5 Strategies for Transformative ERG Goal Setting
Setting goals related to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging (DEIAB) is an important part of advancing this work. Whether based on your organization’s fiscal year, the calendar year, or project timelines etc., setting aside time to check in on the previous goals and see what could use attention, realignment, or care moving into the new year.
While there’s not one way to set goals, these strategies that can help lead goal setting for the Employee Resource Group (ERG) you are leading toward transformational and human-centric goals.
Strategy #1: Get comfortable
I want to encourage anyone setting goals to do this in a way that feels good. The process is just as important as the outcomes. This could look like scheduling a spacious amount of time to think, dream, and discuss. It could look like making sure that coffee, tea, snacks, or treats are available to nourish our bodies while we set goals and look at the year ahead. It could look like putting on soothing music that helps us focus and supports our nervous system.
It might sound simple, but you would be surprised how many times goal-setting meetings are squished between important meetings and busy days and we haven’t even had time to use the restroom or refill our cups. So please prioritize your human-ness while going about goal setting. Creating an environment that feels good for our bodies can allow us to think outside of the box.
Strategy #2: Set goals on a personal level
We do this because each person is just as important as the whole ERG. I recommend starting with individuals setting goals and sharing boundaries. That way when the ERG as a whole begins to set goals, the group is more aware of why each person is there and the capacity people have to put time into ERG-specific projects.
On an individual level, I recommend asking yourself:
What role does each person play, and what is my role?
How do I want to feel after meetings?
Why am I here doing this ERG work THIS year?
What major work projects and life cycles are taking place this year and what boundaries do I need related to taking on more work during those times?
What’s one hope and one fear I have for the ERG specific to this year?
What is an action I can plan to take toward supporting this hope?
What is an action I can take toward challenging or offsetting this fear?
I recommend taking the time to have each person share out (based on their comfort level), so that the group can both get to know one another better, listen for what people have in common, and listen for what they don’t.This is also important to the group making decisions and coming together to make transformative change over this course of the year.
Strategy #3: Set goals on a group level
I recommend brainstorming answers to these questions as a group.
What roles do we have filled and what roles are open or need support?
What is the minimum we could do this year that we would consider success?
What are we afraid of happening? (Make sure to air these fears so they don’t fester and think about what actions may need to be prioritized in order to avoid falling into the fears.)
Strategy #4 Set goals that are specific and measurable…
…but also consider your intentions and the ways you want to interact with each other to achieve those goals. How will you track and acknowledge how the group makes progress related to each goal?
Let’s look at a few examples of typical goals I have seen set:
Increasing membership
Hosting x number of events
Communicating updates on a monthly basis
Now ask yourselves: Why are we setting this goal? What will it really mean for the effectiveness of the group? How will this goal help forward the mission and vision of the ERG? Why increase membership? Consider if maintaining the current members would be a better starting place (we don’t always have to grow indefinitely) or thinking about what success looks like for maintaining the group as it is.
Why is hosting x number of events important? In our work towards making a more inclusive work environment, I want to replant the seed that less can be more! Consider scaling back and concentrating the efforts on quality over quantity. What if you rewrote this goal to be:
Creating an environment where we receive feedback that people felt xyz ways (aligned with our mission and vision) or receive xyz information and we measure the way it is put into practice.
When we set a goal that includes the intentions behind why the goal is being set, we are reminded
Of the importance of each person’s experience. We’ll gather feedback on the event and the experience people have is valued over just producing events that may or may not help build a transformational ERG.
ERGs can get caught up in over-giving/event-centric work. Especially when it comes to a heritage or themed month, it can add up quickly and burn out members of the ERG without moving the mission of the ERG forward. Think about how those putting on the events want to feel while organizing them and the type of feedback you want to hear about the experience. Consider setting the goal of collecting feedback from constituents or interested members or that people learn xyz knowledge and it’s applied/measured in xyz ways as the goals. These types of goals recenter what you hope people get out of the event, not whether it happens.
Finally, what will communicating on a monthly basis with members of the group do? Research shows that a more transparent system can lead to greater trust and understanding. I encourage ERGs to communicate regularly. It doesn’t have to be focused on the accomplishments. What if it’s a check-in question or a way to build community? Keeping in touch, not letting things go silent, is one way to keep the flow of communication going in both directions and to learn from those you are hoping to support. Make sure the communication is meaningful, and find out what would be useful/wanted so that it’s not just one more email/message that adds to our piles.
Strategy #5: Take a step back to set dates to check in
These dates need to be ones where everyone agrees to come together to check in on how these goals are going, and how they can be updated or amended. Think about these meetings as an opportunity to celebrate successes (a very important part of this process) and apply the lessons learned. I encourage this to happen more often than just once a year, as we all do better with accountability. Think creatively about what intervals will be helpful for this reflection and what check-in space will best support the group.
I hope this has helped you think about setting more meaningful and transformative goals for the ERGs. If I can help support you and or the group you’re working with, please reach out.
