Belonging Deserves Its Own Seat at the Table
- Natalia Volkonsky, PhD
- Nov 11
- 3 min read
You can sense it instantly when you walk into a workplace that understands what truly drives people. There is energy in the room, a shared momentum. People engage with purpose. They feel connected, and they choose to grow with the organization.
That kind of culture is intentional. It is crafted through consistent effort and clear priorities. At the heart of this dynamic environment is a critical driver that often remains underappreciated: belonging.
The Fluffy Label That Cost You Your Top Performers
Most leaders accept the idea of belonging, but they minimize its importance or fail to consider it as a strategic necessity. They confuse it with morale, or worse, relegate it to a checkbox under “DEI.” It’s seen as too abstract, too emotional, too hard to measure. And so it gets buried.
But let’s be honest: it’s not “too hard” to understand, it’s just too uncomfortable for organizations built on outdated assumptions.
Because when you start prioritizing belonging, everything has to shift. Your onboarding can’t just dump paperwork; it has to be intentional. Your managers can’t simply delegate; they must connect. Your systems can’t merely function; they need to serve humans.
That takes courage. That takes leadership. That takes someone willing to say: this matters.
The Hidden Cost of Neglecting Belonging
If you believe belonging is soft, consider this:
Employees with a strong sense of belonging have 56% higher job performance
They take 75% fewer sick days
They are 50% less likely to leave in the first year
(Source: MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review)
Ignore belonging, and you’ll spend your budget fixing the wrong problems: burnout, turnover, disengagement. But none of those are the root. They're symptoms of employees feeling like they don't belong.
Belonging Is the Infrastructure of Performance
Belonging isn’t a perk to be offered as one of the trendy items to job applicants (yes, we've seen this before). It’s a deliberate design decision, woven into your onboarding experience, how you equip your managers, the tone of your internal communications, and the environments you create for real human connection.
It’s also something deeper. Belonging is a human need and, ultimately, a spiritual principle, one that shapes how people show up, engage, and evolve at work. Whether organizations recognize it or not, it influences everything. (More on that later.)
We’re wired for contribution. People want to give their best, but only when they feel safe enough to show up fully. Belonging gives them that permission, and when they feel it, they move differently. Decisions get sharper. Energy flows. Teams collaborate.
That’s not philosophy. That’s workplace energy, converted into business results.
What Volare Believes
At Volare, we design systems that honor the human spirit without compromising performance. We believe belonging isn’t a fluffy concept; it’s the force that activates talent from the very beginning.
And we back that belief with frameworks, data, and deeply strategic implementation.
If you're ready to elevate your onboarding experience, rethink your talent retention strategy, or audit your internal systems for impact—start here.
How You Can Start: Try the ScaleSmart Audit
We developed the ScaleSmart Audit to help you diagnose exactly where your onboarding and retention practices are breaking down and how to fix them without overhauling everything at once.
📩 Schedule a free consultation or message us directly to schedule your audit. Let’s design a workplace where people want to stay.
