.”

Executives from the mobile coaching app Better Up, who wrote about “belonging” in a December Harvard Business Review article, have been building the concept into online tools, trying to help managers practice inclusive behaviour, such as inviting people to drinks or giving diverse co-workers more of a voice in meetings. Still, co-founder Eddie Medina says it isn’t yet clear how to hold managers accountable. “How do you actually manage around [belonging]?” he says. “I don’t think we’re at that stage yet.”

Christianne Garofalo, Heidrick & Struggles