From Maslow’s 1943 hierarchy of needs to the United States Surgeon General’s 2023 treatise on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation, belonging has long been established as critical to the physical and emotional health and wellbeing of every human being. Belonging has also been demonstrated to be equally critical for organizational success, as a proven driver of recruitment, retention, learning, advancement, performance, and ultimately, profitability.

To date, the industry has lacked a comprehensive review of the individual and organizational implications of belonging, which this report provides. We go on to discuss the reasons why relying on organic connections among individuals is insufficient to build belonging in the workplace and to harness its organizational benefits.

This report is the first in our three-part series on Workforce Belonging.

• Report one, Workforce Belonging: The Human and Business Benefits, outlines the reasons why neither employees nor their employers can afford to ignore belonging, and how belonging can be harnessed as a driver of engagement, performance, retention, advancement, and success.
• Report two, Workforce Belonging: Employee Communities, makes the case for formal employee networks as a crucial component of any belonging strategy and considers the key elements of successful employee communities.
• Report three, Workforce Belonging: Cross-Functional Mentorship, argues for a modernized approach to mentorship and demonstrates its outsize impacts on a company’s ability to build belonging authentically and at scale.

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Download the first installment, Workforce Belonging: The Human and Business Benefits, to learn more about the organizational imperative of belonging.

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Find more resources on building belonging at work here, and check out the first enterprise SaaS ecosystem for building belonging at work, Mindr Connect.