On Belonging (Part One)

Everyone wants to belong. It’s an innate desire, right? It helps us make connections, helps us engage, helps us progress…

So what happens when you don’t feel like you belong at your place of work? When you feel like the outsider? When you don’t get invited out? When you are not invited to those meetings? When you don’t get a promotion? You code-switch!

For me, and countless others, code-switching is an everyday, every hour, every minute activity, where I twist and contort myself into an extension of me that puts other people at ease. It helps me (and people that are othered) assimilate into dominant groups. This activity is exhausting and can leave me burnt-out, anxious, and disassociated. 

I have to always smile because I risk being seen as aggressive. I have to change the tone of my voice to seem softer. I have to stay quiet, even silent, because I do not want to ‘intimidate’ people. 

That silence is a violence thrust upon people that aren’t “man enough”, aren’t “white enough”, aren’t “straight enough”, or aren’t “able enough”.

And it has become so constant, that I don’t even recognise when I do it anymore. The only real difference is how I feel after being in a space where I have to code-switch.

Exhausted.

I shouldn’t have to code-switch to receive equal treatment. Code-switching comes at a cost for not only those that must employ this tactic but the company too. Psychologically exhausted employees cannot work at their best (Rasool, et al). 

Employees that do not feel as though they belong at work, do not feel empowered to challenge, create or experiment. Silenced voices cannot contribute to conversations.

Diverse and truly inclusive teams present new perspectives and ensure that companies identify oversights. A company cannot cater to a wide selection of its customers if its workforce cannot identify with them. If you do not have a person with darker skin on your team you may not be aware that the automatic soap dispenser will not recognise their darker coloured palm. A team that does not include a deaf person, creating a video about the lives of deaf people, will not consider adding subtitles. Without a Muslim person within your organisation, you may end up serving a Muslim student pork sandwiches while they are isolating.

Of course, it is important that we do not just include these people to be experts on their ‘otherness’ but we cannot ignore the incredible value that their perspectives add to businesses.

The cost of not creating an environment in which all employees feel a sense of belonging is too high a price to pay. According to Harvard Business Review, “40% of people say that they feel isolated at work, and the result has been lower organizational commitment and engagement”. Companies must strive to develop strategies and policies that ensure all employees are respected as a whole person and that their ideas, experiences, and beliefs are valued.

How do you do that? Click this link.