30 January 2026
Insights
4 mins read
Within the ‘anthro-data’ team at Cultural Infusion’s Atlas the concept of ‘Belonging‘ features heavily in our work. We’re at heart a bunch of survey data and survey methodology nerds, and we’re also experts on interculturalism, and yet… we still find cultural and statistical issues in our own surveys.
So, what’s wrong with the word ‘Belonging’?
One such problem, which we’ve now rectified, concerned the use of the word ‘Belonging’ in company-wide surveys. That word has been bandied about since the mid-90s in English-speaking organisations as a noble company value; a ‘sense of belonging’ is something which leaders should instil in the staff. Indeed, we see that word crop up in many sets of ‘company values’ statements. It also appears on pretty much every survey platform on the planet, in questions like:
- I feel like I belong here. Yes / Somewhat / No
- I feel a sense of belonging at this organisation. Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly do you feel a sense of belonging in our organisation?
Etc.
No more!
‘Why?’ we hear you ask.
Because this term doesn’t translate out of English very well. This first came to my own attention when one of our own team, born and raised in Hong Kong and who spoke English as a third language asked me why on Earth ‘belonging’ was a ‘value’? We chatted and she explained that that word translates back into her language as ‘belonging to…’ as in, ‘owned by’. ’I don’t want to belong to the company like the photocopy machine does!’ she said.
Turns out, this happens in a lot of Asian languages, and perhaps many more.
A BBC article by Lennox Morrison sums it up pretty well. Basically, when introducing a ‘native’ English speaker to a room full of English-as-a-second-or-third-language cohort, speaking English will drop the communication levels, not raise it. Anglophones get what’s happening with the use of the word ‘belonging’ in that context, but that’s not necessarily true for anyone else.
As I said at the top, we’re data nerds too, and it occurred to us that analysis of scaled data on a ‘belonging’ question might be corrupted. Consider this:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, How strongly do you feel a sense of belonging in our organisation?
Person 1 (with English as a first language): ‘The company is great at instilling a sense of belonging with me, so I’ll score them a 9.’
Person 2 (with English as a third language): ‘The company is wonderful, I love it here and they treat with me respect and I feel no sense of being owned, so I’m going to score them a 1.’
See the data problem? So that’s it, we’re retiring the word from our library. What do we replace it with, though? Unambiguous and easily translated words jump to mind, like welcomed, appreciated and included. These are the ongoing conversations we have at work. We’ll keep you updated.
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