I hadn't had Marley, my rescue dog from Romania, for very long and as a first-time dog owner, I was still getting to grips with where to walk, how long to walk him, training him to walk 'properly' – the list of things to think about was endless.
In the early days of having Marley, I had found a local dog park. And whilst I was there, I had been absorbed into a lovely group of dog owners who met there regularly. They were kind, welcoming, and funny. We had good conversation. I felt like I belonged.
Then one day I arrived at the park and something had shifted. The warm welcome was absent. It was as if they had never met me or Marley before. I collected Marley and we left.
As I walked home, I couldn't piece together what I had just experienced. What had gone wrong? Did I offend someone? Was Marley anti-social with another dog? Did I miss something? None of it made sense.
I clearly was made to feel unwelcome and I certainly didn't belong.
So — what is belonging?
Belonging is the feeling of being accepted and valued for who you are — not who you are expected to be. It is distinct from fitting in, which often requires you to mask or minimise parts of yourself in order to be tolerated.
In a workplace context, belonging matters enormously. Research consistently shows that people who feel they belong are more engaged, more productive, and more likely to stay. They are also more likely to take the kinds of risks — speaking up, sharing ideas, flagging problems — that make organisations healthier.
The absence of belonging, on the other hand, creates a particular kind of exhaustion. The energy spent monitoring yourself, managing perceptions, and wondering whether you are truly welcome — that is energy not available for the work itself.
What happened at the dog park was, in the grand scheme of things, small. But it reminded me how quickly belonging can be withdrawn, and how little it takes to make someone feel excluded.
In our workplaces, we often focus on the dramatic exclusions — the discriminatory comment, the overlooked promotion. But belonging is also built and broken in the small moments. The meeting where someone's idea is picked up only after a more senior person repeats it. The social event that implicitly centres one cultural tradition. The team that has a running joke everyone laughs at but not everyone actually finds funny.
These things add up.
Creating belonging is not about enforcing positivity or pretending conflict doesn't exist. It is about building the conditions where people can be genuine, where difference is not just tolerated but genuinely valued, and where no one has to work overtime just to feel like they have a right to be in the room.
That's the work. And it starts with noticing the small things.
