In today’s rapidly changing corporate landscape, ensuring that your employees feel a true sense of belonging is no longer just a “nice-to-have” HR initiative—it is a critical driver of business success and employee well-being.
In Episode 122 of the Harmonious Workplaces podcast, hosts Rich Cruz and Ben Kleinman sat down with Dr. Cam Dunson, an I/O Psychologist and organizational development expert, to unpack the science and strategy behind workplace belonging.
Here is a deep dive into the real-world impact of belonging, the five measurable components of workplace belonging, and how leaders can cultivate a thriving organizational culture.
The Neuroscience of Social Pain and the ROI of Belonging
Why does exclusion at work hurt so much? According to Dr. Dunson, the pain of not belonging is actually processed in the brain much like physical pain. She highlighted a seminal fMRI study by Naomi Eisenberger, which showed that when subjects were excluded from a simple computer game of “catch,” the neural regions associated with physical pain lit up. Simply put, when your employees feel left out, they are experiencing tangible, measurable distress.
Beyond the human element, there is a massive business case for fostering inclusion. A strong sense of belonging in the workplace yields incredible returns, including:
- A 56% increase in job performance.
- A 50% reduction in turnover risk.
- A 75% decrease in sick days.
For an enterprise with 10,000 employees, Dr. Dunson notes this can represent up to $52 million in annual savings and revenue. Furthermore, in the realm of organizational change, employees who feel they do not belong lose empathy, which fuels passive resistance and leads to the failure of change initiatives.
The 5 Components of Workplace Belonging
During her extensive PhD research, Dr. Dunson developed and validated the Sense of Belonging in the Workplace Scale (SBWS). Through her comprehensive literature review, she identified five distinct, measurable components of belonging:
1. Accepted and Liked
This component goes beyond mere tolerance; it involves the absence of rejection and ostracism. Crucially, it is bidirectional: an employee must feel accepted by their colleagues, but they must also actually like their colleagues and enjoy the time spent together.
2. Known and Understood
Employees need to be able to show up as their authentic selves without having to hide parts of their identity to fit in. This requires empathetic, supportive, and transparent leadership. Dr. Dunson shared a personal example of a manager who allowed her the flexibility to work 14-hour days on Mondays so she could take Fridays off to manage her household and ADHD, focusing entirely on her successful output rather than forcing her to rigidly punch a clock.
3. Purpose and Status
Does the employee feel a sense of pride and insider status within the organization? This component is about aligning individual goals with the team’s mission. Dr. Dunson shared a powerful story of a logistics company where warehouse workers doing repetitive scanning tasks found immense motivation. Leadership connected their daily tasks to meaningful narratives, reminding them that they weren’t just scanning boxes—they were ensuring “Granddad’s heart medication” or a “Barbie Dreamhouse” arrived precisely when a family needed it.
4. Respected and Voice
People need to feel valued for their contributions and have the opportunity to share in decision-making. While gathering the “voice of the employee” through surveys is a great start, leaders must avoid causing “inaction fatigue”. Dr. Dunson warns that employees don’t suffer from survey fatigue; they get tired of offering their feedback when leaders fail to take meaningful action on the results.
5. Safety and Trust
This final pillar relies on mutual trust between employees and leadership, fairness, and a non-competitive, collaborative environment. A massive part of this is psychological safety, which is frequently misunderstood.
Psychological Safety vs. Psychosocial Safety
Dr. Dunson explicitly clarified the difference between these two concepts, which many leaders confuse:
- Psychological Safety is a team-level attribute that gives employees the freedom to speak truth to power, take risks, pitch new ideas, and admit mistakes without the fear of shame or punishment. It is essential for iterative innovation.
- Psychosocial Safety, on the other hand, involves organizational systems protecting workers’ mental health and ensuring they are never threatened or overly uncomfortable.
Leaders sometimes push back against “psychological safety” because they mistakenly believe it means lowering work standards or creating an environment where every idea must be praised, but true psychological safety simply allows for respectful disagreement and bold innovation.
About Our Guest: Our guest today is Dr. Cam Dunson. Before getting her PhD in I/O psychology, Cam spent 21 years living and working overseas and training others to do the same. For her dissertation, she uncovered 5 components of workplace belonging and developed and validated the Sense of Belonging in the Workplace Scale to measure them. She now leads Dunson Insights, her consultancy helping organizations diagnose and build belonging through training and culture work. She’s a SHRM-SCP and current Board Chair of Florida Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Earlier this year, she took the stage at TEDxLakeShoreDrive in our fair city.
Here website is at www.camdunson.com.
Want to learn more about workplace culture, change management, and leadership? View more episodes at www.harmoniousworkplaces.com.
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