Robert Rodriguez - Employee Resource Group Excellence

Employee resource groups are struggling to deal with two goals that appear to be mutually exclusive. On the one hand, employee resource groups have been expanding their value proposition beyond just social activities. Employee resource groups now have robust career advancement initiatives; they strive to elevate the cultural competency within an organization; they support community outreach and as mentioned previously; and they desire to make a larger business impact.

But employee resource groups' budget resources have been depleted due to the changing work landscape that began in 2020. ERGs membership numbers took a dip as overall employment levels dropped. Some companies reduced the budget dollars they had previously allocated to their ERGs, citing reduced budget cuts across the organization as the reason. And with employees now working from home, many previously planned ERG events and gatherings simply were not feasible. The result is employee resource groups with big ambitions being confronted with the reality of a new workplace. The bold plans and activities that ERGs had at the beginning of 2020 have been reduced. Employee resource groups have had to pivot in an environment that now places greater emphasis on prioritization. “Underpromise and overdeliver” is the new mantra being embraced by employee resource groups under this new reality.

Some employee resource groups are handling this transition effectively. They eliminated events that did not align with the overall mission of their ERG. There is increased collaboration amongst the employee resource groups as they partner to do events jointly in an effort to reduce the redundancy that results when ERGs operate in silos. Employee resource group leaders have become better skilled at saying “no” or “not now” when ideas for future activities are given by ERG members. And ERG leaders have improved at delegation, resulting in a broader array of members contributing to doing ERG work. Yet the question remains that when things go back to normal, if they ever will return to how things were before, will ERGs continue with the less‐is‐more mentality? Will they be successful in having a broad value proposition while being more selective in their pursuits? I believe the answer is yes, but only time will tell how employee resource groups will operate after the effects of the pandemic have passed.

For many, many years, it was surprising to see organizations ask much of their employee resource group leaders but offer little to help them be successful. ERG leaders are still often left on their own to figure out how to elevate member engagement, develop an ERG strategy, and manage a group that is made up of employee volunteers with no direct reporting relationship. ERG leaders have been asked to articulate their impact on the organization without being given access to data to measure such impact. Companies want metrics from their employee resource groups but offer no training to the leaders on how to establish appropriate metrics. I could go on and on, but you get my point; much is asked of ERG leaders when often not much is given to them in the form of organizational and development support.

Fortunately, many organizations have seen the error of their ways. But to be clear, we are not talking about professional development workshops that ERGs offer their members. We are talking about professional development that organizations offer to the leaders of their ERGs with the goal of making them more effective.

There is tremendous growth in the number of companies holding regular internal ERG summits. These summits usually bring together the leaders of ERGs to hear from corporate executives, learn about diversity and inclusion goals, network with other ERG leaders, hold panels with ERG leaders at other organizations, and so on. These summits usually require a significant investment by an organization. Some companies that do not hold their own ERG summits will send their ERG leaders to external organizations that organize ERG conferences focused on professional development.

In some cases, an employee resource group does not hold a summit per se, but invests in professional development workshops for their ERG leaders. Occasionally, existing internal professional development content is delivered exclusively to employee resource group leaders, especially if such development content might not be available to the employee.

For example, the home improvement retail organization Lowe's Companies, Inc., based in Mooresville, North Carolina, conducted a session for its business resource group leaders on how to use a new internal assessment tool that helped identify employee work style and communication preferences. BRG leadership team members were given the assessment so that each could assess their own effectiveness. The business resource groups were shown how they could generate a report that outlined the communication and work style preferences of their BRG leadership team, all in an effort to help the business resource groups operate more effectively together.

And on occasion, external speakers are selected to provide development to the leaders of employee resource groups. This is how many companies engage with me. I've worked with numerous companies – such as Capital One, Under Armour, Catalent Pharma, The TJX Companies, and Uber, to name a few – where I have established an ERG Leadership Academy that consists of providing regular professional development workshops for their ERG leaders.

Whether it be internal ERG summits, external ERG conferences, or access to professional development workshops, the purpose is the same: to develop the skills and capabilities of leaders so that they can be even more effective at guiding their employee resource groups. This trend is long overdue, and it is gratifying to see so many organizations embrace the idea of ERG leader professional development.

Let's remember why we need employee resource excellence. Excellence is about continuously looking to improve, striving to do the best you can, and looking for ways to be a little bit better than yesterday. When employee resource groups strive for excellence, they are forced to focus on the things they already are doing well.

ERG excellence is a daily, never‐ending journey. ERG excellence requires that the majority of ERG focus is on the things that are working really well and on the next thing they can do, which is often within their reach. Striving to do better is incredibly motivating and inspiring because all employee resource groups have an innate desire to do better. ERGs want to excel.

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