As an HR Director I am often asked questions about diversity, inclusion and belonging. Those questions often relate to how one can create a culture where people can reveal and be who they really are - where they bring their whole selves to work. It is a great question, and it is important because where people can be who they truly are without having to worry about aspects of themselves that are not related to performance, they deliver better results and feel that they belong.
Belonging is also an aspect of people and work that we take very seriously here at Morton Fraser MacRoberts. As Brene Brown points out, the opposite of belonging is 'fitting in'. Just think about that for a moment. How much work does it take to fit in rather than to feel you belong? And it does beg the question around what we are doing with our talent attraction processes. Are we recruiting in our own like? (they are a great fit) or are we saying they could bring so much to this business, how do we ensure that they belong?
The culture we create in our businesses and the quality of our leadership practices create the context for belonging. We have worked hard at Morton Fraser MacRoberts both on our leadership repertoire and our culture to ensure our people truly feel they belong. People feel they belong in an organisation when they are connected to its purpose, connected to its leaders and connected to each other. That creates a psychologically safe space for people to be their true selves. And the commercial results of organisations who are able to do this outperform the rest, and quite frankly, they just feel like better places to work.
As I mentioned earlier, our This is Me event demonstrated a move together towards this feeling of belonging. And when we all move forward together, when we all help each other up, no challenge is too big or too great.
