Community, mentors and skill-building: Experts weigh the role of employee resource groups

NEW YORK (AP) — After moving to the United States from South Korea at age 6, Jenny Jang found it challenging to navigate through school and her first jobs.

“In all of the environments I was in, I was always a minority,” Jang said. “Coming to the States, I didn’t have a road map for me. And I couldn’t ask these questions to my parents, so I had to seek mentorship from elsewhere.”

Now based in Atlanta and working at an international elevator company, Jang launched the organization's business resource groups in North America. The gatherings offered ways for employees to find support and connect around an identity or theme.

The first group, for women employees, drew 500 members in three years. Jang brought in a facilitator to lead conversations on topics such as balancing family responsibilities and a career in a male-dominated industry. A group for veterans and supporting military families came next.

The gatherings “became a safe space where employees could share their experiences,” she said.

Employee resource groups, which are voluntary, employer-sanctioned groups designed to enhance diversity and inclusion, began in corporate America in the 1970s to help address tensions around race, gender and sexual orientation. Over the years, the focus has expanded to recognize other affiliations and experiences, such as caring for a family member, mental health challenges, neurodiversity and generational divides.

Critics of ERGs have become more outspoken in arguing that such groups give participants unfair advantages and damage staff morale by splintering colleagues based on personal characteristics or beliefs. In some cases, companies have responded to complaints by revising the purpose and scope of their employee groups.

An executive order President Donald Trump signed with the goal of ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government and beyond has created additional uncertainty around the future of ERGs. Here is some information about starting, participating in or evaluating the groups at your company:

Can you legally participate in an employee resource group?

The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission released guidance in March which said that limiting membership in ERGs to workers covered by anti-discrimination laws, such as only women or people of a particular race, can be considered unlawful segregation.

To comply with the EEOC's interpretation, employers should ensure workplace groups are open to all employees.

“They want to make sure these programs are not offering some tangible benefit to one group of employees at the expense of another,” said Infinito Associates CEO Kevin England, whose consulting group helps organizations start ERGs.

If an ERG offers mentorship or opportunities only to people who identify as a member of a legally protected class, "you absolutely do need to open that up,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU School of Law.

Some employee resource groups organized around an identity create separate email lists for members who share the identity and members who describe themselves as allies. Glasgow advises against doing that. “It raises the question of what you're excluding people from,” he said.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative public interest law firm and policy organization, has received dozens of complaints from employees who felt excluded from their workplace ERGs, according to Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington. Opening employee groups to everyone will not necessarily satisfy those concerns, he said.

“The question is, are you treating employees differently based on race?” Lennington said. “Are you making employees feel uncomfortable about their race or gender or sexual identity?”

What benefits do employee resource groups provide?

Proponents of ERGs list numerous benefits for employees and management. For participants, the groups are places to find community, develop leadership skills and create a channel for sharing their views with higher-ups. Companies often sponsor affinity groups as a tool for recruiting and retaining diverse employees.

“Employee engagement is great because it creates, typically, higher effort and retention,” said Helena Pagano, chief people and culture officer at insurance and financial services firm Sun Life. “One way that you drive engagement is making people feel like they had a voice. They had a place to express opinions and drive policies and outcomes that matter in the company.”

England, the consultant, was working at a bank call center when he joined and then took on a leadership role in an ERG for people who identify as LGBTQIA+.

“I was terrified to speak publicly, and because of that role, I had to do a lot of that,” England said. “I was able to develop skills that were completely unrelated to my day job."

Anna Ettin co-founded Bank of America’s intergenerational employee network about a decade ago, and worked on bridging gaps between millennials and baby boomers. Now, as co-founder of Tapestry Partner Solutions, a consulting group that specializes in intergenerational dynamics and skills development, she's doing the same work with Generation Z.

“There are some real differences in the way they’re coming into the workplace and what their needs are, their expectations," Ettin said. “We’re really helping companies think through, how do you retain the incredibly talented staff you have and also be appetizing to Gen Z?”

If your workplace permits ERGs, how do you start one?

When Ettin worked in a call center about 20 years ago, she noticed few women in management roles. “There was a clear gap in the leadership pipeline for women,” she said. She gathered 20 highly engaged women and they started by planning events on interviewing skills, resume writing and talks with senior female leaders about their career paths and obstacles they'd overcome.

Experts recommend finding a senior leader to act as a sponsor. In Ettin's case, that meant convincing the call center manager to approve and participate in the group.

Groups typically begin when 10 or 20 people find each other organically and get together for happy hours or lunches, England said. “You get some momentum going, and sometimes that group of 20 people becomes 50 or 100 people,” he added.

Then you can tell leaders, “we already have an informal collection of employees with this shared experience, and we would love to do something more with this," England said. "We think that this group of friends and colleagues could help the organization.”

Some ERGs are given company funds for meals, events or travel to conferences. A new group should be prepared to make a business case for a budget request. Experts also advise collecting data to show the group’s impact in areas such as employee retention.

It's easier to start a new ERG when an organization already has one in place because there's a road map of what worked and who supported the initial group. But if none exist at your workplace, you can start with one and build from there, Jang said. “There is no perfect recipe,” she said. “Start small.”

As organizations absorb various federal directives, they're deciding which direction to take. Some have adjusted to make it clear that all are welcome. Others have shuttered their ERGs altogether, wiping out years of work, Ettin said.

“The underrepresented, underserved communities still need the programs, support, connectivity and advocacy that they’ve needed for the last decades," Ettin added. "That hasn’t changed.”

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