A Belonging@Work Audit® combines the power of data and qualitative data regarding the lived experience of employees to understand who in the organisation has a sense of belonging and, more critically, why some people don’t, says Helen May
Diverse representation in organisations becomes narrower the further you go up the ladder – and this is not necessarily because of lack of opportunity. Most decision makers in organisations are white men over 45. Recent research also shows that maternity and motherhood cannot be attributed entirely to women’s lack of progress. Many women who get to a certain level in the organisation and then self-select out.
Why? Because the general approach to inclusion in organisations is to give people the opportunity to progress with the unspoken proviso that they must then ‘include’ themselves. For example, female senior leaders are often lonely in their positions and find the culture in the leadership teams intolerable. They may feel unheard and insignificant. And so, the groupthink associated with the homogeny of leadership teams continues.
We talk about bottom-up and top-down initiatives, ignoring the fact that the critical challenge may be the middle. Engagement, diversity, and culture surveys don’t ask the really difficult questions, the ones which would expose where toxicity lies, and give a view of what is really happening on the ground. A belonging culture combines a focus on diversity, inclusion, engagement, psychological safety and wellbeing. A Belonging@Work Audit® combines the power of data and qualitative data regarding the lived experience of employees to understand who in the organisation has a sense of belonging and, more critically, why some people don’t. This gives insights upon which organisations can then build a truly transformational plan.
Before you begin…
This process may uncover some unexpected issues or ‘elephants in the room’ that are unpalatable for some organisations. It is important to ensure that the senior leadership team are prepared to understand and address any challenging insights which present. If there is no appetite for addressing anything that arises, then conducting the audit and not acting on the information could disengage those who are marginalised even further.
As with any initiative, to ensure engagement with the survey and subsequent success of the programme, the timing must be right. Any activity that may be causing negative morale, anxiety or engagement in the organisation, such as a merger or potential redundancies, could impact the responses to the survey and lead on to developing a plan that doesn’t necessarily address the implicit issues.
Identify and engage support
Depending on the size of the organisation, you may need to involve others in doing the audit and get their buy-in as to why you are taking this approach. At the least, you would probably want to consider engaging:
- A leadership sponsor to endorse the project
- HR
- A data analyst
- An assistant or colleague who can manage the process
Identify a platform to deliver a survey
In larger organisations, you may want to use an external agency to deliver the process. Whether externally or internally delivered, while there will always be some people suspicious of data and unwilling to take part, a promise of and commitment to complete anonymity will certainly encourage more people to complete the survey. If you think people in your organisation will be particularly cautious about engaging with the process, ask yourself why and consider what messages you will need to give to encourage participation. If you are keeping it in-house there are many online platforms such as Survey Monkey where you can create, deliver and analyse your survey.
Engage the participants
Consider asking your leadership sponsor to put his name to the launch message if you think it will increase engagement. As with any survey, it is important to prepare the audience for the survey by communicating positive messages as to its purpose. Crafting a message that signals the positive goal of wanting to understand the extent to which people feel like they belong in the organisation, the anonymity of the survey and the intention of wanting to use the results to improve the employee experience for ALL employees, will likely increase engagement across all groups. There is growing D&I/engagement survey fatigue in organisations where they have found there to be few positive changes as a result. This message signals an inclusive, no-jargon, personal approach, which should help to drive engagement with the initiative – if only, at this early stage, out of curiosity.
Create the survey
If you wish to create a bespoke questionnaire, most survey platforms have lots of guidance for dos and don’ts when doing so, considering things such as survey length, formulating questions, response scales and open answer questions. In larger organisations you may want outsource delivery and analysis of the survey.
It is critical that a belonging survey feels different. It shouldn’t have all the usual questions included in engagement or D&I surveys, that will deliver the same responses without providing insight into the real issues and opportunities. By all means use some of the questions from survey banks, but add in some questions that feel different. Questions that will make people sit up and understand that this time you mean business. For example:
- Being an employee here does not require to me relinquish my values or principles
- I am often treated in a way that makes me feel ashamed, inferior, unimportant or excluded
- I often witness behaviours or actions which appear to make somebody feel ashamed, inferior, unimportant or excluded
- If I see someone being treated in a way I find unacceptable from a respect or moral perspective, I always feel comfortable about ‘calling it out’
- In work I am happy more often than I experience negative emotion
- I sometimes feel scared, sad, insecure or alone here
Engagement with the process has to ensure that the respondent feels in control so you should make it clear that there is no obligation to answer any of the questions. Where respondents don’t answer this in itself is useful information when it comes to the analysis.
Analyse the data
Using employee demographic data you collect (which should comply with local data legislation) you can cut the survey data to identify exactly where the belonging hotspots and cold spots are. Survey platforms provide extensive guidance on how to cut data and do different analyses if you are not working with a dedicated data analyst. Be curious and look for ways of cutting the data to provide insights such as:
- Which functions/areas of the organisation have the strongest and weakest sense of belonging?
- Which demographic qualities experience strongest and weakest sense of belonging?
- Which demographic intersections experience strongest and weakest sense of belonging?
- What is the impact on those who feel that they don’t belong?
- Is there a correlation between wellbeing, health, happiness and optimism responses and a sense of belonging?
- Where is there greater confidence to speak up in defence of others who are marginalised? How is the wellbeing and happiness in these areas?
- What are the key themes of the verbatim responses?
Get creative, dig deep, keep asking questions about what the data is telling you – and when you think you have the answer, dig deeper again. The more curious you are, the better you will understand the lived experience of your employees and can tell emotionally engaging stories to get buy-in for the belonging, diversity and inclusion plan you build from the insights, which will target investment exactly where it is needed.
Helen May is the founder of diversity & inclusion consultancy, Belonging@Work and author of new book Everyone Included: Improve Belonging, Diversity & Inclusion in Your Team.
