Employee belonging is common enough to matter and uneven enough to measure carefully. In the Belonging Barometer 3.0, 41% of workers in five countries said work was where they felt their greatest sense of belonging in May 2023. Yet 75% of globally employed respondents said they had felt excluded at work. U.S. culture data collected in May 2026 likewise found that only 20% of employees strongly agreed they felt connected to their organization’s culture.
Contents
- How common belonging and exclusion are at work
- Identity, equity and flexibility
- Belonging, culture and work arrangements
- Business outcomes associated with belonging
- Measured costs of workplace exclusion
- Practices linked with stronger belonging
How common belonging and exclusion are at work
The Belonging Barometer 3.0, measured in May 2023, placed work between home and neighborhood as a source of belonging. Home was identified by 62% of workers, work by 41%, and the neighborhood by 31%. These figures describe relative sources of belonging among workers in five countries; they do not mean that only 41% felt any workplace connection.
The same research shows how belonging can coexist with caution and exclusion. Fifty-six percent of globally employed adults said they could not or were reluctant to share parts of their identity at work because they feared it would hold them back. Among LGBTQ+ workers, the figure was 77%. Separately, 75% of globally employed respondents said they had felt excluded in their workplace. These are reported experiences from May 2023, not a current global estimate.
U.S. measures from Gallup’s Global Indicator: Organizational Culture show similarly limited strong agreement on culture in May 2026:
| U.S. employee culture measure | Strongly agreed |
|---|---|
| Felt connected to the organization’s culture | 20% |
| Coworkers were committed to cultural values | 20% |
| Leaders were committed to cultural values | 24% |
| Manager explained how values influenced work | 19% |
The pattern suggests that a formal set of values does not automatically become a shared daily experience. Strong agreement was below one-quarter on each listed measure, with the manager-communication measure lowest at 19%.
Identity, equity and flexibility
Belonging is shaped not only by interpersonal relationships but also by whether employees see fair access to opportunity. In May 2023, 66% of workers said there were barriers to advancement within their company. Equitable pay was identified by 40% of respondents as the top contributor to a sense of equity in their workplace. Equitable performance evaluation was identified by 34% as a leading motivator for workplace diversity, equity and inclusion, while equitable staffing or work assignments was identified by 30%.
Flexibility was prominent in the same research. Forty-five percent of workers said flexible working was the top motivator for instilling diversity, equity and inclusion on their own teams. Sixty-four percent said their sense of belonging increased because of shifts toward hybrid working, while 12% reported a decreased sense of belonging because of those shifts. The two results describe different reported experiences; they should not be treated as a net change for all workers.
DEI priorities also appeared relevant to employment decisions. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they would choose a company that prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion over one that did not. Seventy-four percent said their company’s prioritization of DEI factored into their choice to join or work there. In contrast, 26% said that prioritization would not factor into that choice.
Belonging, culture and work arrangements
Gallup’s May 2026 U.S. results showed little difference in the share who strongly agreed they felt connected to organizational culture by work arrangement. The figure was 20% among employees working exclusively remotely, 20% among hybrid employees, and 18% among on-site employees.
| U.S. work arrangement | Strongly agreed they felt connected to culture | Measurement |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusively remote | 20% | May 2026 |
| Hybrid | 20% | May 2026 |
| On-site | 18% | May 2026 |
Views about long-term remote work differed more by organizational role than the connection measure did. In May 2025, 31% of U.S. leaders said long-term remote work would make their organization’s culture worse, compared with 22% of managers and 15% of individual contributors. Fifty-two percent of leaders said it would leave culture about the same, compared with 56% of managers and 64% of individual contributors. Sixteen percent of leaders expected culture to become better, compared with 22% of managers and 21% of individual contributors.
