Despite their prevalence, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) have varying levels of impact. Sometimes, the differences can get a little spooky.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
ERGs are voluntary, employee-led communities that provide a platform for their members to foster connections, develop skills, and enable organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) objectives. ERGs are not a new phenomenon. Established in 1970 during the American Civil Rights Movement as a mechanism to improve outcomes for their Black talents, Xerox’s National Black Employee Caucus was the earliest recorded ERG.
Despite their history and ubiquity, ERG maturity and impact varies. As explored in my last article, high impact, established ERGs do exist and have the capacity to both inform and catalyze business priorities across functions, not just DEI. Unfortunately, many organizations have a limited view of what their ERGs should and could be, resulting in ERG programs with little to no impact. For some context, let’s explore three tiers of ERG impact:
Tier 1: ERG Ghost Town
We’ll start with the worst case scenario: ERG Ghost Towns. These are ERGs that were once operational but are now defunct, yet they still façade on the organization’s external website or behind broken links on the company intranet. Typically, they have one or two executives, no programming, zero strategic imperative, and most employee’s response when they are mentioned is “wait, we have a ____ ERG?”
So, how do ERG Ghost Towns happen?
Like many ERGs, they are formed by a passionate group of employees who want to create a space for their community to thrive. But over time, the ERG fizzles due to a lack of support and momentum. This can look like the loss of an influential ERG founder who carried the entire operation on their shoulders, limited resourcing, sponsorship, and commitment from organizational leaders who could champion meaningful change, or collective burnout from volunteer ERG leaders who were doing their best to proxy for DEI expertise that their organization was unwilling to invest in (a juicy topic for a future article).
As we transition out of the DEI heyday of summer 2020, we’re seeing this play out in real time. Between the murder of George Floyd, increased anti-Asian hate, COVID-19 exacerbating economic inequality across marginalized communities, and many other experiences, a myriad of ERGs emerged — vigorously keen to foster more inclusive and equitable workplaces. Now, three years later, many of these collectives are a shell of what they intended to be.
ERG Ghost Towns can be a disappointing outcome for organizations and employees that once had high hopes for their ERGs. That being said, it’s possible to revitalize these communities and transform them from forgotten website footnote into impactful agents of change.
Let’s now move on to explore the middle ground of ERG impact.
Tier 2: The Social Committee, But Make it Diverse
ERGs within this tier are exceptionally common. So common, that a combo of cheeky nicknames have emerged to summarize their initiatives and impact.
Firstly, the organizational “food, flags, and fun committees” — ERGs whose programming looks like happy hour potlucks of international menus, diversity calendar-imposed celebrations, and the occasional lunch and learn about customs and cultures from various communities.
Even more cutting, the title of “whine and wine clubs” — calling out an ERG’s tendency to act as a closed-loop conduit for marginalized employees to voice their frustrations and find catharsis in sharing workplace experiences. Unsurprisingly, these dialogues occur across mediums. I’ve seen some absolutely ruthless, private ERG Slack channels and Teams chats.
By fostering cultural awareness, employee connection, and psychologically safe spaces, ERGs within this tier provide learning and engagement opportunities for sects of the organization. However, they often have limited influence or resources to enable meaningful equity or inclusion for their respective communities.
If an organization’s DEI accolades start and end with initiatives such as these, we’re in performative territory. The “whine and wine club” dynamic can be especially dangerous, eroding workplace trust and entrenching an “us vs them” mentality that bars meaningful dialogue and collaboration between marginalized employee communities and organizational leadership.
Tier 3: Business Enablers AKA Gwenna’s Favorite
This brings us to our final tier. The high impact, established ERGs with the capacity to inform and catalyze business priorities across functions, not just for DEI. This model is the driving force behind the emerging title of “Business Resource Group” instead of “Employee Resource Group”.
In this tier, we see ERGs as influential, organizational change makers. They impact the achievement of organizational objectives and metrics, leadership roles within the ERG are coveted and recognized as professional accelerators, and best of all, their programming benefits all employees, not just those who personally identify with the focal group of the ERGs in question. These are the ERGs that enable business success and unlock serious organizational value.
In conclusion, ERGs can be a valuable tool in driving diversity, equity, and inclusion within organizations, but their impact can vary greatly. Often, I see ERGs land at Tier 1 or 2 because their ERG leadership and/or the organization are unaware that Tier 3 is achievable.
I want to call out that these three tiers are a gross simplification of ERG maturity and impact. They’re inspired by the proprietary, 4-stage ERG Maturity Model that I use with my clients to conduct ERG maturity assessments. These assessments allow client organizations to benchmark their ERGs’ success, understand what good looks like, and determine the steps to increase their ERGs’ impact and effectiveness — food, flags, fun and so much more included.
