Is it time to re-think Employee Resource Groups?

As a white, cis-gender, straight, neuro-typical man without disabilities, I am very conscious that I haven’t needed the support of Employee Resource Groups and therefore write this with some level of trepidation. So let me start by being clear - ERGs have been an invaluable component of support for historically marginalised employees and in many cases have been instrumental to creating real systemic change. And I applaud every single person who continues to dedicate their time to driving and supporting the work done by ERGs. Good ERGs provide invaluable support to historically marginalized staff, provide a sense of belonging, promote diversity and cultural awareness, lead to policy change and ideally lead to a more inclusive culture.

But as I listened to Vanessa Kingori OBE, Chief Business Officer, Condé Nast Britain, at Allbright’s International Women’s Day event, talk about the need to connect all marginalised groups together so that they will become the majority, it made me think - have ERGs become part of the problem??

From my experience of working within I&D, the ERG model has a number of fundamental issues:

• It relies on those who are marginalised to do extra work to solve the problem - from everything I have learnt, it is hard enough as it is to be in the out-group without having to take on the burden that comes with running an ERGs, which is invariably a volunteer role. This is changing in some organisations (e.g. Linked In pays their 20 ERG co-chairs $10,000 for each year of their two-year terms) but in most the burden still sits on those who need additional support rather than extra work
• It can create division within the organisation - rather than connecting all the marginalised groups together as Vanessa suggested above, it seeks to split them up and to compete against each other for attention and resources. I know of at least one person who has left the I&D industry because of the in-fighting which she sees as one of the biggest barriers to progress. I can also create conflict at an individual level where intersectional people have to choose which group they are going to focus on
• They allow leaders to feel better about themselves - so often I hear the existence of ERGs as proof that an organization is serious about Inclusion and Diversity. From my own experience, ERGs seldom have the power and influence to create systemic change within the organization and becoming a sponsor of an ERG simply cannot replace the need to work with the rest of the senior leadership team to fix the culture
• It often alienates the in-group - For my first 4 years of running Token Man, I spent most of my time at Women’s and Gender Network events and conferences and was always asked ‘Why are there not more men in this room.’ And while there is no doubt that more men are leaning into Inclusion and diversity, it is still nowhere near enough and I have heard plenty of stories of IWD events with only 10% of male employees in the room. No minority in history has ever affected changed without the support of the majority which means we need men who look like me in the room

When Deloitte first suggested back in 2017 that they were disbanding their employee resources groups , I thought this would start a trend. But this hasn’t transpired. And I can understand why. Why would anyone be willing to give up their voice when it has taken so long to get one in the first place? Especially when your organisation has so much to do to become truly inclusive. But I do think there needs to be a change to the current system. So I am going to suggest an alternative which is simply called an Inclusive network:

• Disband your current ERGs system and replace with an inclusive ambassadors system, whereby people all sign up to become inclusion ambassadors within the business
• Train your initial ambassador network to ensure that they all have the skills and tools to become agents of change in the business
• Ask each ambassador to volunteer to support a diversity characteristic and to drive activity across the year for that particular characteristic. Allocate a lead for each diversity characteristic and place them onto the Inclusion Council who meet regularly to decide focus the overall efforts
• Give your ambassador network a significant budget as well as influence so that they can run meaningful I&D events across the year
• Link the ambassador networks objectives to the overall objectives of the overall I&D strategy
• Ensure that the ambassador network has a voice at the highest level of the business through senior leadership sponsorship and clear two way communication with senior leadership team

The advantages of the following approach are many:

• The focus in the short term is inclusion which will help ensure that the business has the platform to allow diverse talent to thrive (bringing in more diverse talent will be driven by the business rather than the networks)
• By having the focus on inclusion, you can ensure that from the outset, all groups are represented, including the in-group. This means that rather than bringing (white straight, cis gender, neurotypical) men (without disabilities) in as allies, they will feel that inclusion?is actually also for them
• Rather than having each diversity group promoting any event internally, everyone is promoting each event as an inclusion ambassador
• The thinking from the outset should be intersectional
• The Inclusion network can be allocated a single budget which means there is less competition for differing budgets. Also means there is a single point of contact for the I&D lead. This means that the I&D lead can focus on accelerating change across the organisation rather than managing many ERG leads?

The nice thing about the above is that it is not theoretical. When I was first approached by Caroline Cater, Catherine Gillespie and Meinir Childs, the Heads of the Women’s Network at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners back in 2017 to help engage their men with I&D, one of the first things we said was that the Women’s Network was creating a barrier to engaging men. Which is why a key part of their UK I&D strategy was to replace the Women’s Network with The Just Be Ambassadors network. We initially recruited 80 inclusion ambassadors across the business who have the primary responsibility of being inclusion ambassadors and the secondary responsibility of being diversity specialists, helping to build cultural intelligence across the business and ensuring everyone’s voice is heard.

The results have been absolutely fantastic. The ambassador network now has over 250 members and was responsible for creating a foundation of inclusion at the heart of CCEP’s Culture:

“I am constantly grateful and in awe of the energy our Just Be ambassadors put into making our business inclusive. I initially played a role in leading the GB women’s network, however, it was increasingly clear as we tried to engage the wider organisation in the changes needed that unity behind a common goal of inclusivity was the way forward. For a short while, there was almost a sense of mourning and concern about what may be lost by changing the focus, but the power of the Just Be ambassadors was incredible.? There is a place for everyone in the network and whilst there are smaller break out groups which you could say are ERGs;? the wider uniting banner is Just be.? They amplify the focus areas, they bring the ideas and the agenda to life and they also provide a critical eedback loop in and out of their teams.?

As the agenda has progressed and the strategies become clearer, the GB approach fits into a wider Global approach under the banner ; “everyone’s welcome, to be yourself, be valued, belong”?

Caroline Cater, VP Field Sales CCEP and Diversity in Grocery Live event Chair.

I am in no way suggesting that such a shift would be easy and/or appropriate for all organisations. But I do hope that in providing an alternative, it may open up some new ideas for how you can make your ERG model better. We (Token Man Consulting) for example are currently working to support a number of businesses to create a male allies network so we can ensure that we get more of the in-group to do the heavy lifting and share the burden of creating the change that is so badly needed to ensure that businesses are truly inclusive, equitable and diverse. Also think that ensuring that those leading any network are being rewarded through pay and/or meaningful recognition is also super important. And if you can find ways to simplify the reporting process so that there is less burden on the Head of I&D, they can then focus on driving systemic change rather than managing bureaucracy.