(PART ONE) Employee Resource Groups: Why They Are Necessary for Inclusion and Belonging —and Your Company’s Success
As companies and organizations look to adopt strategies to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, many have turned their attention to employee resource groups (ERGs), internal communities with shared identities and interests, as a means of fostering a more inclusive work environment.
Employee resource groups allow for a greater sense of belonging—providing employees an opportunity to establish connections that directly counter the feelings of being an “only” within an organization.
Within the workplace, employee resource groups strengthen acceptance, camaraderie, and fairness across organizations, boosting the visibility of underrepresented groups while building allyship, both within the ERGs themselves, and amongst the company as a whole.
Employees that participate in ERGs often feel like they can be their authentic selves at work, and are better able to derive meaning and purpose from the work that they do. Employees today are connecting their job to purpose like never before, and they want to be part of the establishment and evolution of fair and equitable policies, practices, and procedures—especially for those in marginalized groups whom these policies and practices often impact the most.
Employees want to feel heard and to know they have a voice.
They also want to be involved in helping create solutions.
The opportunity for organizations is clear—to position their ERGs as safe spaces, sources for ideas and engines for progress. When managed well and supported properly, employee resource groups can become powerful enablers of an organization and its employees’ success.
ERGs From The Beginning To Now — A Building Block of “Belonging” (and More)
Employee resource groups were developed in the 1960s in response to racial tensions felt among workplaces.
According to the Boston College Center for Work and Family, employees at Xerox formed the first employee resource group, the National Black Employee Caucus, in 1970, followed by the Black Women’s Leadership Caucus in 1980. Hewlett Packard formed the first LGBTQ+ employee resource group in 1978.
Employee resource groups are typically organized by commonalities—demographics, life stages or job functions. Some of the more popular employee resource groups include:
• Women in the workplace, including leadership development groups
• Cultural diversity and/or geographic area
• LGBTQ+ employees
• Veterans
• Parents/Caregivers (i.e. single parents, adoptive parents, elder caregivers etc.)
• People with disabilities or caregivers for persons with disabilities
• Flexible/remote workers
• Generational
• Religious affiliations
ERGs can affect key metrics that help define an organization as an inclusive and welcoming workplace—and as an added benefit, may also help to increase the bottom line. Effective ERGs have been shown to improve employee recruitment efforts, increase employee retention rates, and result in greater productivity.
When prospective employees are recruited by a particular company or organization, they try to envision themselves working there, and predict what outcome the job change will have on their day-to-day life. Employee resource groups help make it easier for prospective employees to see themselves as part of the organization.
ERGs promote belonging even before an employee accepts a position by featuring a supportive and valued group of which they can be a part.
Similarly, organizations are able to continually foster that sense of belonging, as well as save a great deal of money, since ERGs have been shown to bolster employee retention. With typical costs to replace an employee coming in at 150 percent of an employee’s salary, it is vital to the bottom line to retain talent.. Studies show that of employees that quit in a recent 6 month period, 51% experienced a lack of belonging. In fact, when employees experience belonging in the workplace they are:
3x more likely to look forward to coming to work
3x more likely to think their workplace is fun
9x more likely to believe people are treated fairly
5x more likely to want to stay at their company
Another often overlooked benefit of employee resource groups is their role in developing the leadership skills of their members. It can be quite common for organizations to look to ERGs for new executive talent among ERG members—particularly those who demonstrate their skills as capable leaders of these diverse groups. And as a result of this leadership funnel, there will often be greater diversity in the organization’s senior leadership roles. Interestingly enough, this is yet another way ERGs help to increase an organization's financial return since according to McKinsey, companies having diversity in their senior positions have been found to be 25 percent more profitable.
Ultimately, workplaces with active and supported ERGs often benefit in a variety of ways as a result of ensuring their employees’ sense of belonging. And when these groups are able to use their collective voice to champion important causes, educate members or other employees, and bring awareness to various activities—like promoting self-care, encouraging stress management, supporting psychological safety and advocating for allyship—it also allows organizations to leverage the talent and skill of all its employees, rather than relying on success to come from a strictly top-down approach to leadership.
Ready to take the next step?
As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultant with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community, I work with companies every day to help them identify and implement ways to increase their inclusive leadership and allyship in order to make an authentic and sustainable impact on their organization. Through this work, I have been able to help organizations improve their recruitment strategies, increase employee retention, and expand their professional development resources—oftentimes working directly with organization’s employee resource groups (ERGs) to leverage their effectiveness.
In my years working with companies and their ERGs, I have found that the “secret sauce” to changing unhealthy and unsupportive workplace dynamics is to focus on elevating the voices of marginalized employees and creating safety and belonging for all.
Therefore, I have created a participant-centered, interactive, team-based approach to teach inclusive leadership skills and establish workplace safety and belonging by promoting allyship. The powerful transformations that occur when employees feel safe and heard when speaking up for themselves and others is vital to an organization’s success, both culturally and financially. When employees possess the confidence that they are safe, and they are armed with the skills to advocate for their wellbeing, they not only feel better —statistically, they perform better.
Learn more about my services here.