Gallup’s Managers Feel More Connected to Their Organization’s Culture reported in 2024 that 36% of Fortune 500 CHROs strongly agreed their executive leaders were focusing more on organizational culture than in the previous year. Managers’ connection to company culture was 4 percentage points above its recent low in the latest comparison. The source also found that employees who strongly agreed they knew what their organization stood for were 11.3 times as likely to strongly agree that they felt connected to its culture. Employees who strongly agreed their leaders were committed to cultural values were 9.8 times as likely to rate workplace culture as excellent.
Two later Gallup analyses, based on February 2025 analysis, connect culture connection with employee outcomes in the U.S. Employees connected to their organization’s culture were 3.7 times as likely to be engaged at work and 5.2 times as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great place to work. They were also 68% less likely to feel burned out always or very often and 55% less likely to be actively looking for another job or watching for opportunities.
Business outcomes associated with belonging
BetterUp’s The value of belonging at work: New frontiers for inclusion, based on a 2020 study, reported differences between employees with strong and low belonging. Employees with a strong sense of belonging showed a 50% reduction in turnover risk and reported 56% higher overall job performance. Employees who felt they belonged reported taking 75% fewer sick days over a 12-month period.
The study also reported differences in advocacy and advancement. Employees who felt they belonged were 167% more likely to recommend their organization as a great place to work. In a six-month performance comparison, employees with high belonging received twice as many raises as employees with low belonging. Employees reporting strong belonging were promoted 18 times more often than employees reporting low belonging.
The BetterUp findings are associations and comparisons from a 2020 study, not a guarantee that belonging alone caused each outcome. They nevertheless show why organizations track belonging alongside retention, performance, absence and employee advocacy.
The report’s modeled 10,000-person company illustrates possible scale, but it is an estimate from the study model rather than an observed result for every 10,000-person employer. If all workers felt strong belonging, the model estimated more than $52 million in annual productivity gains and nearly $10 million in annual turnover-related cost savings. It also estimated 2,825 fewer sick days per year. The report valued those avoided sick days at nearly $2.5 million in annual productivity gains.
Measured costs of workplace exclusion
The 2020 BetterUp report also described experiments that measured short-term effects of exclusion. A single incidence of micro-exclusion was associated with an immediate 25% decline in an individual’s performance on a team project. In a collaborative ball-toss experiment, exclusionary bots tossed the human participant the ball only 3% of the time.
Participants excluded in the initial game were 25% less productive on future work tasks than included participants. These figures come from controlled experiments described by the report. They are not estimates of the productivity effect of every workplace exclusion incident, but they provide quantified evidence that exclusion can affect subsequent task performance.
The distinction between reported workplace experience and experimental evidence matters. The Belonging Barometer measured how workers described identity disclosure and exclusion in May 2023. BetterUp’s experiment measured task performance after an induced exclusion experience in a 2020 study. Together, the sources point to two separate questions: how often employees encounter exclusion, and what measurable effects may follow when it occurs.
Practices linked with stronger belonging
Workers in the May 2023 Belonging Barometer identified several practices associated with belonging. Thirty-two percent said being checked in on about how they were doing at work and personally contributed most to their workplace belonging. Twenty-eight percent named public recognition for their contributions, and 26% named developmental feedback.
The same research found that 45% of workers said flexible working, including hours and location, increased their sense of belonging. Thirty-five percent said stronger workplace culture increased belonging. Another 35% said better or more inclusive benefits increased belonging, while 35% said incentive compensation increased it. These percentages describe respondents’ selected contributors and should not be added together as a combined share.
Openness and flexibility were also reported as organizational factors. Twenty-five percent of workers said they were encouraged to be open about their opinions, needs, preferences and personality as a factor associated with belonging. Twenty-two percent said their organization had become more flexible as a factor associated with belonging.
Taken together, the figures cover both everyday management and structural conditions: personal check-ins, recognition and feedback sit alongside flexible work, benefits, compensation, advancement, pay and staffing. The measured results do not identify one universal intervention. They show that belonging statistics are strongest when read across experience, culture, identity, work arrangement and organizational practice.