Rethinking Employee Resource Groups
About this Episode
In this episode of DEI Will Not DIE, Dr Bree Gorman dives into the complexities of building inclusion in long-standing institutions and organisations. This episode explores the role of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), how DEI strategies should evolve with organisational change, and why listening is critical before taking action.
Bree unpacks the common challenges ERGs face, like competing for recognition, balancing social connection with advocacy, and aligning with organisational objectives, and provides practical strategies to ensure these groups create real, measurable impact.
Gain insights on designing, implementing, and evaluating ERGs so they support both the people involved and the wider organisational goals.
What You'll Learn
Creating inclusion in established organisations
ERGs as advocates, connectors, or advisors
Start with a DEI action plan before ERGs
Evaluating and adapting DEI initiatives
Resources Mentioned
Keep Learning & Connect With Bree
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[00:00:00] Is DEI dead? Not even close. I'm Bree Gorman and this is DEI Will Not Die the podcast for people doing the real work of inclusion. Whether you are leading a team shaping DEI strategy or just trying to make change that lasts. You're in the right place. We will cut through the fluff and dig into practical insights that will help you lead with clarity, courage, and impact.
Want more tools and support head to b breegorman.com.
Well, hello and welcome back to DEI Will Not Die. I wanna start by acknowledging the Wadderang country on people on whose lands that I have the privilege of working plain. And living on, and I've lived most of my life on Wadderang country. I feel a really strong connection to land and country. [00:01:00] But nothing like what I know water own people have had for this country over thousands of years recognise that this is land that is owned and cared for by the Wang people and has been for thousands of years.
And it always will be, always was, and always will be Aboriginal land. Today I wanna talk a little bit about employee resource groups or staff networks or whatever it is that you call, um, or have in your organisations where it is groups of employees who are passionate about inclusion, who typically have lived experience of exclusion.
And these groups serve a variety of roles. Sometimes it's to advocate, change, sometimes it's to do the actual change. Other times it's more about social connection and peer support. We're gonna get into the differences and why it's important that we know what our groups are actually for [00:02:00] and about and what's needed in our organisations.
On what is a different note, but I'm gonna bring it, I promise I will bring this into making sense to the topic. I was having some conversations around inclusion in sport, and one of the things that I've noticed, I play both cricket and pickleball. In cricket, there's obviously decades and sometimes a century of traditions around how.
How the clubs are run, how the competitions are run. And of course they were all set up originally to provide a space for men to play cricket and a certain type of man too, by the way. And with the inclusion efforts around cricket in particular, they're very slow and they're very frustrating, and you are dealing with that decades of tradition that you need to kind of challenge constantly.
Massage and manipulate a bit sometimes because [00:03:00] alienating the majority of the players in a club is not fantastic. So, you know, there's all this nuance and complexity around trying to create inclusion and trying to be more progressive in environment that has been around or in an institution that has been around for a long time and worked in a particular way, and that people have history with it.
Connection and generational history with the clubs that they're playing at, and they expect things to stay the same, just the way they were for their dad or their grandfather. You know, it's a really complex environment to try to create change, and yet when I go to the Pickleball Club, it's a new club.
It's only about a year old, it doesn't have the same kind of traditions and history. In fact, it has none of it. So there's an opportunity to start from scratch. To start something in a way that we would build it now in a way that does include more people that does recognise the great diversity of our community, and does specifically recognise that there are [00:04:00] barriers for some people to engage in sports.
So let's. Not put them there in the first place. So it's a really different environment that you are seeking to create and create inclusion in. And I tell this story because I think it's also quite applicable when it comes to employee resource groups or staff networks that we might have in our organisations if they have existed for a while.
Now, I know typically these aren't things that have existed for decades and decades, but there's definitely history that comes with these groups. And you know, I work with organisations where perhaps I've had a really strong group for a period of time, and then it's like whittled away and disappeared and something new has come up.
And I work with others where there has been a consistent, solid group of people working on this stuff for 10 years or more. So there's history there and there's expectations there. And I think the same in the sporting environment as it is when we, when it comes to workplaces and, and working with employee resource groups, we need to have a moment of [00:05:00] reflection and work out, okay, so this is the way we have done things, but is this the way we need to go forward?
Is this still serving our needs? And I share this because I worked with a client recently, a coaching client, where actually they came to the conclusion after a session that what they needed to do was abandon their employee resource groups that they had, I think they were called advisory groups or working groups, because they just weren't working.
