How to sustain the work of Employee Resource Groups: Facilitate effective meetings

By Lori Nishiura Mackenzie

With Tiffany Galvin Green, Ph.D. and Kristine R. Pedersen

As the pace of change accelerates, organizations need to counterbalance the fast pace with spaces of belonging that center on employee needs. Achieving this balance can be tricky.?

Leveraging the power of diversity and inclusion can help organizations achieve this balance. Yet the pathways are not simple. “There are multiple layers that must be undertaken for organizations to truly be diverse and inclusive,” explains Dr. Tiffany Galvin-Green, Vice President - DE&I Strategies and Education at Exponential Talent, a member of the Lab’s Corporate Program. “Reaping the benefits of an inclusive culture requires achieving ‘small wins’ on many fronts.”

Reaping the benefits of an inclusive culture requires achieving "small wins" on many fronts. - Tiffany Galvin-Green, Ph.D.

“That's where I feel that Groups (ERGs/BRGs/Affinity groups) play a pivotal role,” adds Tiffany. “Not only do they help to build connections between various identity groups, particularly those that are marginalized or underrepresented, but they also provide important vehicles of insight for informing better practices in a company.” While many organizations silo Groups into singular roles, Tiffany points to their broader benefits, “When fully realized, Groups serve their internal communities and enhance organizational efforts.”

We couldn’t agree more! That is why the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab convened 27 Group Leads from across our Corporate Program. The resulting four-part series reflects the insights from these group sessions.

This article reflects the challenges and successes gleaned from the session co-moderated by Tiffany and Kristine Pedersen, Seeds of Change Assistant Director. In this article, we focus on the importance of doubling down on meeting practices and norms that help engage members of the Group.

Challenges for Groups in facilitating effective meetings

“While Groups make space for employees with a shared identity to come together, each individual brings a multitude of experiences, insights, goals, and ideas,” explains Kristine. “Making room for individual Group members' contributions and needs requires Groups to hone their abilities to effectively facilitate meetings.” Group Leads shared insights challenges that can play out in group meetings:

• Different skill levels at facilitating meetings. While this is a challenge, it is also an opportunity to support upskilling, as well to develop ongoing processes to effectively manage meetings and utilize time.?
• Varying levels of comfort in sharing. It can be challenging to balance people’s willingness or hesitation to share out. New practices may be needed to best encourage employees to share authentically in Group settings.
• Respecting cultural differences in a multinational organization. This requires fostering understanding across international contexts.?
• Balancing structure and self-expression. Since many Groups are self-governed, they may feel they are reinventing the work without a systematic process for Group creation. Even after creating a process, Groups may lack sufficient structure to get the work done. It can be difficult to balance providing enough support/structure without overstepping Group members’ sense of agency.
• Understanding the wider organizational culture. There can be a disconnect with what Group members want and need versus what the organization is prepared to provide. For example, organizational leaders may be hesitant to discuss certain topics, but Group members may need support around those topics during difficult times.

Making room for individual Group members' contributions and needs requires Groups to hone their abilities to effectively facilitate meetings - Kristine Pedersen

Strategies for success

Groups provide opportunities for growth and development in critical leadership skills, “Leading Groups requires a great deal of navigating and negotiating the competing interests of Group members,” explains Tiffany. “Facilitating inclusive and effective meetings is key to central to this navigating.”??

Leading Groups requires a great deal of navigating and negotiating the competing interests of Group members. - Tiffany Galvin-Green, Ph.D.

Here are two key strategies for effectively leading Group meetings.

Upskill facilitation skills. Providing training and coaching on being effective facilitators can truly benefit many Groups. Some insights into what makes an effective facilitator:?

• Seek collective input and be open to different methods of feedback collection such as offline approaches, polling, slack, seeking contribution before/after meetings
• Open the role of leading discussions to multiple Group members - maybe someone with interest in a topic would be great at it (and this can also lead to broader buy-in)

Develop a Group Playbook

• Create a document about how to set up a Group. Get leadership buy-in and make it available to future Group Leads
• Establish a blueprint of evergreen and essential processes; establishing these collaboratively and implementing them are critical
• Develop support roles, to share the work. This might include a Group notetaker, marketing lead, event manager or new member lead. Group members can be resources to each other, and support roles help ensure that everyone’s time is used most efficiently?

Resources for Groups

“Supporting Groups is an important investment in organizational safety, engagement, and innovation,” concludes Kristine. “The work of Groups and Group Leads is complicated and more nuanced than many companies and leaders often give attention to,” adds Tiffany. “This gathering centered the work of the Group's while giving insightful professional development to its leaders. Compounded, these actions can ultimately increase the Group's benefit to the entire organization.” Indeed, that is our aim.

Supporting Groups is an important investment in organizational safety, engagement, and innovation. - Kristine Pedersen

Building on this shared knowledge, we share these resources:

• An article: Inclusive Practices: From the boardroom to ERGs, explaining how to use leverage board practices?
• From the Board Playbook: Facilitate Effective Meetings, with strategies for engaging and including folx with diverse perspectives and experiences
• To host learning conversations: Supporting learning conversations within and throughout our organizations, which shares ways to use videos and discussion guides to spark learning
• Published and forthcoming articles in this series: How to sustain the work of Employee Resource Groups 1) Build strong relationships, 2) Mentor new members, and 3) Engage with and value differences

Dr. Tiffany Galvin-Green is Vice President - DE&I Strategies and Education at Exponential Talent, a member of the Lab’s Corporate Program.

Kristine Pedersen is Seeds of Change Assistant Director and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program Manager

Edited by Hannah Yanow, Ed.D. , Lab Inclusion & Belonging Consultant