5 Steps to Creating & Leading an Employee Resource Group

The power of personal networks is strong. Personal networks have allowed me to make career pivots, negotiate pay increases and take on leadership positions.

If you’ve mastered your personal network and want to expand your impact, you may consider building an employee resource group within your company (assuming one doesn’t exist; if it does, I encourage you to get involved… jump to benefits if you need convincing).

An employee resource group is a professional network within a company that is organized around a shared identity, and serves its members by building community, fostering inclusion and creating opportunities.

I led a women’s network ERG at a Fortune 500 company while scaling it to over 1,000 members. Within my company, ERGs have started as grassroots groups and become more formalized over the years. Starting an ERG is something any passionate employee can lead to expand their impact and develop their leadership skills for future endeavors!

Don’t know where to begin? Below are five key steps along with actionable examples to get you started!

1.   Find your Co-Founders

During my time as an ERG leader, I had a co-lead. My co-lead had a marketing mindset, while I had skills in processes and finance. My advice is to find someone with strengths that complement yours, allowing you to scale your network faster.

How to find your co-founders:

• Leverage your personal network and connections you already have (see my post on Building your Network here)

• When attending networking events, use the rule of three (meet with three people, learn three things about them and share three things, including ideas on creating a network)

• If you find it harder to network and are in a 100% remote environment, be intentional with your networking. When new members join your organization, reach out to connect 1:1. When you meet someone through a larger meeting, set up follow-up discussions. You’d be surprised where these organic connections can go

2.   Host an Off-site for Strategy Planning

When leading the ERG, this was arguably the most important step. During my time in leadership I’ve seen the off-site planning range from very successful to a slight time suck. Below are suggested activities to build upon in your off-site planning to determine your mission & goals.

How to host an off-site for Strategy Planning

• Review data, research and company themes to ground yourself in the landscape, including external data and company-wide trends

• Based off of your insights, brainstorm and determine what is your one goal (this can be done using Human Centered Design techniques in a group setting)

• Determine your why (mission statement) and how you’re going to accomplish it (goals list)

From here, you can continue to iterate once you have a Brand expert in place to make the mission and vision more powerful & punchy

3.   Recruit your Team

Based on the strategy plan determined, the next step is to understand the team you need to deliver on these goals. This team will be your ERG Leadership team

You can recruit for these positions using word of mouth, company-wide events and team stand-ups to announce. Once your network is refined, creating official roles & responsibilities (similar to a job application) is helpful in setting expectations and making it more formal.

Below are key positions you’ll want to recruit for:

• Membership (recruiting members, hosting membership meetings)

• Marketing/Communications (branding, e-mail)

• Programming (lead programming offered)

• Treasury (if have budget)

• Analytics and Insights (to understand tracking to goals, needs of members)

Once your team is established along with roles and responsibilities, set up recurring meetings to ensure the team stays on track

4.   Market your Network

Once you’ve recruited your team, you should have a Marketing & Communications leader. With their support, create logos, fonts & templates for communications (e-mails) and revise mission & goals statements for strong verbiage before advertising to potential members.

When advertising your network, leverage workplace newsletters, bulletin boards, and meetings to get the word out on your mission. When advertising, make sure you’ve created a DL for members where they can go to sign up for alerts. From here, you’ll have a list of members to grow your network!

5.   Activate your Coalition

Support across the company will amplify your efforts & help support employees in a more meaningful way, while giving recognition and growth for leaders involved.

Members to have in your coalition:

• Executive sponsors: Help amplify message, remove roadblocks, make connections, ensure goals are tied to company objectives

• Other ERGs: If other ERGs exist at your company, ensure you are supporting one another by sharing best practices and partnering on initiatives for intersectional programming

• Internal groups: Key to staying connected to business objectives. Internal groups important to your coalition include:

  • Inclusion and Diversity

  • Human Resources

  • Social Impact (if doing community work)

  • Marketing (if external campaigns are in your plan)

From here, listening to members feedback via surveys and anecdotes will be critical to continue iterating on programming. Annual planning can take this feedback into consideration to continue to re-evaluate and build on your goals to ensure you’re serving your members in a way that is most impactful to them.

Once you’ve accomplished these five steps, you’ll be well on your way to leading an impactful Employee Resource Group within your company.

Learn more about Nicole through her website: https://www.hersecondhouse.com/