31 Mattering, Welcoming, and Belonging

Mattering is the concept that an individual feels “significant and important to other people” (Flett et al., 2019)^[1]. When individuals assume new roles, such as internships, it is common to feel marginalized, as “feelings of marginality often occur when individuals take on new roles. Especially when they are uncertain about what the new role entails” (Patton et al., 2016)^[2].

We measure interns’ feelings of mattering with these statements:

• The internship team has made me feel welcomed.
• I feel a sense of belonging to my internship team.
• I see myself as part of the internship team.
• I feel like I matter to my colleagues/coworkers.

Many LHSI interns have never worked in a professional environment and they can feel uncertain or out of their depth on teams with people who have advanced degrees and a lot of experience. There are two important aspects of mattering in relation to the internship that we can focus on to help with this.

First, we want interns to know that they matter to us as people and colleagues. We all have whole lives outside of just work and it helps to acknowledge that and ask about what else is going on that week. Exams? Family time? Volunteer work? Also, giving thoughtful feedback on ways to improve or grow shows interns that you are invested in them and want to see them succeed.

Second, we want interns to understand how their work and contributions matter to the big picture. Some of the work they do may feel (to them) like busywork and meaningless tasks that nobody else wanted to do. Take a few minutes to help them connect those tasks to the big picture. For example, if they didn’t accomplish this work, what couldn’t get done? Why do the small tasks or details matter?