It wasn't delivering on the objectives that they had. Now for employee groups. And it was becoming too hard to get the existing group in the existing structure to change and move with the organisations. And it was actually a point where it was gonna be much easier and made much more sense to just abandon them to to, to dismantle them and to start from scratch.
From, I share that because I want you to have this idea and concept that you can. That things don't have to be set in stone and in diversity, equity and [00:06:00] inclusion, it shouldn't be set in stone. Because if we get things that are set in stone, then we're probably, you know, heading down the wrong path because this work is constantly changing and needs to, and it needs to adapt to the way our organisations are constantly changing and what we know around best practice of DEI work.
So just laying that out there as like the introduction to the topic today. I've put down some notes here about some things that I wanna address when it comes to employee resource groups, and one of the questions that comes to my mind very frequently and I've heard others ask as well, is, are your employee resource groups actually perpetuating silos?
Are they creating an environment or reinforcing an environment? 'cause it's already there of separation and othering. I know I've started there, right at a controversial point, but this is a reflection that we need to be having. What I see in a lot of organisations that work with maybe a more [00:07:00] traditional employee resource, group structure or staff network structure is that these structures actually ask equity groups, ask groups of people who have experience of marginalisation in the organisations to compete against each other for space and time and resource.
And this is not productive, healthy, and completely ignores what we know about needing to apply an intersectional lens to our DEI work. Now, I'd suggest if you've got employee resource groups set up that are straight down equity cohort lines, then it's time to think about, well, what are we proactively doing to ensure that these groups are acting in a way that is applying an intersectional lens?
I hope that makes sense. I'll give you an example, working with an organisations, we were looking to create a diversity, equity, and inclusion action plan or strategy, and I'm gonna talk to you next about why I think even that approach for starters is a bit problematic. [00:08:00] But my job was to consult with the leads of the working groups.
And so in this case, in this organisations, they were working groups. They had 13 of them. And so the chairs of those working groups all came together in a meeting with me. Now for starters, this was the first time they had all met as a collective wild. Okay. Secondly, what transpired in that conversation was certain groups trying to get airtime.
'Cause their major complaint was that other groups' efforts and priorities were getting well prioritised over theirs. And so in this organisations it was felt that the neurodiversity working group. The gender working group received all the resources, time and space in executive calendars, and that the other working groups were not getting the same level of recognition being listened to, space time, resource.
And so they [00:09:00] were arguing with each other about what was more important. You know, this new initiative around workplace adjustments for people who, when neurodivergent or to focus on the barriers that were existing in the recruitment process for people with non-English speaking names as an example that came up.
So this isn't conducive to having an intersectional lens applied when these people had never even met before. And they did describe when we drilled a bit deeper that their working groups were not particularly diverse from and through an intersectional lens. They didn't have intersectional experiences necessarily, so things were getting missed, and this is problematic.
Now I'm gonna wrap back around to what I said was not great at the start. Is that those working groups were already in place and there wasn't a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy or action plan. My process, what I recommend if you can, is to start with an action plan and not start with the [00:10:00] employee resource groups.
I speak to a lot of people who are new into diversity, equity, and inclusion roles, and I do this through LinkedIn and I ask people, what's your focus? What's your key focus as you get started? And I would say I haven't measured it, but I think it's around 70 or 80% of folks. The first thing they do is set up employee resource groups and I scream, no, don't do it.
That shouldn't be your first point because you cannot be clear on what their objective is. If you haven't already done the listening and the work that goes into developing a plan, your employees might not even be asking for employee resource groups at that point. Or those who are might not fully understand why.
Maybe they're just looking for social connection, which is fantastic, and I absolutely think there should be a space for that created if that's what employees are asking for. But if you haven't systematically gone and done consultation to understand what the barriers are in your organisations [00:11:00] and what people's solutions are for that, and whether there's an appetite for these groups or not, then your groups are gonna fail.
Or you're gonna get a whole bunch of people sign up to these groups and they have high expectations that they're gonna create change and you've actually just set up a social group so their expectations are, are not met. When you are creating a diversity, equity, inclusion strategic plan, and I've spoken about this at length, is you need to start with the listening phase, and that listening phase should also inform your employee resource groups or your staff networks.
Now, if you do that listening work and you develop the plan. And the way that you've decided to enact your plan, the governance that you set up around that plan includes staff networks or employee resource groups. Fantastic. Your next step then is to really seriously reflect on the objective of those groups.
