Advancing Organizations from the Inside out with ERGs

Often, it’s difficult for Employee Resource Groups to help their organization understand the importance and positive investment they have created by implementing ERGs. At times the organizations may not see the value of your ERG until they realize that they need the ERG for a very specific purpose to reach a specific target market outside of the organization.

According to the Center for Effective Organizations, by leveraging your ERGs shared learning and knowledge to help drive organizational action, you will benefit both your ERG as well as the organization.

It is possible for individual ERGs to assist their members within their own careers, pursue various goals, and still reach their organizational performance expectation. ERGs were built to make a difference by taking risks without affecting the overall goal of the company in a negative manner. ERG’s are the new avenue for organizations to reach the organization’s full potential.

How can ERG leaders ensure their team members are utilizing their talents and capabilities to their fullest potential and make this aspect clear to their organization? Provided below is a four-step process for ERG leaders to discover those answer to these questions.

1. Discover
- Discover what the members and leaders are expecting from your ERG before making changes within your ERG to fit the organization.
- Discover how your specific ERG has evolved based on new members coming into the group as well as more senior members within the group.
- Discover what actions or programs can drive business and which actions or programs link back to your organization.

2. Develop
- After evaluating the information obtained from the discovery phase, take that information and begin to develop initiatives that align with your discovery findings.
- Focus on how the actions taken by your ERG may affect the individuals within the workplace, workgroups, and the overall goal and vision of the organization.

3. Diagnose
- Ensure the proper tracking systems are in place to diagnose what is working for your ERG and what is not working for you ERG, as it relates to the goals of the organization.
- Use data to refer to as questions arise as to whether the plans put in place are working or not working. This will help you ERG remain motivated to striving for the best results possible.

Each of these steps are critical to the success and business case for all Employee Resource Groups.

When all these components are accomplished, the next question that is often asked is, “How can my ERG become more ingrained in the organization and transition to a BRG?”

ERGs to BRGs

By aligning your “Employee Resource Group” with your businesses initiatives, you are more likely to transition from an “Employee Resource Group” to your desired “Business Resource Group’.
ERGs within an organization are viewed as a “safe zone” for innovation, creativity, and risk taking for an organization, without the true risk taking by the company itself. The ERG’s goal is to prove to their organization that they can develop multiple

ERGs, put plans in place, are able to track those plans and results, and ultimately show that they can connect to parts of the community and target market more effectively than the organization on its own.

When an organization wants to increase their Hispanic, African American, Chinese, Japanese, or different generational markets they normally go to the specific members from that “Employee Resource Group” in order to help them achieve that initiative.

Senior business leaders want to know what your ERG brings to their organization other than innovation and creativity. Your organization wants to know how your ERG initiatives and efforts have decreased a weakness the organization had or has made a current strength within the organization better.

ERG leaders must be able to tell a great story to the stakeholders along with their reports and data. Stakeholders within your organization are not only interested in what you have accomplished, but they are also interested in why you started, why you focused on that area of the business specifically, and what your end goals and results were based on for your ERG’s initiatives.

If your ERG wants to transition to a BRG, the first step is to discover your organization’s major business need and create a business strategy to address that need. Focus on unique business needs that your group is uniquely qualified to provide the expertise and resources to solve. Once you have established your credibility as a business resource, your organization will look to your group as a strategic business partner and you will have transformed to a full Business Resource Group.

Reference
Welbourne, T. M., & McLaughlin, L. L. (2013). Making the Business Case for Employee Resource Groups. Employment Relations Today (Wiley), 40(2), 35-44. doi:10.1002/ert.21409

Guest Contributor: Michelle Brown is a Business Developer and Executive Assistant with PRISM International, Inc., a WBENC-certified full-service provider of innovative and proven consulting services and training programs and products for leveraging diversity and inclusion within organizations. Michelle possesses a Bachelors in Psychology, Masters in Transformative Organizational Leadership, and is in the process of obtaining her PhD in Industrial & Organizational Psychology.