Three Foundational Components of Transformative Employee Resource Groups
What exactly do Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) actually do? There’s no right answer, but I’ve found over the years that effective and transformational ERGs strike a balance between these three foundational components:
Building affinity
Engaging in advocacy
Learning through professional development
Building affinity is about building community and building trust within the ERG and beyond. Community and trust are essential to re-humanizing one another in our work environments and creating supportive networks. Building affinity starts with creating time to ask how someone is really doing and goes beyond that by creating intentional time and space when we connect to go deeper and learn more about one another so we can better support each other.
Engaging in advocacy is about learning to be strategic as you ask for the tools and resources staff and the ERG need to be successful. It’s about building relationships within your organization, coming up with a plan for how to ask and when to ask for what you need, and getting clear on what to ask for to best support both the group you’re specifically advocating for and/or supports that will benefit everyone.
Learning through professional development is about ensuring access to learning and development at every level within an organization. ERGs can provide opportunities for growth and development so that members gain the knowledge and skills they need for their current role and beyond. Upward mobility is an important part of both employee engagement and satisfaction and many organizations don’t regularly provide ways to learn what’s necessary for promotion. ERGs help build out professional development plans that are culturally competent and come with a budget so that the members of the ERGs can learn the skills and knowledge they need.
I want to support you in creating an ERG that is able to balance these three important components. I have learned over the years that any one of these can feel overwhelming so I encourage you to go slowly in this process, and truly, take your time. Interested in diving deeper? You can learn more about it or buy the Transformative ERG Toolkit today!
