Juliette Austin, Head of Equity & Belonging at Zillow Group - Building Community and Connection

On the AllVoices Reimagining Company Culture podcast, we sat down with Juliette Austin, Head of Equity & Belonging at Zillow Group, to dig into building belonging at work. As Head of Equity & Belonging at Zillow Group, Juliette leads the company’s efforts in embedding diversity, equity, inclusion practices into our values and how we work.

The conversation moves past the usual talking points. Instead of treating belonging as an HR theme, Juliette Austin treats it as an operational discipline that sits in the daily decisions managers make about people, priorities, and trust. Below, the takeaways HR leaders, employee relations specialists, and executive teams will find most useful.

The discussion below pulls on several threads from the episode and connects them to current research and what AllVoices sees across hundreds of People teams.

What Belonging Looks Like in Practice

Belonging is one of those words HR teams use freely, but the on-the-ground version is much messier. In the conversation with Juliette Austin, several patterns showed up that mirror what McKinsey research on diverse leadership performance also highlights about effective people work. The gap between the slide-deck version and the daily practice is where most programs fall apart.

The data backs the case. Gallup analysis of purpose at work shows that organizations treating belonging as a real discipline outperform peers on engagement, retention, and the cultural metrics that matter most over a multi-year horizon. Companies that treat it as messaging see short-term lift and long-term decline.

For HR leaders building DEI programs, that means starting with the everyday touchpoints where belonging either lands or fails: hiring loops, onboarding, manager 1:1s, and performance conversations. These are the places where intention turns into experience, and where employees decide whether they trust the company enough to stay, speak up, and do their best work.

The pattern across high-functioning HR teams is consistent. They write fewer policies, run more pilots, and spend more time in conversation with managers who are actually doing the work. That discipline is harder than rolling out a campaign, but it is the difference between belonging as a phrase and belonging as a result.

How HR Teams Make Belonging Operational

The shift from concept to operation is where most teams stall. Two questions usually surface in workshops with People leaders.

Where should belonging live in the org?

Ownership matters. Programs that sit only with HR rarely get traction. The strongest organizations pair central ownership in HR with distributed accountability across people managers, with a feedback loop into leadership. Employee Engagement can help build the capacity to run that distributed model without losing visibility, and gives the People team a single place to track what is actually happening.

What does success look like in 12 months?

Most teams need a one-year mark with concrete outcomes: a measurable change in psychological safety scores, a defined set of policy and process changes, and named owners for the work. Without that, the program drifts and budget questions become harder to defend. The honest version of a 12-month plan also includes two or three things you tried and decided not to repeat.

What Actually Works When You Lead Belonging

Three patterns repeat across People teams that get this work right. The principles cut across industry and company size.

Embed belonging in everyday rituals

Belonging shows up in standups, all-hands, and Slack channels long before it shows up in a strategy doc.

Treat ERGs as strategic, not extracurricular

Employee resource groups produce real cultural insight. Resource them like any other function that drives outcomes.

Connect belonging to business decisions

When ERG feedback shapes product, policy, or hiring, belonging stops being a side initiative.

These three principles also depend on the underlying culture. Without a baseline of inclusion, most operational changes get rejected by the organization's immune system. Build the foundation first.

Where Employee Relations Fits Into Belonging

Whatever the topic, employee relations sits underneath. Belonging programs that ignore the ER reality get blindsided by a case that should have been resolved early. AllVoices builds investigations management and HR case management so HR teams can connect the surface-level work on belonging to the deeper work of resolving issues, tracking patterns, and acting on what employees raise. The two are tightly linked: when employees see issues handled fairly, they trust the rest of the work too.

How ER data informs Belonging strategy

Issue patterns, response times, and resolution outcomes give HR a clearer picture than survey data alone. When the ER data is integrated into Company Culture workflows, leaders can see how belonging translates into the lived experience of employees who raise concerns, and what to do about it. The teams that move fastest tend to review case themes monthly and feed those insights into the broader people strategy, instead of treating ER as a separate, reactive function.

For a real example, see Zillow's retention program. The same pattern applies: connect the strategic intent of belonging to the operational rhythm where ER, HR, and managers actually meet employees.

Frequently Asked Questions About Belonging

What does belonging mean in the workplace?

Belonging is the experience of being valued, included, and able to contribute as your full self. It's the felt sense that comes when diversity, equity, and inclusion work together in everyday practice.

Why is belonging important for retention?

People stay where they feel they matter. Employees who feel a strong sense of belonging are far more engaged, more likely to recommend their employer, and far less likely to quit during their first two years.

How do you measure belonging?

Track sentiment in pulse surveys, attrition by demographic group, ERG participation, internal promotion equity, and qualitative feedback from listening sessions. Triangulate across all five.

Are ERGs and belonging the same thing?

No. ERGs are a vehicle for connection, but belonging is the broader felt experience. ERGs accelerate belonging when resourced well, but they cannot substitute for inclusive everyday management.

Who owns belonging in an organization?

Belonging is a leadership outcome, not a DEI team deliverable. CEOs and managers shape the daily experience that either creates belonging or erodes it.

The Bottom Line for HR Leaders

Belonging is not a posture. It's a set of decisions, repeated over time, by people who control budgets, promotions, calendars, and the daily experience of work. The HR leaders who get traction stop treating this as a campaign and start treating it as ongoing operational practice. That reframing matters because it changes how you measure success and where you put your energy week to week.

That shift requires data, follow-through, and a clear point of view. McKinsey research on diverse leadership performance and the broader research community make the business case clearer every year. The companies that act on it consistently win on retention, culture, and outcomes that show up on the financial statement. The ones that keep treating the work as branding tend to lose ground quietly, then noisily.

The conversation with Juliette Austin is a useful reminder that the work is doable. None of it requires a huge HR team or a massive budget. It requires clear thinking, consistent execution, and the willingness to adjust when the data tells you to. Pair that mindset with the right tooling and the right partners, and belonging stops being aspirational and becomes a measurable part of how the business runs.

Want to see how AllVoices supports HR teams running this work? Book a demo.