Belonging by Design
- Chanel Grenaway
- 14 hours ago
- 2 min read
The 2026 State of the Global Workplace Report landed in my inbox last week, and their findings confirmed what many of us already feel. We need to continue the important work of inclusivity, and we need to cultivate belonging if we want to improve employee engagement and retention.
In my conversations with leaders and board chairs, I'm hearing the same thing: we are struggling with burnout and disengagement, overwhelmed by the global political turmoil, and it is affecting retention and productivity.
According to the report, global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020. In Canada, 52% of workers are present but not fully contributing, and nearly one in five reported feeling lonely at work. Half of all workers in Canada and the US reported high stress on any given day. That is ten points above the global average (Gallup, pp. 25–29).
These numbers demonstrate that people are showing up but many of them are stressed, lonely and disconnected. That’s not a productivity problem, it’s a belonging problem.
Belonging happens when leaders design cultures to support it.
In my facilitation work with staff teams, employees describe a good work culture as one where differences are respected, lived experience is treated as knowledge, and belonging is not conditional on fitting into dominant norms. Staff want to feel valued when they speak up, and safe to share their unique expertise, experiences and insights.
Culture is the living environment that shapes how people feel, act, lead, and belong. It is built through daily micro-moments: who is heard in a meeting, whose ideas are acted on, who feels comfortable raising a concern. Leaders are shaping that environment every day, whether they are intentional about it or not. For increased belonging, leaders need to shift how they think about the environment itself, the relationships, the norms, the everyday interactions that either open or close the door to belonging.
Before you know it, we'll be talking about the 2027 State of the Global Workplace Report. A year from now, what would you like to say about your culture, employee engagement, and retention?
Source:
Gallup. State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report. United States and Canada Regional Summary, pp. 25–29. Gallup Press, 2026.
Chanel Grenaway & Associates Inc. is committed to helping leaders, staff teams and boards build good work cultures that align with their anti-racism and inclusion goals through continuous learning and practice change. Happy to hop on a call with you to see how I might help. Let’s chat.