Are they a group to support the implementation of the plan? If that's the case, that changes your recruitment strategy, it [00:12:00] changes the structure of how frequently you meet, what the meetings are about, et cetera. Or are your employee resource groups, as I mentioned about social connection, because people were calling out to be able to be connected with people that had similar lived experience to them because they're feeling isolated in the organisations.
They're feeling isolated in community and society, and they're really seeking social connection. That really changes the objectives of your group, right? And maybe you have people seeking both. And again, well, let's think about it then. How are we going to meet those different needs? Are these employee resource groups?
Is their purpose to run events because we don't have capacity within the organisations? Well, how is that gonna work? How is that then gonna be counted into their position descriptions and their performance reviews? 'cause event management is time consuming and it's skillful too. And so does it make sense for that role to fit within our employee resource group?
So does it [00:13:00] make sense for that role to sit with our events and comms team if we have one, and for the employee resource group to advise and inform the content and the structures of those events? Is our employee resource group actually an advisory group, is this an advisory group that's gonna advise executive on steps and progress around the DEI strategic plan, but also around other processes and putting place in an inclusion lens on things like new builds, new facilities, service delivery.
We have to get so clear about what the objectives of that group are before we start the group. And I know that there's lots of you listening who would disagree, who would say no? It's about the group forming their objectives and their terms of reference. Well, sure, if you're gonna do that, they're probably gonna spend a year arguing over the terms of reference, and then you're gonna have a group that you have to manage that is not aligned with the DEI objectives and strategy [00:14:00] of the business.
Which then is this like, I don't know what you call it, it's like a collision waiting to happen. They must be aligned. The employee resource groups needs to serve a clear purpose for the people and for the business to not just create more pressure, time, and a negative experience for those members of that group.
So once you've got your employee versus groups established, I'll say ERGs, from now on, I probably should have jumped to that. A little acronym earlier, once you've got those ERGs established, so you've got clear objective because you've got a plan in place and you know the purpose of these groups, you've made sure in their construction.
They are intersectional by nature, meaning that there are people within the groups who have experiences of having multiple [00:15:00] marginalised identities that compound in a way that creates unique barriers and experiences in the workplace. So you've built that into the way that the ERGs operate. If you've got a number of these, the chairs meet regularly so that they are also on the same page.
Then you have really clear agendas for these groups, right? Because you already have a clear purpose, and so the agendas flow out quite easily. And then they are an agent for change. But as I said right at the beginning, things change in an organisations. It's important that we are consistently reviewing the experience of people within the ERGs.
Is this adding to their experience? Are they feeling more included because of this, or is this actually detracting and making them feel more negative about the organisations, which I've absolutely seen. And are they frustrated by the lack of progress or. [00:16:00] The way that the meetings are being run or whatever it might be.
We need to evaluate, we need to be checking in with the members of our groups on at least a yearly basis, if not every six months, and understand what their experience is, what could make it better? Is it giving them job satisfaction? What do they wanna see more of? One of the things we know that ERG members often seek when they join this group is that they are looking for professional development.
And so throughout the year, there needs to be a good calendar of training and education opportunities for members of these groups, particularly if they're advisory groups. I think one of the problems we get into is we have advisory groups and the people on the advisory groups have lived experience, but they don't necessarily have professional experience about what creates inclusive workplaces, service provision, et cetera.
And so that's our job to build that education and knowledge so that then they can apply [00:17:00] that alongside their lived experience to raise the impact of their voice and the usefulness of, of the contributions. Particularly as I said, if these are advisory groups. You know, if they are running events, if that's the sole purpose of their group is to run the calendar of events, then let's give them upskilling in that as well so that the quality and the impact of those events is increased and they feel like they're getting something useful out of it themselves as well.
So checking in, whether it's through a survey, whether it's through conversation, making sure that you understand what those members are being challenged by, what they're enjoying about the experience and what their suggestions are for change. So that hopefully just gives you a little bit of a brain dump of my thoughts around employee resource groups.
Happy to talk to anybody further about that, but I'm also keen for you to let me know what I'm missing. What have you seen that works or doesn't work in this space? We know that there's, there can be a [00:18:00] bunch of problems, but we also know these can be incredibly useful, successful tools in our attempts to create more inclusive workplace environments.
So keep up with your staff networks and your ERGs if they've got a clear purpose. And if they don't, let's create one.
Well, that's it for today's episode of DEI Will Not Die. Want more resources and support to do the work Well, why don't you visit breegorman.com and don't forget to follow or share this episode with someone who cares, and maybe also someone who should.