The 4A’s to B Framework – Practical steps to promote Belonging in your team
This article is a part of the “Future of the Post-pandemic Workplace” series on the LTI blog
The pandemic has changed the way employees and organizations look at their workplace. If there is anything to be learned from these last two years (and counting), it is the simple fact that people are first and foremost human beings and only then employees.
The series is composed of 6 parts:
1. The future of the post-pandemic workplace
2. Hybrid work the good, the bad and the undecided
4. The 3-lens Hybrid Culture framework
5. Belonging in the Post-pandemic Workplace
6. The “4A’s to Belonging” Framework – this article
In many ways, Covid-19 accelerated a process already in the making, transforming employees’ drivers, needs, and perception of the role of work in their lives.
However, research shows that there is still a significant disconnect between leaders and employees regarding their respective vision of the post-pandemic workplace.
I refer to this gap as the Divide. The Divide is caused by the leaders’ difficulty to adjust to the employees’ new needs, either due to a lack of adequate data and awareness concerning these needs or due to a “Thriving gap” –a perception gap that is caused since the majority of leaders are currently thriving, while most of their employees are not.
This shift in employees’ drivers, needs and aspirations, in conjunction with the difficulty caused by the employee-leader Divide, drives what is now referred to as The Great Resignation.
Multiple studies today show that 40% of the employees are considering leaving their job in the next 3-6 years [e.g., 2]
This massive resignation or job reshuffling affects all industries’ blue- and white-collar sectors alike. Yet, one of the best predictors of high attrition is the lack of cultural emphasis on inclusion [3].
51% of employees say they quit their jobs because they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work [2], and 23% of employees reported already leaving an organization because the atmosphere did not make them comfortable being themselves [8]. The reason belonging is so high on the drivers for quitting is that it is one of our most basic needs.
When the need for belonging is violated, when we feel excluded, not meaningful, or not accepted, it invokes a visceral reaction that triggers us to leave [9,10].
In parallel with the growing need for more work flexibility, work-life balance, and additional employer support, a survey of 5.5 million participants [5] shows that employee’s drivers for happiness at work today are much less about greater achievement, learning, and pay and much more about belonging in the workplace [6].
In fact, a toxic culture was found to be 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than employee compensation [3].
Although a feeling of belonging in the workplace was already gaining importance in recent years, the pandemic has seen a rise of 12% in its’ impact on employee happiness, making it one of the top three drivers of a great work culture [7].
There is also a solid business case for belonging. Belonging is highly correlated with work engagement and wellbeing. As a matter of fact, when comparing against the seven inclusion constructs: fairness, opportunities and resources, decision making, voice, belonging, diversity, and contribution to a broader purpose, belonging factors were most strongly and consistently correlated with work engagement.
Belonging was also most consistently related to the employee’s workplace commitment, motivation, and pride, even when accounting for differences across gender, ethnicity, age, or sexual orientation [11].
What do leaders need to do today?
Leaders play a critical role in creating and supporting employee belonging. Research has found that inclusive leaders are 2.5x more likely to have a direct report with a higher sense of belonging [13].
As the pandemic accelerated the process of change, employers today need to evolve and learn how to become more inclusive leaders.
Below is an evidence-based framework to support inclusive leadership development in our coaching practice. The framework – called “The 4A’s to B” – guides leaders through a 4-step process to promote and strengthen B (for Belonging) in teams and organizations.
The 4A’s to B Framework – Step by step
Step 1: Awareness
When asked, most leaders believe they are doing a good job leading a culture of belonging. But those leaders that actually take the time to listen to their employees may hear a different story. As human beings, we all suffer from confirmation bias—we tend to pay attention and listen to information that confirms what we already know and believe. This bias prevents us from seeing the bigger picture in a more objective way.
While 68% of leaders feel they create an empowering workplace in which employees can feel a strong sense of safety and belonging, only 36% of employees agree [12]. Whether we like it or not, the leader-employee Divide exists, and the first step in the 4A’s process is to become aware and develop curiosity about the Divide.
Step 2: Ask
While leaders can create a safe and inclusive workspace, the employees are the ones who know what they need to achieve it. Therefore, the next step is collecting data. Each company has their own means of collecting valuable information through asking and listening. In our practice, we use a combination of short questionnaires and focus groups to assess the employees’ feelings of safety, trust, meaning and connection at work.
