Written by: Jess Podgajny, Co-founder & CEO // LLUNA
To say I am "belonging" obsessed might be going a step too far, but it's close. I think it about it all the time. At work. In life. Belonging permeates our day-to-day lives both overtly and covertly. As a mom, I reflect on how my three young kids will belong - will they find friends and feel supported beyond the bounds of our house? Will they feel comfortable being authentic and letting their lights shine bright with others? Will people see what they add rather than how they fit?
As a CEO, I reflect regularly on the dynamics of our team - is everyone feeling heard, connected, and accepted? Am I creating an environment where everyone can amplify their strengths, be authentic, and feel fulfilled? I'm sure I don't get it perfect 100% of the time, but I sure do try. In networking circles, I look for common ground; ways to mutually bond with others. Finding that mutual interest, shared perspective, or interesting passion leads conversations down more meaningful corridors, uncovering greater depth in minutes than ever expected.
With about half of knowledge workers working remotely, our old ways of building trust, connection, and ultimately feeling a sense of belonging at work have changed. We need to think differently about how we connect with one another and embrace the beauty of our digital age. Yet right now, siloes are increasing across organizations, networks are shrinking, and people are feeling more and more isolated. This is not a phase we're transitioning through, these are realities we need to address head on...or they'll get worse.
Reflecting on these signals, I was also noticing trends in how companies and managers were using LLUNA's technology - much of it tying back to connection and belonging. How do you like to receive feedback? When do you do your best thinking? How do you communicate? These are questions you also might see in a personal user manual, a guide to working with a person. Beyond the individual, people also want to understand how to best work as a team - what are our norms? What do our individual preferences mean in the context of how we will work together? To complicate it, we also learned that individual preferences change over time, highlighting the need for a way to dynamically manage all of this. The good news was that our technology already did most if this. The great news is that the pieces we felt needed a bit more are in development now!
LLUNA's newest innovation, TeamOS, combines the power of Personal Operating Profiles with smart dashboards to increase connection, effectiveness, and productivity at work. Through TeamOS, we are harnessing the power of data to drive belonging across organizations. If this gets you as excited as it gets us, check out how you can create a Personal Operating Profile for free here!
Read on for more about Connection and Belonging:
Healthy Relationships at Work: Time off, meditation, and on-site daycare and fitness gyms can absolutely alleviate stress. But those things frame unhappiness as an individual condition when, in reality, it’s a relational problem in need of relational solutions.
Gen Z Employees Are Feeling Disconnected: It is incredibly important, especially in a remote or hybrid workforce, that onboarding establish a container of mutual support. Onboarding is less about delivering information about your company, and more about allowing new employees to get to know each other and ask questions in a safe and supportive setting.
The Neuroscience of Trust: People at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout.
Your Workforce is Lonely: Loneliness and lack of connection and belonging is not solved simply by being around people. The fact is, workplaces have been failing to cultivate connection and connectedness for a long time.
Leader's Need User Manuals and What I Learned by Writing Mine: Transparency about our work style – our preferences, values, quirks and all – shortens the learning curve for others by making explicit things that might otherwise take months, or even years, to uncover.
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