We all need a place to belong - within our communities, families and it is the same when it comes to our workplace.
Analysis of the 2011 Best Workplaces Survey data of over 31,000 employees and 228 private, public and not-for-profit organisations within New Zealand shows that a sense of belonging is the top driver for engaging employees.
Statistics show that, on average, only 34 per cent of employees are engaged in NZ organisations. Kenexa/JRA's linkage research shows the business benefits of engaged employees; the upper quartile of the best performing and most engaged organisations on average have 2.2 days less absenteeism per employee and have 5.1 per cent lower voluntary staff turnover.
How does your organisation ensure you belong? An investigation of the top 25 per cent performing organisations reveals some valuable insights; a sense of community and belonging are strongly tied to creating and working towards a unified vision of where the organisation wants to go, what it wants to achieve and how it intends doing so.
The "how" is important. The better-ranking organisations actively promote and facilitate team-based cultures. Such organisation use cross-team meetings, social events and a variety of internal communication tactics. These organisations use practices that encourage the sharing of information and knowledge and 82.5 per cent actively consult their employees in critical decision-making. With a clear sense of common purpose, collaboration and co-operation across teams is more effective.
