'Employers who value ERGs—which means paying the people who run them fairly—will see benefits to productivity and retention that outweigh that investment.'
Corporate America: We need to talk about your Employee Resource Groups .We became familiar with ERGs when many welcomed us to speak on the gender and racial justice themes we write about in our books. As one of the most powerful trends in the U.
S. workplace, ERGs are a way for underrepresented groups to band together to help recruit more talent like them into their companies and make sure that talent feels supported and gets promoted. ERGs act as advocates, so no individual has to stick their neck out alone. Some groups have tens of thousands of members and in some of the best-run ERGs, these groups even identify new customer segments and products for neglected demographics that result in more revenue. While these groups offer many impressive outcomes like “the best professional development events of my career,” “meeting my most important mentor,” “connectivity to others with similar experiences,” or “a safe community unlike HR,” , the work is unpaid, invisible work done primarily by women and people of color.We recently spoke with Susan, the head of the Womxn group for a multinational corporation, and asked her how many unpaid hours she worked to put together one ERG event. “About 13 hours if you consider the emails getting buy-in from senior women from four teams all the way to prepping speakers for the stage and now Zoom,” Susan replied effortlessly. “I was asked to lead the group as a favor for my manager, but I now really enjoy this work.” Multiply 13 hours by hundreds of companies, thousands of events meant to help and inspire underrepresented groups within those companies, and untold hours of work completely unpaid and mostly unseen. It’s an irony that’s not lost on us: Even as authors, we ourselves benefitted from the unpaid labor of women in order to tell companies why they need to stop requiring so much unpaid labor of women. ERGs don’t just offer wine and cheese receptions with authors. ERGs increase the recruitment, retention, and inclusion of underrepresented groups. In recentof 700 American women of all age ranges, income levels, nearly 90% of women aged 18-60 say being a part of a women’s or family ERG has made their lives better at work. Women—especially in the age range of 18-29—consider company ERGs when choosing where they want to work. Even though fewer than 30% of companies have them, nearly half of women aged 18-44 say the existence and quality of an ERG at a company would impact where they work. While our data are specific to women and women of color, ERGs often include South Asian, Latinx, LGBTQI+, and people with disabilities among the affinity groups as well.ERGs are even more important than ever when you consider the reckoning of race and the reimagining of the workplace due to the current COVID crisis in America. Companies have
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