While some people get excited about being asked to take on a leadership role at work, most people feel a sense of dread when asked to lead. A mixture of imposter syndrome, fear of failure, lack of confidence in their own skills, and much more can easily shut people down — or cause them to reject the leadership offer. For diversity officers hoping to launch or expand employee resource groups more broadly, that can make finding people willing to take on the challenge of (often unpaid) leadership, well, a challenge by itself. However, if have an ERG toolkit for new program leaders ready to go, you’re far more likely to reduce apprehension and friction toward leadership.

Creating that toolkit is something that is best done in-house. After all, your ERGs will reflect your company culture and employee needs. Still, we’ll help set you on the right path with some helpful tips on what top include in your ERG toolkit, and how to make the best use of your time as you create it.

Why Do My Program Leaders Need an ERG Toolkit?

There are two common misconceptions about ERG leadership that we need to dispense with right away:

  1. Anyone can do it.
  2. People should be grateful to be asked.

There are two major issues to address underlying both of those assumptions.

First is the belief that anyone can do it. While ERG leadership may seem simple on the surface, there are many different moving parts involved in the process. ERG leads need to plan, organize, advocate, communicate, and report. What’s more, they’re looked at to make decisions about their groups that can be consequential both to the group members and the outcomes that executive leaders are hoping to see as a result of ERG participation.

Those who have never been in leadership roles may have little to no experience in planning events, or communicating with teams, or reporting on membership dynamics and participation. And, let’s face it: Finding people with the passion for leading an ERG in an (again, often unpaid) role is more a situation of “beggars can’t be choosers.”

You may have people willing to take on the challenge but feeling compelled to do so because either nobody else is stepping up or they are looking to expand their horizons and skill sets. Preparing them properly will help them succeed.

Second, don’t assume people should be grateful for being asked to lead. Few people in your company are going to be eager to take on extra duties outside of their current role. While this can boost their resumes and give them more visibility within the company, many will view it as a burden instead of a blessing. Being asked can help provide a sense of accomplishment and boost someone’s confidence in their work, but it still adds responsibilities to their day-to-day.

As well, if nobody is eagerly stepping up and you find yourself in a position to have to ask for volunteers, most of those saying yes are doing so because they have a personal sense of duty to their team and their colleagues, not because they’re excited or grateful for the selection. Take that into consideration as you build out your ERG leadership teams. Those individuals, especially, will appreciate you making their transition into ERG leadership much easier on them by giving them the proper framework to succeed.

What Should Go Into an ERG Toolkit?

Now that we’ve covered why people a toolkit, let’s focus on what type of information your toolkit should provide. A good ERG toolkit should help your ERG leaders do the following:

As noted earlier, your ERG toolkit will need to reflect what’s important to your organization, and fit within your company’s general guidelines and expectations for groups of this nature.

With that in mind, let’s dive into some recommendations for how to proceed with delivering content to your ERG leaders that meet each of these needs. Below, we’ll cover some important dos and don’t’s for the type information you should include for your ERG leaders in your toolkit.

1. Defining the ERG’s Purpose and Goals

Helping your ERG leaders create a clear purpose statement and goals for the program will give the program the kind of direction that can be measured. At a high level, ERGs are designed as a space for people with similar backgrounds and experiences to find community within at work. However, it’s a good idea to have your ERG leaders create something a bit more tangible within their purpose statement and goals.

Executive leaders are strongly supporting ERGs, but they’re looking for ERGs to have a more measurable impact on key business objectives, such as turnover and productivity. For that to happen, the ERG needs to have goals that are aligned with those business purposes.

Purpose statement

Help your ERG leaders focus on creating a clear, actionable purpose statement.

Setting goals

Goal setting will help tie the overall purpose of the ERG (and its purpose statement) to something more tangible and measurable.

Example: “Our Women’s ERG strives to connect women across the organization into relationships that foster personal and professional development and growth within a safe and supportive environment that ensures psychological safety for all members.”

2. Branding Guidelines and Consideration

Never underestimate the deep and resounding impact that good branding can have on your ERG. A strong and clear brand will help your ERG leaders as they work to gain executive-level support, recruit members, and continue to build support and engagement after the group has launched. Creating a strong brand and identity is essential for ERGs to establish a unique presence within the organization and effectively communicate their purpose.

Brand development

If there was ever a time to recommend cross-functional collaboration, it’s here. Brand development is a skill in itself, and you may want to steal some ideas from your marketing team. Additionally, we recommend you pair branding specialists with your ERG team leaders to support in the branding effort.

Promotion

Alongside branding, a partnership with your marketing teams will help your ERG leaders get real wins as far as information dissemination. Additionally, depending on the size of your organization, your ERG leaders may not guidance in navigating the approval structures required to start promoting both internally and externally.

Example: The LGBTQ+ ERG at a greeting card company developed a series of greeting cards that reflected their community’s experiences, showcasing their impact on the company’s product line and brand.

