So you understand why employee resource groups are important, but if your organization doesn’t yet have them, how do you start? Here are our top employee resource group best practices for those looking to launch their first ERGs:
Don’t treat them as a nice-to-have employee benefit
While employee benefits are nice to have, your ERGs aren’t one of those things.
It’s easier than ever for employee resource groups to get dismissed as simply nice-to-have DEI initiatives. This is especially true when you’re just starting them for the first time.
That’s why it’s important for you to ensure everyone, regardless of how long they’ve worked for you, knows they’re a core part of your business.
Including your ERGs in key decisions can help with reinforcing this and is one of the most effective employee resource group best practices. For example, if you’re a SaaS business working on a new tool, preview it with members of your disability ERG to get feedback. That will ensure you create something accessible for everyone.
Too often, accessibility is seen as optional, or added on simply because it makes able-bodied people’s lives easier.
But disability comes for us all one day.
Making it a core part of your business has no downside, and having an ERG for people with disabilities helps you get things right the first time.
Establish a formal process
A formal process ensures that if someone wants to set up an ERG, they know exactly what to do. It saves everyone a lot of time and confusion, and is one of the most fundamental employee resource group best practices.
It also helps make sure every group is paired with an active executive sponsor. This will help legitimize the group to employees and show that you’re serious about them being a valued part of your business.
Moreover, give them a decent budget that allows them to actually do things. This could include in-person meetups, online hangouts, speakers, etc. Their executive sponsor can help them acquire and manage this budget.
Hold them accountable
As well as a formal setup process, you also want to ensure they have goals so that they don’t fall into the trap of just being a social group.
Get them to set yearly goals, track their progress, and hold them accountable to achieving them. As with anything else, what gets measured gets managed, making this another one of the core employee resource group best practices.
Acknowledge leaders’ time
It takes time and energy to run a community; it’s an extra responsibility alongside someone’s job that could easily spiral into another part-time role.
You therefore want to acknowledge the time and energy ERG leaders spend organizing your groups. Adjust their workloads accordingly to ensure they have the capacity to actively support their ERG (and protect them from burnout).
You also want to connect them with development opportunities—like leadership training, for example—or other ways to thank them them like increasing their pay. Ensuring your group leaders feel appreciated is another important effort on the list of employee resource group best practices.
Publicize groups early and often
You’re never talking about things as often as you think. Whether it’s mentioning ERGs in job postings or internal communications, regularly reminding employees that those supports are there ensures the people whom the groups can benefit can find them and join them if they choose to.
Mentioning your groups publicly can also be a way to distinguish yourself from competitors and show what your company values are, too. It’s one of the employee resource group best practices that can really boost your employer brand.
Likewise internally, regularly plug them in as many places as you can. For instance:
- Relevant Slack channels
- Onboarding materials
- All-hands meetings
- During events like Pride Month, Disability Pride Month, etc.
- Internal emails
- Intranet
To make it less repetitive, you can showcase the groups’ accomplishments. This further reinforces the fact that you don’t just see them as social groups.
Track engagement as well as enrollment
It doesn’t matter how many people are in a group if nobody has posted since 2019. You need active participants for them to make a difference.
So, when it comes to your metrics, be sure to look at how many people are engaging and how often. This will help you show where the demand and interest are. It’s one of the employee resource group best practices that is often overlooked, but which is very important.
Know when to decline applications
As hard as it may be, you don’t want to accept every application to start a new ERG. Sometimes, there isn’t enough interest, it has too much overlap with an existing group, or you already have too many.
If you have too many, it can lead to employees experiencing decision fatigue. They may either not join any at all or join lots and be less active in them because there are simply too many.
Give them the tools to succeed
ERGs are beneficial for employees whether they work remotely, in the office, or hybrid. So it’s important to find ways to make ERGs accessible to everyone within your organization.
Knowledge bases can also be useful, so new members and leaders don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to plan an event or other initiative.
Depending on the size of your organization, hiring a coordinator or manager to support all of the groups is one of the employee resource group best practices you may want to consider.
Organize your ERGs with Workrowd
Another tool that will make ERG leaders’ and members’ lives better is Workrowd. You can keep everything employees need to know about your ERGs in one place, from what groups are available to upcoming events. So they never need to go fishing to look for what they want to know.
Get them working together
Any good YouTuber will tell you that part of their secret to success is cross-collaboration. You’ll often find YouTuber A features YouTuber B on a video, then the following week, it’s the other way around.
Sometimes they have similar types of videos, sometimes they don’t. But this cross-promotion is key to any channel’s long-term success.
Your ERGs are the same. After all, they have similar goals: they want to support your business and employees. And sometimes cross-collaboration is the perfect way to do it.
For example, if you’re working on a new product or service, you could get members from each group to test it and provide feedback.
Or you could get them to collaborate on organizing a particular type of event.
There are so many things that you could do. Don’t forget to ask them for suggestions, too!
Conclusion
If they’re not already, ERGs should be a core part of your business. They can help you make better, more informed decisions as well as being a way to attract and retain talent.
Organize your ERGs with Workrowd
If you’re not sure where to start, don’t worry—that’s why we’re here! Workrowd can help you implement all of these employee resource group best practices and more.
From organizing all your employee initiatives in one place to maximize visibility, to tracking their performance so you’re always getting the best value for money and the best results, it’s all at your fingertips. Your employees will want to take part in ERGs and other programs and events more, and you’ll get more out of them as a result. Get in touch today to book your free demo.
