DIV 5003 Module 1 Workplace Belonging Measurement Example

Who Speaks in Design Review? Measuring Belonging in a 22-Person Engineering Team

Student Name

American College of Education

DIV5003: Belonging and Inclusion in the Workplace

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

September 4, 2028

Introduction

I manage a 22-person transportation design group at a civil engineering firm in Sacramento, a composite employer called Delta Ridge Engineering in this course. The group designs roadway and intersection improvements for cities and the state. Over the past year two capable engineers left, both saying in exit conversations that they never felt fully part of the team, and a junior engineer told me that design reviews felt like a conversation among the senior staff. This paper measures belonging in the group. It explains what belonging and inclusion mean, describes three sources of evidence, reports the results and identifies where belonging is weakest.

What Belonging and Inclusion Mean

Shore et al. (2011), reviewing research on inclusion in work groups, defined inclusion as the degree to which people experience treatment that satisfies two needs at once: the need to belong, felt when the group accepts a person as one of its own, and the need to be distinctive, felt when the group values what sets that person apart. A team that offers belonging only by asking people to conform does not include them, and one that values difference without acceptance leaves people isolated. Jansen et al. (2014) built a measure on a similar idea, distinguishing a sense of belonging to the group from room for authenticity, the sense that one can be oneself within it. Measuring both dimensions matters, because a team can score well on one and poorly on the other.

Evidence Source One: A Validated Survey

The main measure is the perceived group inclusion scale developed by Jansen et al. (2014), which asks people to rate statements about whether the group gives them the feeling that they belong, that it likes them, that they can be themselves and that it appreciates who they are. Twenty of the 22 engineers and technicians completed it anonymously in May, with responses on a five-point scale. To protect anonymity in a small team, results are reported only for groups of four or more. The survey added two questions of my own: whether the respondent feels comfortable disagreeing in design reviews, and whether they believe assignments to visible client work are made fairly.

Evidence Sources Two and Three: Behavior and Records

Surveys capture feelings; behavior shows patterns people may not report. Over six weekly design reviews, a project coordinator recorded who spoke and for about how long, without names in the final tally, only roles and work arrangements. I also reviewed project records for the past year to see who presented to clients at public meetings and city council sessions, the most visible and career-building work in the group. Together, the three sources allow the survey results to be checked against what actually happens in the team's most important routines.

Survey Results

Overall, the group scored 3.9 out of 5 on belonging and 3.4 on room for authenticity. That difference tells its own story: people generally feel accepted but less free to be themselves. Scores differed by group. Senior engineers averaged 4.4 on belonging and 4.1 on authenticity. Junior engineers, with fewer than three years at the firm, averaged 3.6 and 3.0. The five engineers who work from home three days a week averaged 3.5 and 3.2. The five engineers who were trained outside the United States averaged 3.7 on belonging but 2.9 on authenticity, the lowest of any group. Only 45 percent of all respondents agreed that they felt comfortable disagreeing in design reviews.

What Happens in Design Review

The meeting observations explain part of the survey pattern. In the six design reviews, the three senior engineers accounted for about 64 percent of speaking time, while junior engineers, who make up nearly half the group, accounted for about 18 percent. Engineers joining remotely spoke for about 6 percent of the time, often after the meeting had moved on. Twice, a junior engineer's comment was repeated by a senior colleague a few minutes later and then credited to the senior colleague in the notes. These patterns are not deliberate exclusion, but they show who the meeting is really for. Meetings also ran on a format that favored the office: the agenda was set the morning of the review, drawings were displayed only on the conference room screen, and comments came in rapid exchanges that remote participants found hard to enter.

Who Gets Visible Work

Project records show a similar concentration. Of 31 public meetings and council presentations in the past year, 24 were led by the same five engineers, all senior, all based in the office full time. None of the internationally trained engineers led a client presentation, although two of them led the technical design on projects that were presented. When asked in the survey whether visible assignments were made fairly, 50 percent agreed overall, but only one of the five internationally trained engineers and two of the five hybrid engineers did. Belonging, in this group, is linked to access to the work that builds careers.

Why Status Matters

The gap between senior and junior engineers is consistent with research on status in teams. Nembhard and Edmondson (2006), studying neonatal intensive care teams, found that members with higher professional status reported greater psychological safety than lower-status members, and that when leaders openly asked for and valued input from everyone, staff felt safer speaking up and the difference between higher- and lower-status members shrank. Engineering design teams share the clinical teams' steep hierarchy of credentials and experience. In our group, the senior engineers are also the licensed professionals who sign the drawings, which gives their views extra weight in every review. That does not make their views wrong, but it means junior engineers need explicit invitations, not just permission, to contribute.

Interpreting the Results

Read together, the evidence suggests that the group accepts people as members more readily than it values what makes them distinctive, in the terms Shore et al. (2011) use. People are accepted, but the team's routines reward a particular style: speaking up quickly in person, presenting confidently in English to public audiences and being present in the office. Engineers who differ in experience, work arrangement or background feel accepted but less able to contribute in their own way, and the meeting and assignment records show why. This is a problem for the team as well as for them, because it narrows whose ideas shape designs.

Limits

The evidence has limits. Twenty respondents is a small group, so differences between subgroups of four or five people should be treated as signals rather than firm findings. As the group's manager, I may influence how openly people answer, despite anonymity. Speaking time is a rough measure of participation; some people contribute heavily in writing or one-on-one. And one year of assignment records may reflect particular projects. Repeating the survey and observations after changes are made will show whether the patterns persist. Even with these limits, three sources pointing the same way make the main pattern hard to dismiss.

Conclusion

The transportation design group scores 3.9 on belonging but 3.4 on room for authenticity, with lower scores among junior, hybrid and internationally trained engineers. Design review observations and project records show that speaking time and visible work are concentrated among senior, office-based engineers. The next module will examine how drawing more fully on the group's varied perspectives could improve its designs and results.

References

Jansen, W. S., Otten, S., van der Zee, K. I., & Jans, L. (2014). Inclusion: Conceptualization and measurement. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(4), 370-385. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2011

Nembhard, I. M., & Edmondson, A. C. (2006). Making it safe: The effects of leader inclusiveness and professional status on psychological safety and improvement efforts in health care teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(7), 941-966. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.413

Shore, L. M., Randel, A. E., Chung, B. G., Dean, M. A., Holcombe Ehrhart, K., & Singh, G. (2011). Inclusion and diversity in work groups: A review and model for future research. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1262-1289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310385943