Belonging and work anniversaries
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by Rick Joi Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries. |
Belonging is one of the most powerful drivers of human experience.
The Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, England describes it like this:
The notion of belonging, or social identity, is a central aspect of how we define who we are. We consider ourselves to be individuals but it is our membership of particular groups that is most important in constructing a sense of identity. Social identity is a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human.
Scientific research from UCLA shows that lack of belonging is damaging to a person’s physical health and can decrease lifespan. But not only does it affect our personal health, it also affects the health and performance of the organizations we work for.
Belonging and organizational performance
Having a sense of belonging to an employer has a powerful, positive impact on employee performance. According to SHRM, one of the most trusted HR organizations in the world:
Creating feelings of belonging for all employees is one of the best things you can do to improve employee engagement, performance, and help support business goals
They go on further to say:
Another important finding to note is that the correlation between belonging and engagement is higher for historically underrepresented groups. On top of that, we know that the workforce is becoming more diverse. As this trend continues, it brings with it more unique perspectives, ideas, and potential for innovation.
A research study cited in a recent Harvest Business Review article points to a number of very quantifiable, concrete business benefits of belonging:
If workers feel like they belong, companies reap substantial bottom-line benefits. High belonging was linked to a whopping 56% increase in job performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and a 75% reduction in sick days. For a 10,000-person company, this would result in annual savings of more than $52M.
Belonging also plays a big role in attrition. According to recent research from elite global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the top two reasons employees cited for leaving were that they didn’t feel their work was valued (which strongly relates to our recent blog post about psychological safety) followed by lacking a sense of belonging at work.
Why is belonging so powerful?
Our history as a social species seems to be what drives our brains to value belonging so highly and drive our behavior accordingly.
It’s not long ago in our evolutionary history that being cast out of a tribe or a village was typically a death sentence. While times have changed, our brains haven’t dramatically evolved.
Neuroscience research shows that we still see a lack of belonging or the risk of not belonging as a very stressful threat. One of the advantages of boosting a sense of belonging is that it reduces stress and thus increases our capacity to productively handle other work stressors.
How does this relate to work anniversaries?
For a sense of belonging to flourish, three elements are needed:
The group needs an agreed-on vision of success
The group needs a strong, clear identity
The group needs to signal to members that they belong
Work anniversaries help with two out of three — they are both an opportunity to reinforce the organization’s unique identity and also an opportunity to reaffirm each employee deeply belonging to the organization.
Strengthening the organization’s identity
While work anniversaries won’t create an organizational identity alone, they can play a big role in strengthening it.
The most obvious way that work anniversaries strengthen organizational identity is as a great opportunity to reinforce the organization’s mission or purpose over and over throughout the year.
For an organization with a strong purpose, work anniversaries aren’t acknowledgements simply of years that have passed, they’re celebrations of accomplishments achieved working together towards a meaningful shared purpose to achieve more than anyone could achieve alone. And a purpose-centered work anniversary celebration impacts not only the person celebrating the work anniversary, but also those who witness it celebrated in this way.
A related way to strengthen an organization’s identity is by sharing how work anniversaries relate to the organization’s core values.
A less obvious way that work anniversaries strengthen organizational identity is as a great opportunity for embracing an organization’s quirks, which, while less important than purpose, are also important to a group having an identity that can be belonged to. Sports team fans are an example of the power of quirks to drive a sense of belonging: the Green Bay Packers and their Cheesehead hats, the Pittsburgh Steelers and their Terrible Towels, or Taylor University’s Silent Night basketball game.
T-Mobile is an amazing business example of a company creating a strong clear company identity to belong to around the quirk of having an unusual brand color. The color magenta is a rallying symbol, which stands out as unique, especially in various clothing items. They so deeply identify with their organization that #BleedMagenta and #WeBleedMagenta are popular hashtags used by T-Mobile employees.
Work anniversaries are also an opportunity for some quirky traditions and even a quirky word. Most organizations can find a way to combine their name and the word anniversary to create a special name for the work anniversary, like Googleversary, Faceversary, Ohoversary, JLGversary, or in the creative case of T-Mobile, Magentaversary.
Signaling to employees that they belong
The second, and perhaps more important, element is to signal to employees that they genuinely belong to the organization
Work anniversaries done well can be viewed as performing an annual ritual reaffirming the employee’s importance to the organization.
Work anniversaries are a great opportunity to publicly look backwards and appreciate all that the employee has done. By remembering, appreciating, and sharing specific contributions, the employee knows that they are seen by the organization, they are reminded themselves of what it means to belong, and their colleagues witness it all.
Work anniversaries also signal continued commitment to the employee through the time and effort the organization puts into commemorating the work anniversary.
Conclusion
Belonging is not commonly talked about or thought about outside the social sciences, but it is the most powerful force acting on your organization’s workplace culture.
It probably doesn’t get much attention because it can feel vague and intangible. The great thing about work anniversaries are that they make belonging more tangible.
At many organizations, work anniversaries are dismissed as not important. But, that can be explained by the organization not having an identity worth belonging to and the organization not being committed to their employees. Both of which undermine employees’ sense of belonging.
You can solve those two relatively vague problems by pursuing the concrete objective of making work anniversaries matter in your organization.
And that will lead to the concrete belonging-driven outcome of far higher performance.