Internal Communication: The Multi-Site Company Challenge (4/7) – Strengthening the Sense of Belonging

This article on the sense of belonging is excerpted from our Ebook: Internal Communication — The 7 Challenges of Multi-Site Companies >>> Download the full ebook (FREE)

The fourth challenge of internal communication in multi-site companies: the importance of continuously nurturing employees' sense of belonging.

What Is the Sense of Belonging?

The sense of belonging (also called "pride of belonging") is what an employee feels when they feel part of a community — the company's community. Feeling at ease within it, to the point of identifying with it. This psychological dimension affects many aspects of an employee's experience: their enjoyment of coming to work, their motivation, their commitment, their relationships with colleagues, and more. Which is why it's so important for companies to protect and nurture the sense of belonging.

Sense of Belonging and Cohesion: Two Sides of the Same Coin

That said, building and strengthening the sense of belonging is a delicate task, especially when employees are spread across locations. Indeed, from one team to the next, one subsidiary to the next, one region to the next, values and culture — while not necessarily conflicting — sometimes differ and create a de facto distance between employees, and between the employee and the company itself.

The first challenge is therefore to make tangible — or at least to instil in people's minds — the idea of a common entity that everyone can objectively feel part of: a company name, an ambition, a tagline, a mission statement…

A Performance Driver for the Organization

When you consider the benefits a strong sense of belonging brings to a company, you understand just how crucial it is in multi-site organizations:

• greater interest in the broader organization (who's who, who does what, and key achievements)
• stronger individual engagement in day-to-day responsibilities (performance)
• greater attractiveness (employer brand)
• employees who become brand ambassadors and advocates within their networks (employee advocacy)
• plus a meaningful impact on absenteeism, turnover, motivation, self-esteem, and openness to change.

The result: multiple benefits for the organization and for each employee alike (sense of purpose, feeling invested — and therefore engaged).

Eight Levers for Building a Sense of Belonging

What gradually helps build (or strengthen) a sense of belonging among your employees:

• a quality onboarding experience for new hires from day one (or even before they arrive)
• a management style grounded in trust
• a culture of solidarity (collaborating on joint proposals, for example)
• values that are lived out concretely at every level of the organization
• visibility into what others are doing across the company (achievements, successes, expertise…)
• a practice of sharing information, skills, and knowledge
• a culture of candor (as opposed to a culture of unspoken tensions)
• a culture of accountability (as opposed to political maneuvering)

Read also: [Practical Guide] 10 Client Initiatives to Improve Internal Communication

A sense of belonging is, of course, a slow and fragile process. As everyone knows, trust takes a long time to earn — and can be lost in an instant.

Building a Shared Culture, Uniting the Tribe

In short: a company where "we play as a team" — not just in the good times, but through the hard ones too. Where management, conscious of its role as a role model, also commits to proximity with the teams. To build trust. Because when it comes to sharing the same DNA, trust is at the heart of the sense of belonging.

In multi-site environments where different cultures coexist, your challenge will be to create a shared culture — or at least to foster, amid existing ones, a sense of coherence: a common cultural core.

Ultimately, the ambition is to build a family spirit (a tribe!), one that every member feels proud to belong to. A tribe that, like all others, has its own codes, its own mindset, and its own "defining moments" — stories that live in the memory of long-timers and are passed on to every new joiner. So they can feel proud to belong to their new tribe: the company.

Read the previous article: Internal Communication: The Multi-Site Company Challenge (3/7) – Showcasing Internal Successes

Read the next article: Internal Communication: The Multi-Site Company Challenge (5/7) – Encouraging Feedback

Also discover: Best Software for Internal Communication

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This article is excerpted from our Ebook « The 7 Challenges of Internal Communication in a Multi-Site Context« . In it, you'll discover: the key challenges facing internal communication in a multi-site organization, along with practical advice and best practices to address them.

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