3. Creating and Planning the ERG Leadership Structure

You will likely select an ERG chair, and perhaps a co-chair, to help lead your ERG. Those individuals will be tasked with developing a leadership structure for their group for roles outside of the chair and co-chair. A well-defined leadership structure is crucial for the sustainability and effectiveness of an ERG, but chances are that many people taking on this task for the first time will feel lost.

Leadership roles

Leadership roles are subject to change and will likely depend on the size of the group. However, you can help your ERG leaders outline what roles need to exist as the group gets established and grows larger.

Building a leadership team

We recommend that you have a standardized document that helps ERG leaders understand how to build their leadership team. That should include eligibility requirements for team leadership and internal outreach strategies.

Example: At a mid-sized organization, ERG chairs create an interest survey that they send to group participants with roles that need to be filled. They then go through a review process that includes outreach to those individuals’ direct managers to ensure interested participants have the capacity to serve in those roles.

4. Developing a Group Charter

A formal group charter provides a clear framework for the ERG’s operations and ensures alignment with the organization’s goals. The charter is distinct from the purpose statement and group goals in that it outlines the objectives, roles, responsibilities, and scope of the ERG. Think of it as a document that provides a definitive structure to how the group is run.

It may make sense to create a standardized group charter that your ERG leaders can modify for their purposes with aligned language suiting their specific ERG and it’s focus.

Elements of a group charter

We’ll reiterate here that it’s a good idea to have charters mostly standardized across your company’s ERGs, with some allowance for variance in certain aspects, such as mission and goals. Consult with your HR teams, especially, as it relates to membership criteria, as this can be a thorny subject with rather consequential people-related impacts if not handled properly.

Example: A Families ERG charter might include objectives such as hosting monthly support meetings, organizing family-friendly events, and advocating for flexible working policies.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2hm-Jf8veQM?feature=oembedIn this video, Grant Herbert offers some additional insight into building a team charter.

5. Member recruitment and ongoing engagement

Recruiting and retaining active members is essential for the success and longevity of an ERG. It’s important that you help your ERG leaders avoid putting the cart before the horse here in their eagerness to start recruiting members. Help them with recruitment strategies so that they don’t get overwhelmed or frustrated by this process.

Recruitment strategies

ERG leaders may be eager to start recruiting, but often lack the experience in how to run recruitment campaigns. This is another area where collaboration with your marketing team can make a big difference in the content you create for your ERG leaders and the success they’ll have when they start recruiting.

Engagement activities

Recruitment is only part of the puzzle with ERGs. Leaders will need advice on how to maintain active group participation.

Example: The Hispanic ERG at a software company successfully engaged members by leveraging group involvement to launch and manage skills-based mentoring programs.

6. Recording and measuring success data

Tracking and measuring the success of ERG initiatives is crucial for demonstrating value and ensuring continuous improvement. There are various types of data your ERG leaders may be responsible for recording and measuring, and, let’s face it, it’s not something most of them will be able to do easily. ERG software will make this process easier on them (and you), and result in better programmatic outcomes. However, your ERG leaders should still be familiar with how data collection and analysis works.

Setting KPIs

Assessment and reporting

Example: An ERG might set a KPI to increase membership by 20% within a year and track progress through regular member surveys and attendance records at events.

7. Scaling and Growing Programs

As ERGs mature, they may seek to expand their scope and impact within the organization. While your ERG leaders may not need this information immediately, they will hopefully need it later. Your ERG toolkit for new program leaders should be something they can come back to and reference even after they’re no longer “new” to leadership.

Growth strategies

In Part 1 of this 3-part video series on ERG Budgets, we help you understand the first steps to building an ERG budget. What’s next? Check out our guide on ERG Budgets!

Check out our guide on ERG Budgets!

Sustainability:

Example: An ERG might expand its activities by partnering with other ERGs to host larger events or by launching new initiatives that address emerging needs within the organization.

The Best Support You Can Give New ERG Leaders Is Time

With just 6% of ERG leaders getting compensated for their time, it’s easy to understand why finding leaders at all can be difficult. When you do find those individuals, the best thing you can do for them is reduce how much time and effort they have to put in to make these programs work.

Most ERG leaders are stepping into that role because they believe strongly in what the ERG means for them and their community. Burdening them with an excessive amount of extra work is…cruel, to say the least. This is why software is an exceptionally common-sense and compassionate resource for ERG leaders.

With ERG software, you can help your leads launch their programs with automated software, seamlessly engage participants with simplified scheduling and engagement tools, and, importantly, track program participation, engagement, and other data. ERGs take time to run, but they’re run more effectively with software.

In fact, our customers that have both ERGs and mentoring programs see over 60% reduction in turnover. That’s all thanks to improving process efficiencies that make ERG management and participation easy on everyone, leaders included.

Why not take the first step? Book a demo to see how CommunityCliQ employee community software can help you give new and experienced ERG leaders the tools they need to succeed.