Step 3: Agency
One of the most potent evidence-based methods to promote belonging in the workspace is through employee agency and control. Only 27% of employees today feel their organization informs them of opportunities to promote belonging in the workplace [13]. Yet, research found that employees who initially felt excluded showed the highest belonging rates when they were given a chance to create or mentor a team belonging plan for their team. This exercise of agency has brought their belonging rates to an even higher level than their included peers.
Empowering employees to share, create and mentor a belonging intervention may go a long way in enhancing the whole team’s sense of engagement and belonging.
It is important that leaders should not only empower employees to co-create plans and interventions but to also support their implementation in their teams.
Step 4: Allyship
Once employees and leaders have co-created a team-belonging plan, it is time to go to the next level: Allyship.
While employee mentoring and empowering are very effective in eradicating exclusion at work, allyship is one of the best preventative measures. Research shows that having an inclusive ally buffers the effect of exclusion in the team. Interestingly, the ally does not need to be biased towards the excluded person. It is enough that the ally acts in a fair manner towards everyone to prevent the negative consequences of exclusion [13].
Leaders can encourage allyship in two different ways:
1. Promoting allyship
2. Cultivating allyship
Promoting allyship concerns communicating and rewarding existing instances of allyship in the team. It is a simple act of focusing the team’s awareness on “What is considered a good and inclusive behavior in our team”.
Catherine—the head of a research department we coached—is working at a well-known pharmaceutical company in Europe. Her team was dealing with issues of belonging and low engagement. One of the first actions we prescribed was focusing on existing allyship. One of the employees in her team was consistently supporting two excluded team members. This employee was praised in private, and we suggested she would be rewarded more often and publicly within the group and the organization (either through praise or some other manner). This slight shift from private to public recognition created a shift in the team, prompting the other team members to be more mindful of their exclusion nudging them towards including the other members more often.
Cultivating allyship
While allyship is very effective in buffering the adverse effects of exclusion, one should not wait for such an event to begin cultivating inclusive allyship in the team.
Data shows that it is enough to have one ally in the team to buffer the negative effects [13]. Therefore, leaders need to (1) be trained and coached on inclusive behavior, so they could ‘walk their talk’ and (2) promote learning and coaching of allyship within the team.
These actions could easily be done by encouraging open discussion and team-building activities that focus on inclusiveness and belonging.
A final note:
The 4A’s to B is a focused, step-by-step, evidence-based method to bring a team forward on the path to belonging.
When endeavoring this path, be sure to give a closer look into the team composition. Minorites have consistently scored lower on belonging rates across all ages[14]. Therefore, leaders need to be mindful of the diversity in their teams and approach the subject with awareness.
Conclusion
Belonging is one of our most basic human needs; it is the feeling of being safe, included, and accepted in a group. When we feel excluded it invokes a visceral reaction that triggers us to detach or even work against the team. In this article we present a 4-step framework for leaders to support and cultivate belonging in the workspace.
Resources:
[1] Microsoft Corporation. (2021). The next great disruption is hybrid work: are we ready?.
[2] De Smet, A., Dowling, B., Mugayar-Baldocchi, M., & Schaninger, B. (2021). ‘Great Attrition’or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours. The McKinsey Quarterly.
[3] Sull, D., Sull, C., & Zweig, B. (2022). Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 11.
[4] De Smet, A., Dowling, B., Mugayar-Baldocchi, M., & Schaninger, B. (2021). ‘Great Attrition’or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours. The McKinsey Quarterly.
[5] Indeed.com
[6] Cotofan, M., De Neve, J. E., Golin, M., Kaats, M., & Ward, G. (2021). Work and well-being during COVID-19: impact, inequalities, resilience, and the future of work. World Happiness Report, 153-190.
[7] Glint (2021). Employee Well-Being Report, Data-driven insights into people’s happiness and success at work
[8] King, B. J. (2017). Unleashing the Power of Inclusion. Attracting and Engaging the Evolving Workforce. Deloitte Development LLC.
[9] MacDonald, G., & Leary, M. R. (2005). Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychological bulletin, 131(2), 202.
[10] Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290-292.
[11] Price H (2018). How important is employee belonging? , Culture Amp
[12] Sweet, J., & Shook, E. (2020). GETTING TO EQUAL 2020-THE HIDDEN VALUE OF CULTURE MAKERS.
[13] Carr, E. W., Reece, A., Kellerman, G. R., & Robichaux, A. (2019). The value of belonging at work. Harvard business review, 16.
[14] Smith B. et al. (2021) The Global DEI Census – World Federation of Advertisers
