The Belonging Metric: Why Workplace Wellness Programs Have to Move Beyond DEI Checkboxes

A recap from Episode of the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast, with Dr. Melissa Durham, Associate Dean of Organizational Success and Wellbeing at the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

I’ve wanted to have this conversation for a long time.

For the better part of a decade, organizations have measured diversity through headcounts, hiring targets, and representation numbers. Those numbers matter, but here’s what almost nobody is tracking: whether people actually feel like they belong once they’re in the room. That gap — between “we hired for diversity” and “our people feel like they belong here” — is exactly why so many wellness programs and DEI initiatives stall at good intentions instead of becoming a real organizational health strategy.

So on this episode of 9 to 5 Wellness, I sat down with Dr. Melissa Durham to talk about belonging as a metric, not a mood. Melissa is a pharmacist by training, with almost 20 years of clinical experience in chronic pain management, and she now leads organizational success and wellbeing strategy at a major university. If you’re building or defending a corporate wellness program right now, this conversation is for you.

Why Belonging Has to Be Measured, Not Assumed

I asked Melissa the question I think a lot of HR and wellness leaders are quietly asking themselves: if belonging is the real outcome we’re after, why isn’t anyone treating it like an actual metric?

Her answer reframed the whole conversation for me. The demographic data most companies collect — retention numbers, turnover, self-reported identity data — is often shaky to begin with. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as she put it. You can increase diversity in your hiring, but if you don’t build the systems and structures to support the people you bring in, you’ll lose them, and all that recruiting effort was for nothing.

That’s the core idea I want every wellness consultant and HR leader reading this to sit with: belonging isn’t just something you survey — it’s something you build the structure for. Measuring it is only half the job.

How to Build a Belonging Metric That Actually Works

One of the most practical parts of our conversation was Melissa walking through exactly how her team standardizes belonging measurement across very different groups — faculty, staff, students, different generations, different departments.

Her three-part framework is one I’m going to be recommending to every organization I consult with going forward:

1. Standardize the assessment tool. Use the same questions across groups so you can meaningfully compare results, even when response patterns differ by team or generation.
2. Disaggregate the data. Don’t just look at an org-wide average. Break results out by department, role, or demographic group to see where the real gaps are. At Melissa’s institution, disaggregating a climate survey revealed that staff were struggling far more than faculty — a finding an aggregate score would have completely hidden.
3. Follow up with listening sessions. This is the step most organizations skip, and it’s the one that actually creates accountability. The data tells you where the problem is. Listening sessions tell you why — and that’s where real culture change starts.

At Melissa’s university, listening sessions led to a hybrid work policy and a dedicated staff council after data showed staff felt unheard and underrepresented. That’s the belonging metric doing its job: turning a number into a structural change.

The Business Case: Belonging and Wellness Programs Aren’t a “Perk”

Here’s something that came up in our conversation that I can’t stop thinking about. I recently worked with an organization that cut its entire employee wellbeing function during a budget crunch — because leadership described it internally as “a voluntary extra perk.”

Melissa’s response was blunt, and I loved it: DEI and wellbeing can’t be the frosting. They have to be baked into the cake. These principles live inside your policies, your dress codes, your scheduling practices — not in a separate line item you can cut when budgets tighten. If your organization treats belonging as optional, ask yourself what that says about your culture the moment things get hard.

So how do you make the ROI case to skeptical senior leadership?

• Tie it to costs everyone already agrees are bad. Nobody argues that turnover, disengagement, and burnout are good for business. Frame belonging and wellness metrics as leading indicators for the outcomes leadership already cares about.
• Use real, specific pain points. Vague appeals to “culture” don’t move budgets. A concrete example — like staff feeling structurally unheard — does.
• Watch for the right moment. Melissa advocated for an in-house wellness counselor for years before the pandemic finally made the case for her. Sometimes the groundwork you lay today is what gets funded tomorrow, when the moment is right.

Disengagement Is the Real Enemy of Retention

We also talked about quiet quitting — and Melissa shared something personal: after a period of burnout and lack of support, she disengaged from her own role for a while before a new, more supportive leader helped her re-engage. That’s a powerful reminder that disengagement isn’t a personality flaw. It’s a response to an unsupported environment, and it’s one of the earliest warning signs a belonging metric can catch — often before turnover numbers do.

Belonging in the Age of AI

We closed with a question that’s on everyone’s mind right now: as automation and AI reshape the workplace, how do we keep the human element — the belonging piece — at the center?

Melissa’s take, and one I share: there are human things AI will never replace. The smartest move isn’t ignoring AI, it’s using it to free up capacity for the human interactions that actually build belonging — more time listening, less time on administrative overhead.

My Takeaway

If you’re leading a wellness program or a people function right now, here’s the mission I’m walking away with: don’t wait for permission to treat belonging as a real metric. Standardize it. Disaggregate it. Listen. Build the structure. And when budget season comes around, make sure your leadership understands that this isn’t the frosting — it’s the cake.

This episode is available now on the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast, wherever you listen. If your organization is interested in partnering with the show, you can learn more on our brand partnership page.

This post was originally a 9 to 5 wellness podcast.