Leadership
Best in Class
Robert Rodriguez , 03-14-2010
Most of us are very familiar with employee resource groups (ERGs). Maybe your organization has them, maybe it doesn’t. But as diversity leaders, we need to be aware of how to maximize ERG effectiveness and the value they bring to our organizations.
Those who have them want our ERGs to be strong, and we encourage the usual tactics, such as tying their initiatives to business results, helping the organization connect with the community and having them help to create an inclusive work environment for a diverse employee population.
However, there are three areas present in ERGs that are a cut above the rest.
Benchmarking: Top-tier ERGs are constantly benchmarking with ERGs at other corporations to share best practices, gain new ideas and identify ways to collaborate.
For example, I started a group called the Consortium of Latino Employee Organizations (CLEO) because leaders of the Latino networks within Chicagoland corporations weren’t connecting with each other. As soon as CLEO was formed, Allstate, Kraft Foods and Abbott agreed to host CLEO meetings.
Much of the success of the ERGs at Allstate, Kraft and Abbott is due to their continuous efforts to look outside of their organization for ways to enhance the effectiveness of their ERGs. Much of CLEO’s success is due to the efforts of the ERGs at these three organizations that helped show other ERGs the value of external benchmarking. In addition to sharing information and strategies in an open forum, CLEO members now engage in leadership development activities together at each quarterly meeting.
ERG leaders who don’t talk with ERG leaders at other companies are isolating themselves and missing out on opportunities to improve their effectiveness.
Senior members: Membership of most ERGs consists of employees at director level and below. Rarely do I see a vice president, general manager or corporate executive as an active member. One common exception to this is women’s networks, which seem to be effective at engaging the most senior-level women in the organization in their activities.
Not having senior-level folks engaged in ERGs severely diminishes their value. Corporations where ERGs include senior-level executives include Pfizer, Verizon and Sodexo. They engage senior leaders by convincing them they have an obligation to help the next generation of leaders grow.
Having more senior-level employees in an ERG tends to draw more participants as others begin to see that if their peers are actively engaged in ERG efforts, maybe they should be as well. Participation benefits extend into multiple business areas. For instance, it appears that Pfizer, Verizon and Sodexo have identified their ERGs as a source of future executive talent where engagement by senior leaders will accelerate their development.
It’s also important to have ERG leaders develop a strategy to pull in more senior-level execs because if an ERG consists entirely of individual contributors who are relatively low in the corporate hierarchy, their chances of creating an ERG that is best in class are reduced.
Programming: A common mistake made by ERGs is to offer programs and events that appeal to a very small population of their particular employee segment. Leading ERGs address unique and far-reaching topics to draw in a larger number of members. By doing so, they appeal to a much broader segment of their employee population. As ERGs in your organization plan their programs for the rest of 2010, push them to look beyond their usual audience to draw in new participants and members. Conduct sessions on how to serve on corporate and nonprofit boards, for example. Or have a speaker address the topic of ethnic identity in the workplace to pull in those who may be struggling with their sense of identity at work. Some organizations whose ERGs seem to have effective programming that engages a significant percentage of their segment include Shell Oil, ConAgra and Intel.
These three elements may not seem exceptionally insightful. However, an ERG’s ability to execute flawlessly on efforts to benchmark externally, draw in senior organizational members and provide a broad mix of programs will differentiate it from the rest.«
Dr. Robert Rodriguez is the director of the Kaplan Center for Corporate Learning at Kaplan University and author of Latino Talent: Effective Strate-gies to Recruit, Retain & Develop Hispanic Professionals. He can be reached at editor@diversity-executive.com.
