Data:

Belonging is highly correlated to engagement. Those who feel a sense of wellbeing are 8.90 times more likely to feel engaged. Belonging and wellbeing are highly correlated. Those who feel a sense of belonging are 5.93 times more likely to feel a sense of wellbeing.

 

What influences belonging

County employees are more likely to feel a sense of belonging when:

• They can be themselves at work.
• Their ideas and suggestions are sought out and valued.
• They feel treated with respect by other county employees.
• They are given real opportunities to develop skills.
• They receive recognition for effort and growth.

Lean More

To read or watch:

• Notes on a Cultural Strategy for Belonging, Evan Bissell, HAAS Institute
• Why inclusion is important for teams by Alison Robins
• Missing Your People by Tracy Bower
• The Value of Belonging at Work by Evan W. Carr, Andrew Reece, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, and Alexi Robichaux

Trainings

Live trainings:

• Leader Mindset
• Building Gender Inclusive Spaces
• Staying Steady for Yourself and Your Team
• Emotional Intelligence
• Race, the power of an illusion
• ESJ Fundamentals

Simple, impactful action leaders, managers and supervisors can do:

• Know how you are doing. Use the employee survey data to understand how much people feel they belong. Engage employees in discussion about what's working and together discuss what can be improved.
• Recognize people for effort and growth. Use the county's values cards to recognize employees for accomplishments consistent with the values.
• Communicate what action has been taken based on the survey so people know their opinions are valued.
• Share information. Ensure all employees have access to the same information by sharing what comes to you via UpFront.
• Use the county's True North and values to create a shared vision and continually reinforce how work aligns to it. Shared purpose, values, and goals can significantly contribute to a person's feeling of belonging.
• Model respect for people. Set expectations that people in your department, division and on your team act consistently with the county's respect for people value.
• Build opportunities for connection throughout the day. Start meetings with a check in or ice breaker question.
• Create psychological safety. See how in trainings and readings below.
• Build trust. Those who have a trusting relationship with a mentor or manager are better able to take advantage of critical feedback and other opportunities to learn. The benefits of these trusting relationships are often greater amongst people from stigmatized groups.
• Be accessible. Delegate so you have time and can be accessible to people for emergent needs.
• Create opportunities for collective problem solving. Ask for input and incorporate suggestions. Be clear about how decisions will be made and don't make decisions 'offline' with a select few team members.
• Support development. Encourage and support employee development through individual development plans, training, stretch opportunities and special duty assignments.

Simple, impactful action individual contributors can do:

• Model respect for people. follow expectations set by department, division or workgroup that people in your department, division and on your team act consistently with the county's respect for people value.
• Demonstrate compassion. People feel they matter when they are cared about.
• Build opportunities for connection throughout the day. Start meetings with a check in or ice breaker question.
• Recognize people for effort and growth. Use the county's values cards to recognize employees for accomplishments consistent with the values.
• Value ideas and suggestions of others. Ask people what they think and incorporate their feedback.
• Engage people in decisions affecting them: Ask for input and incorporate suggestions. Be clear about how decisions will be made and don't make decisions 'offline' with a select few team members.
• Demonstrate empathy.
• Listen to understand: seek diverse perspectives, be open to others challenging our assumptions.
• Seek development opportunities: individual development plans, training, stretch opportunities, special duty assignments.

Use These Tools and Resources:

