Belonging That Delivers: Building Programs with Lasting Impact

When traditional diversity programs end, the broader philosophy often gets stuck as executives and HR leaders struggle to understand what’s next. Stagnant efforts can have serious long-term effects on workplace culture, employee retention, and brand reputation. Key statistics highlight the importance of sustainable diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) programs for organizational success on every relevant commercial dimension. Our solution is to provide a framework for creating a sustainable strategy focused on culture, leadership, and delivery of tangible results amid shifting talent and organizational challenges.

Why Some Diversity Programs Stall

Diversity initiatives have hit a wall due to a variety of factors, starting with macro factors (i.e., what happens outside the organization can overly impact what happens inside the organization). Additional challenges include the disconnect between obvious business drivers and business purpose and values, the lack of long-term success factors, inadequate accountability, and the superficial nature of some efforts. Less obvious factors are focused on the individual experiences of employees that can ultimately translate to broader resistance. All employees are looking for connectivity and to engage in a work environment where they can thrive. They want to see themselves in initiatives that focus on talent and culture. Without this alignment, any program will deal with starts and stops and struggle to have an impact.

What Does Success Look Like?

At the individual level, a successful belonging strategy fosters personal growth, organizational commitment, higher performance, and a sense of belonging among employees. At the organizational level, belonging drives productivity and performance and impacts the bottom line by decreasing retention and even enhancing wellness among employees.

Organizations that have successfully implemented belonging strategies are focused on the business and ensuring they are building a culture and talent pool that will accelerate success now and in the future. The primary focus is to define themselves based not on external factors but on what matters to employees.

Building an Integrated and Resilient Belonging Strategy: A Step-by-Step Framework

1. Create a New Story: Belonging has to be central to the organizational values and purpose. Craft a story that is aspirational and will provide a sense of purpose to the organization.
2. Define Belonging: Establish a clear definition of belonging and integrate it with business strategy and talent objectives.
3. Establish a Baseline: Conduct a broad and deep dive into the experiences of your employees to best understand what barriers to belonging exist in the culture.
4. Use Data Strategically: Leverage data to shape individual, team, and organizational strategies.

Building Sustainable Impact

To create lasting change, leadership must:

• Target Key Areas: Focus efforts on the most impactful gaps in the employee experience. Our research shows this generally starts with talent and performance management.
• Commit Resources: Invest time, energy, and finances into talent and culture intentionally and with a focus on the most critical areas impacting the employee experience.
• Hold Leaders Accountable: Business leaders should be responsible for the how in performance. Employees want more from leadership, and research shows that includes a very active and visible style that calls out and addresses concerns.
• Advocate for Belonging: Leaders should identify barriers to success, champion and recognize all forms of diversity, and clearly outline their expectations of others.
• Promote Open Dialogue: Be willing to address behavior that creates disconnect and distrust. Lean into conversations that create opportunities to have the difficult conversations and bring necessary concerns to the table.
• Address Biases: Actively identify and dismantle barriers, ensuring that exclusionary behavior is promptly addressed.
• Integrate Wellness: Incorporate wellness, flexibility, and a sense of belonging into the core business strategy.

RHR’s Five-Dimension Belonging Framework

We believe any inclusive leader embodies the following:

• Advocacy: Demonstrates accountability to foster a culture of belonging.
• Trust: Aligns business purpose and culture while respecting boundaries.
• Safety: Creates an environment where employees can express authenticity and learn from mistakes.
• Access: Provides the tools and resources necessary for all employees to participate fully.
• Opportunities: Ensures clarity in expectations and alignment of capabilities and responsibilities.

Success for the Long Term

Now and into the future, belonging is essential for sustainable organizational success. Companies must transition to a more human-centered approach to leadership to combat workplace toxicity and disconnection. A culture of belonging drives talent retention, high performance, and resilience. By prioritizing belonging through these concrete actions, organizations can create environments in which employees feel trusted, psychologically safe, and connected to their purpose.

Cristina Jimenez, Senior Partner, Global Head, Culture of Belonging

Cristina has been instrumental in RHR’s own cultural transformation. She spends a great deal of her time advising C-suite leaders on how to scale/transform their organizations, build high-performing teams, and create cultures where innovation and agility thrive. Cristina also possesses an expert ability to guide leaders through challenging political and business-oriented situations.

To learn more about RHR’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion and our Culture of Belonging practice, please check out these resources:

Culture of Belonging

To begin a conversation with us, please contact Adam Magerman.