Employee resource groups are an important part of making your team members happy and growing your business. But to ensure that both your business and your employees get the most from them, you need the right ERG leadership.
The right leaders will create an interesting, engaging community that leads to networking and growth opportunities for your employees, and a boost to your business.
The wrong ERG leadership will result in a non-existent community that’s inactive and unengaging. And nobody wants to be a part of that.
With that in mind, here are our top ERG leadership tips:
Pick active leaders
Back in the day, I was active in a lot of online forums. The ones that survived all had one thing in common: the leadership team was active and clearly cared about the site and its community. They kept things up to date, communicated any changes or issues, and spent time engaging with members, too.
The forums still needed active members as well, but there was a trickle-down effect. If the leaders stopped caring, so, too, did the members.
To run your employee resource groups, you need people who are interested, engaged, and good at rallying the troops.
If the group is for a particular subset of employees, ideally you want ERG leadership to be from a similar background. That way they can understand and empathize with the challenges the employees in that ERG face.
Choose someone who wants to do it
An important part of leadership is the enthusiasm to actually do it. If someone doesn’t want to take on an ERG leadership role, but they feel pressured into doing it, they likely won’t put the required effort in. As a result, your group will fall flat.
Someone who gets forced into ERG leadership, instead of doing it voluntarily, will feel resentful and stressed. It will lead to them either quiet quitting or leaving your organization completely. Which puts you in an even worse position than you were before pressuring them to lead the group.
Change leadership periodically
Changing ERG leadership periodically helps keep things fresh and fair. It can attract new members who may prefer different ways of doing things or initiatives instigated by new leaders that previous ones wouldn’t have done.
Rotation also stops leaders from burning out. That ensures they stay engaged with their day job, which should still be their main priority.
Get members to vote on and nominate new ERG leadership as well. This helps members stay engaged. They can also nominate people who may not otherwise put themselves forward but would be great at the job. Don’t forget how important it is that they actually want to lead, though!
Create a knowledge base
If you’re going to change ERG leadership periodically—or just want to make everyone’s lives easier—a knowledge base ensures anything someone within a group might need to know is easy to find.
It’s useful for new members or existing ones wanting to refresh their memory. It also reduces the stress for new leaders taking over. They don’t have to waste time finding information on organizing events, budgets, other important team members, etc.
Connect your groups
Employee resource groups shouldn’t operate in silos. They’re all individual communities but they should interact and share tips and advice. This advice can ensure that new ERG leadership stepping up doesn’t fall into the same challenges or traps. It provides crucial networking opportunities for people, too.
Get executives involved
Your executive sponsor not only legitimizes an ERG, but can also help with things like getting budget sign-off, planning/organizing events, recruiting new members, and getting groups involved in business decisions like new tools.
A women’s group, for example, can help you identify gendered language in product descriptions. Or accessibility features aimed more at men. (Car manufacturers, I’m looking at you. I am short. Cars are getting bigger. Make it so that I can close the trunk without practicing ballet stretches, please.)
It’s becoming increasingly obvious when certain people aren’t included in decision-making, like in the above car example. Sure, in some cars you can now open or close a car trunk with a swipe of your foot. But only if you’re tall enough. It’s not an accessibility feature if it isolates more than half the population.
That’s one of the reasons why employee resource groups are so powerful. It’s also why getting your senior leaders onboard is so crucial.
When they’re involved with ERGs and encourage employees to join, it has a ripple effect throughout your organization. It lifts everyone up and shows the power in their individual and collective voices and experiences.
Give them a budget
Your ERGs aren’t just casual social groups. They should be a core part of your business. So, like any other part of your business, they need a budget.
How much will depend on several factors, including:
- How many ERGs you have
- What they want to do (it can help to ask them to put together a plan)
- How many members they have
- What their objectives are
- Your business finances
ERGs can then use this budget for training, meetups, tools—whatever will benefit their members the most.
The right ERG leadership will be able to manage this budget and decide what to spend it on in a way that’s most beneficial to the group and your business.
Conclusion
Leadership in any area is crucial, and your employee resource groups are no exception. Get the right ERG leadership in place and you’ll have engaging communities your employees want to be a part of.
Organize your employee groups with Workrowd
Need help organizing your employee groups to make your leaders’ lives easier? Workrowd is here to help. Our tools save ERG leadership time on tedious admin work so that they’ve got more time to spend on community building. Get in touch today to book your free demo and find out more.