• Recognize people for effort and growth.
  • Use the county's values cards to recognize employees for accomplishments consistent with the values. Idea: To make recognition of effort and growth a regular team practice, download and use the values cards to reinforce valued aligned behavior when you see it.
  • Take the eLearn training on Appreciation and talk about how to make it a regular team practice. About the training: Meant to help learners perpetuate a respectful environment through recognition and praise. This video lesson is part of the "Respect at Work" series, which guides employees to cultivate a respectful and inviting workplace. Throughout this lesson, viewers will learn how to provide coworkers with positive psychological strokes that reinforce their sense of self-worth. This lesson also offers options for showing appreciation at work. Idea: Everyone on the team can take the training and then discuss the impact of appreciation. Identify concrete steps you can take to make appreciation part of your team culture and check back in to see how it's going.
• Use the county's True North and values to create a shared vision and continually reinforce how work aligns to it.
  • Idea: Shared purpose, values, and goals can significantly contribute to a person's feeling of belonging. Use this activity to align personal values the countywide values.
• Build opportunities for connection throughout the day.
  • Idea: Start meeting using an ice breaker from this list.
  • Idea: Make it a regular practice at the beginning of every meeting do a "1 to 5 check" in where each person rates their wellbeing on a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (fantastic) and says why.
• Team Activities to foster belonging: Engage in regular activities to promote trust, authenticity and appreciation.
  • 4 activities teams can do to build belonging.
  • Practicing Inclusion: Ice Breaker and Team Builders for Diversity 
• Create psychological safety:
  • Take this training as team and create an action plan to build psychological safety. Psychological safety in the workplace refers to a team climate in which staff feel comfortable to express their opinions, admit mistakes, give and receive feedback, suggest improvements and point out problems without fear of embarrassment, punishment or rejection by the rest of the team. In a psychologically safe team, all members have equal rights to express themselves, regardless of their position, job title or rank.
  • Read this article "What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace" and design an action plan based on the 5 steps outlined to build psychological safety into plans for a hybrid model when mandatory telework ends July 6, 2021.
• Create opportunities for collective problem solving. Idea: Make it a regular practice to ask for input and incorporate suggestions. Be clear about how decisions will be made and don't make decisions 'offline' with a select few team members.
• Development.
  • Take a King County Career Services Workshop. About the workshop:
  • Join the county's Mentor Program
  • Take the "Selling You" eLearn training series. About the training: you will learn how to leverage informational interviews, prepare for an interview, network, rehears responses to interview questions, research compensation and identify a career path.
• Empathy
  • Take an eLearn training on "Developing Empathy" and discuss how to make it a regular team practice. About the training: ideo lesson meant to show learners how to become more empathetic at work and in life. This video lesson is the first of two in the two-part "Empathy as a Soft Skill" series. In this lesson, viewers will learn what empathy is and differentiate it from sympathy. In addition, learners will become familiar with a specific process for treating others with empathy at work.
• Value ideas and suggestions of others.
  • Ask people what they think and incorporate their feedback. Idea: Create time in team meeting to make seeking and incorporating suggestions of others a regular team practice.
  • Take this eLearn training "The Art of Authenticity" and discuss how to make it a regular team practice. About the training: The Art of Authenticity, based on the best-selling and award-winning book by Dr. Karissa Thacker, is a micro-learning performance support tool that can transform you and your team to achieve higher levels of engagement and productivity. Key training points include understand the definition of "authenticity" at work; learn why authentic behavior is important for success today; discover why your quirks can actually be positive attributes; uncover the secrets of your various "selves"; learn how to balance and process input from your team; find out how to encourage others to be more open and transparent; learn how to have "honest conversations"; and more!
  • Take this eLearn training "Valuing Others" and discuss how to make it a regular team practice. About the training: Valuing others is about identifying the potential within other people, and letting them know their capabilities, experience, and contributions are important. Gain different methods to understand your team members and provide encouragement for them to keep striving for success by nurturing a feeling of value and respect.
• Engage people in decisions affecting them: Ask for input and incorporate suggestions. Be clear about how decisions will be made and don't make decisions 'offline' with a select few team members.
• Listen to understand. Take an "Active Listening" training and talk about how to make it a regular team practice. About the training: This video lesson is part of the "Respect at Work" series, which guides employees to cultivate a respectful and inviting workplace. In this lesson, learners will look at good and bad examples of listening in the workplace and learn some tips for becoming a better active listener

Ways to make others feel included

Master list

New Employees

• As part of onboarding, introduce new employees to everyone and include an opportunity to share their strengths and interests
• Ask for people’s pronouns
• Partner new staff with a seasoned staff to learn a new task
• Meet with employees in person and genuinely welcome them
• Assign a mentor, guide, or buddy to help orient new staff to the team
• Ask team members to check in with new staff to ask them if they need help or have questions (be proactive in engaging)
• Give someone a task, be sure they can succeed and that someone follows up with them
• Invite new employees into meetings for problem-solving or idea sharing
• Create social events to welcome staff

All Employees

• Notice if anyone is feeling uncomfortable and introduce yourself; Build rapport
• If you see someone not being included, reach out and bring them into the conversation; Be intentional about including others
• Ask about people’s personal interests (or family, etc.) and follow up, letting them know you remember – make time for this
• Be friendly, kind, courteous and respectful towards everyone; Greet people by their first name; Smile
• Seek out the opinions and ideas of others – a good starter is to ask them what they have done differently since COVID
• Talk – share about yourself, then use Active Listening and learn about them
• Introduce people as a teammate to emphasize our connection
• Listen, even if language is a barrier, and confirm understanding
• Don’t use jargon or acronyms that make people, especially new people, feel excluded
• Recognize and compliment when someone does something good
• Ask people for their input or opinion thoughts, ideas, and experiences; especially if they haven’t spoken up
• Work on developing trust through interactions and following through
• Have in-person or phone interactions instead of just email or IM
• When we are back in the office – connect over food
• Be the person that others can trust – model the way
• Work together, as a team, to support each other

Actions to Stop Othering

• Use inclusive verbiage (such as respecting pronouns)
• Recognize when someone is being “othered” and speak up
• Avoid political and other divisive discussions that alienate people
• Avoid language that can be gender exclusive (e.g., sports analogies)
• Think and evaluate before speaking
• Focus on finding commonalities rather than differences

Leader Specific Actions

• Recognition, being specific about how we make our agency a better place; Saying thank you
• Leaders should check in with staff about their questions and concerns – show that they care about what they are doing, what they are struggling with, etc. This would help with people who come from a variety of backgrounds, races, etc.
• Use stories about successful inclusion to show what that looks like
• Share opportunities to learn – including rotating meeting facilitation
• Encourage openness, transparency, and a culture where everyone can ask for help
• Create social bonds – e.g., holiday socials that build on how everyone belongs
• Continue trainings that build belonging