How to run effective ERGs?
Employee resource groups (ERGs) are essential for creating a sense of community at work. Belonging at work is even more important today as businesses struggle to attract top-talent and people are increasingly working from home. ERGs also play an important role for underrepresented groups, helping increase diversity awareness and inclusion.
However, too often, ERGs are managed by a few passionate employees, without an overall diversity strategy. Member engagement fluctuates depending on how much time these passionate employees can dedicate to the group or simply put, how well the group is run. As a result, some groups thrive, while others struggle to have a meaningful impact.
In this article you will find five lessons learned to manage ERGs effectively.
1. Create a strong on-boarding process
An ERG can be as simple as an email distribution list or a slack channel. Regardless of the format, it is critical to have a good on-boarding process for new members. Potential members want clarity on how to join and what membership entails. In case of any questions, potential members need to know whom they can talk to. Ideally new members should also receive a welcome message from the community leaders immediately after joining. A good on-boarding process and a warm welcome message goes a long way in creating a strong community.
2. Remember member preferences
An effective ERG also needs excellent member management. For starters this means keeping the list of members always up to date, without duplicates, or incomplete information. Additionally it means understanding member preferences on how they would like to interact with the group. For example in the LGBTQ community, it is critical to know how out the member is to others in the company. Respecting such visibility preferences is a must for winning and retaining members.
3. Provide an easy way of capturing all ideas
Coming up with activities for the group, we recommend leveraging ideas from all members. We find using an online board (such as Trello, Miro) the easiest, especially these days of working from home. In these boards, members can post their ideas and commit publicly to responsibilities they want to take. There are several templates online and we have developed some of our own. Using such templates, members can generate several ideas, while ERG leaders can focus on gathering support and realizing these ideas.
4. Offer real value to your members
Social events are a great way to bring employees together and create a sense of community. However, if social events are the only offering, things can get repetitive (“yet another drink after work?”) and members might question their involvement in the ERG. That’s why offering something of real value to most members is necessary. Support with career development through coaching, mentorship, peer-to-peer support is very valuable and relevant. Developing such programs can be difficult but are definitely worth the effort.
5. Show your impact to management
Finally, for executive support (and sufficient budget), it is important to show the impact you are having as an ERG. Number of active members, member satisfaction, interest in ERG activities are generally good KPIs to start with. Depending on data availability, it would also be interesting to see how ERG membership impacts career development (e.g. impact on promotion / retention rates). Such KPIs are more difficult to develop but should be possible through close collaboration with the HR organization.
To summarize, making ERGs successful requires a bit more structure and strategy than finding a passionate individual to lead the group. When done right, ERGs can have a large impact, creating a supporting and caring environment for all employees. We hope these tips will help you manage your ERG(s) better.
