4 Ways To Elevate Employee Resource Groups As Company Culture Champions

Employee Resources Groups, also known as affinity groups or business resource groups, have existed for almost 60 years and center around a shared interest or identity such as race, gender, or orientation. For decades, companies have utilized ERGs to create community within their employee base, yet they often remain an underutilized resource for building or transforming company cultures. When given the right support, they can have a meaningful impact on a company's inclusion efforts and help create space where employees feel a sense of belonging and care. 

Employee Resource Groups have the opportunity to be true partners with company leadership teams. ERGs have always been tasked with creating a sense of belonging within an organization, providing leadership development and programming, offering opportunities to volunteer in the local community, and acting as brand ambassadors for the organization. Now, companies are looking to their Employee Resource Groups to play a role in change management and communication efforts, especially in times of significant change and crisis, and to provide leaders with guidance and understanding on how to better support those communities.  

Yet, many of today’s Employee Resource Groups are not set up for success and feel limited in their ability to actually execute the company’s mission and culture. 

ERG leaders are met with similar challenges no matter what group they lead. They are often underfunded, if they are lucky enough to be provided a budget at all. They are under resourced. Employee Resource Groups are usually voluntary, employee-led organizations. The leaders of these groups are dedicating substantial time and energy to support the organization's culture and inclusion goals, yet this work is on top of their day jobs and often without the support of their direct manager who may be frustrated at the added “unrelated” responsibilities. As someone who co-chaired an ERG for years, I experienced these challenges and had a few members of our leadership team step down because their manager voiced concerns about their involvement and indicated it would hold them back in their career paths. Clearly there is a disconnect!

Employee Resource Groups are intended to drive diversity, inclusion, and belonging efforts while helping create company cultures that care. In order to maximize impact and run effectively, leaders should consider the following:

1. Companies and ERGs must align their mission and vision. Define the role of Employee Resources Groups within your company. This provides ERG leaders with clear expectations and goals while helping the organization determine how they are allocating resources and budget. Create a role or team to oversee all ERGs that will facilitate collaboration and provide resources and education for the ERG leadership teams.
2. Assign or confirm executive sponsorship and goals. Executive sponsorship demonstrates commitment to the career advancement of the members. However, sponsorship must go beyond attaching someone in name only. Executive sponsors should also have clear goals and set measurable targets for communication, involvement, and how they will provide support for the ERG.
3. Evaluate and secure a budget. Financial support is key for the success of an ERG. ERG leaders often scrap budgets together through their executive sponsor or other business leaders and may often have to find support for each separate initiative. Ideally budgets should be allocated annually from a centralized resource such as the ERG team or role. 
4. Recognize and reward your ERG leaders. Ask any ERG leader and they will tell you that running these organizations is work. Yes, leaders of these organizations are stepping up because they believe in the work and because they are passionate about creating changes in your organization. It is also still work. In 2020, we started to see organizations value this work, from giants like Twitter to start-ups like JustWorks, by providing direct compensation packages including their work in formal performance metrics and reviews. If this still feels too radical for your organization, start by recognizing leaders in company communications and rewarding them with additional exposure to senior leadership and broader career opportunities. By providing real recognition and rewards, it not only shows the ERG leader that they are valued, but demonstrates to the entire organization that this work is critical to the overall mission and goals of the company.

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