Right now, David Bator is the managing director of the Achievers Workforce Institute, the information wing for the employee-experience platform Achievers. But at a previous time in his life, he worked for a different company, and had a boss that did not make him feel as though he belonged in the organization—at all. 

Bator was injured in a bike-riding accident on his way to work one day, and though in the moments after his fall, in which he suffered a broken leg and a gash above his eye that required many stitches, his first thought was, “Let me fix the chain on my bike and get to work.” Seeing Bator’s condition, a construction worker stopped him from doing so and, eventually, Bator served a two-day stay in the hospital.

Still, he worked remotely from his home as soon as he could, but his manager was so worried about a productivity drop that he ordered Bator to return to the office. Bator walked the office on crutches and paid for car services out of his own pocket for a month so he could commute to and from his job. 

At one point his boss stopped him in the hall and asked how he was doing. Bator opened up about his struggles managing the commute, his pain and his family, which included a couple kids, while recovering from his injuries. 

Then came the a-ha moment for Bator. His boss said, “No, how’s your work going? I only care about what goes on here.”

“Needless to say, I no longer work at that place,” Bator told a room full of guests, who issued a round of applause. He recounted the story at From Day One’s conference in Salt Lake City, where he led a workshop titled, “The Significance of the Five Pillars of Belonging,” the title of which was initially part of an Achievers Workforce Institute report.

“The definition that we came to out of that body of research was that belonging is an experience of connection, security and community,” said Bator. “And it’s really a feeling of being at home, without reservation, regardless of who you are, the job you do or where you do that job.”

In order to foster a sense of belonging across a workforce, per Achievers’ five pillars, leaders must ensure that they feel “welcomed,” “known,” “included,” “supported” and “connected.
 “These five pillars have a particularly elastic quality, to build employee experiences that engage our people,” Bator said. “Again, regardless of who they are, the job they do, how long they’ve been doing it, their level of seniority or, fundamentally over the last number of years, where they physically do that job.”

Welcomed

Starting with the first of the five pillars, Bator suggested leaders distribute tangible greeting cards signed by team members that welcome new hires to the company. He urged managers of new hires to make sure they provide recognition to a new team member within their first week of work in their new organization. 

“Do they have the opportunity through things like onboarding surveys, to reflect on the support and the resources that they received during their first 30, 60, 90 days?” Bator said. “These are all great instruments that you can use to drive that feeling of someone feeling welcomed when they join a team or, indeed, your organization.”

He added that efforts to help a worker feel “welcome” in the office should be extended to every worker, not just new ones, across their respective stays with the company—which, with this and other steps taken by managers, will hopefully be long and productive ones.   

“That feeling of being welcomed is about every space we share with anyone,” Bator said. “It’s about every transaction that we have at work. It’s about every room we walk into every experience. And so the challenge for all of us in creating conditions for hopefully award-winning employee experience, is thinking about what are the things we can do every single day. How do you make every day feel like a ‘day one’ for your people?”

According to research from the Achievers Workshop Institute, Bator said if employees are made to feel “welcome,” they are twice as likely to feel like they “belong,” too. If a given organization’s workers are anything like Bator was when he had his unfortunate bike accident, making them feel unwelcome will lead to all the pitfalls that come with poor retention rates.

Known

In making employees feel “known,” at a baseline level, all it takes is a little bit of listening. Give workers a space to express themselves freely and when they do open up, take stock in their values and their needs and try to align with them and supply solutions when possible. This will enhance a worker’s sense of connection with their employer.

“Our obligation is to create conditions so that an individual can bring their whole self to work,” said Bator. “And on a tactical, practical level, this can look like a bunch of different things.”

Giving more specifics he said making workers feel “known” could be the byproduct of recognizing them for accomplishments and milestones, both personal and professional. Even something as simple as making sure managers know how to pronounce a worker’s surname could have an outsized impact because it shows care and attention to detail. 

“It means giving your employees the opportunity to use pronouns that express their true identity,” said Bator. “And you can only do [all this] if you begin to ask, and if you begin to create safe spaces for people to share who they are. When you do this, you build trust.”

Included

Helping an employee feel “included,” Bator continued, may have the most significant impact in terms of nurturing a worker’s sense of belonging and better ensuring their engagement and retention. 

“It’s, ‘Do I have a shot here, to begin with?’” said Bator. “The narrow view, ironically, is when we think about inclusion through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the things that we can do to create table stakes for every single employee. I think the broader view, however, is about creating opportunities for our people to share in co-creating what their employee experience actually looks like.”

He suggests building a safe space that gives employees a comfort level to not only make their opinions heard and acknowledged, but to also come up with “a great idea” and have it “heard by the right person in an organization.”

Data from recent Achievers Workshop Institute research said organizations that for feedback from their employees at least four times a year have 50% higher levels of engagement, Bator said, while 88% of those employees are more likely to feel valued.

Supported

To make workers feel “supported,” Achievers research says, give them a sense of empowerment tied to their potential long-term success by supplying them with necessary tools, training and resources. Provide them opportunities for professional growth and to have a healthy work-life balance as well.

“When I think about what this pillar really means, I think immediately of managers,” Bator said. “Whether you pick social justice, the pandemic, new modes of working, take your pick, your managers are on the frontlines with their people every single day. And what we see is that when an individual has a strong relationship with their manager, they feel individually resilient.”

Thus, they are more capable of overcoming challenges, a belief that aforementioned Achievers research shows many workers don’t have.

Connected

And calling back to the fifth and final pillar of employee belonging, Bator said, “At a basic level, what being ‘connected’ is about is: Do your employees have the opportunity to build a diverse network, inside their work circle and outside of their work circle?’”

He revealed that more Achievers Workshop Institute research shows that when organizations have connection tools, they are great at driving not only connection, but trust and support, as well as other worthwhile sensations. 

“But what I would argue to you is that connection is much more of a philosophy than it is a cool feature that you can share with your employees,”Bator said. “Fundamentally, it’s about: Is it easy for your [managers] to access the people and the skills that they need every single day so that they can be productive and positive from anywhere.”

It’ll be much less of a challenge for employees to sever those connections, with their managers, fellow workers and their general work responsibilities, if they don’t feel a strong sense of belonging. 

Bator knows this first hand. He has the scars to prove it.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks its partner, Achievers, for sponsoring this workshop.

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books. 

(Featured image: David Bator conducting the workshop in Salt Lake City.)