Every employee deserves to feel safe at work. Without safety, how can they even deliver the bare minimum, let alone go above and beyond? For people from minority and marginalised backgrounds, safe spaces are even more important.
That’s where employee resource groups (ERGs) come in. They provide that essential source of safety – to be with people with shared backgrounds and experiences, and to access support and guidance when they need it. If those safe spaces aren’t structured for success, then they aren’t offering safety to those who need it. And without a clear purpose and defined rules of engagement, sometimes they add even more burden onto people already carrying a disadvantage. Russ Norton, diversity, equity and inclusion specialist at employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott, shares perspectives on optimising the structure and governance of your ERGs.
Safety is a fundamental human need. Maslow put it second only to essential physiological needs such as eating and breathing. We’re hard-wired to seek safety and protect ourselves from threats. A lack of safety is distracting and exhausting – which can have a diminishing effect on our personal wellbeing, our ability to do our best work, our prospects and our finances. There’s no denying we all seek safety.
Safety doesn’t just mean physical. In this context, we’re talking about psychological safety and freedom from the threat of discrimination, sexual misconduct and inappropriate behaviour. There’s no reason anyone should have to tolerate that at work. That’s precisely why diversity and inclusion teams exist, and often oversee a batch of ERGs or colleague networks.
There’s a trend – particularly in the US right now – for organisations to remove investment in these teams and structures. A new ‘anti-woke’ agenda is rising and challenging organisations that some feel are going too far down the path of inclusivity. That’s worrying: not only for the impact on people from minority and marginalised communities within those organisations, but also for the message it sends to everyone about how important their safety is.
So the question is, what’s the ideal structure and governance for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in your organisation? Who should be driving the agenda – and to what end? And how do you continue to create safe spaces for people who need them most, without facing a backlash from an increasingly unsympathetic external audience?
The answer will, of course, depend on your organisation. But some strategies and building blocks are as fundamental as safety is to Maslow’s famous pyramid.
Here are my top five.
1) Set the tone from the top
For your DEI strategy to succeed, the organisation must be the loudest and most passionate voice. All too often, organisations take a passive role – responding to the priorities identified by members of their ERGs, and simply enabling the ERGs to take the lead. That’s a short-term strategy. Not only is there a risk that those topics might not be fully representative, or aligned to your organisational goals, but it’s also asking people who already have a burden to take on more. That prevents them from being able to offer the safe spaces we know are so important.
Instead, take it upon yourselves to have a firm stance on the topics that matter to people. That includes the people who work for you now and the people that you’d like to consider working for you in the future. The majority of workers say DEI is important to them when choosing their next role. There’s even an indication that people would leave an organisation for one with better DEI practices. Whatever you stand for, stand for it with pride and confidence.
Step one: involve your senior leaders
Work with your leaders to identify what matters to them most. It could be equal pay, tackling racism or supporting neurodiverse people. If they’re truly invested, then they’ll be able to advocate for it with far greater confidence and truly support your messaging.
2) Establish working groups to activate change
While working with leaders in large organisations, I’ve heard things like ‘we’ve just established a Women’s Network and we’ve asked them to help us tackle our gender pay gap’. That’s another way of saying ‘we’ve asked the people who are disadvantaged by a situation to work even harder to come up with the solution to it.’ I don’t think it’s the job of a Women’s Network to solve gender inequality. Nor is it the job of the LGBTQ+ network to prevent transphobia. Nor can a Race & Ethnicity network be made responsible for tackling racism.
To effect change, you need to gather the people with the power and influence to make a difference. They need to have a clear brief to work towards, and they need access to diverse perspectives and broad feedback. And they must be representative of everyone involved.
In the example above, a better solution would be to set up a ‘Gender Equality Working Group’ – made up of people of all genders and with sponsorship from people senior enough to activate change. They’d of course seek feedback from the Women’s Network, as well as other ERGs for an intersectional view.
Step two: create working groups
Identify the biggest barriers to recruiting and retaining the talent you need. For each one, establish a working group responsible for identifying and implementing solutions. Co-create a clear goal for each working group that’s aligned with the objectives of your organisation and make sure their efforts are recognised and rewarded as part of their own individual objectives for the year.
3) Set your ERGs free
ERGs work best when they bring together people with shared characteristics or experiences to create a support network for people who need it. They offer advice and mentoring. They’re a rich source of storytelling and education that can build empathy with allies – inside and outside the organisation. Giving your ERGs the space and the freedom to exist simply as communities can be incredibly powerful. No longer are you expecting co-chairs to do a full-time job and then also organise events, do public speaking, create training materials and help the organisation build a more inclusive employee experience. You can empower them to focus on building and sustaining a thriving community.
In this structure, ERGs can still add tremendous value. They’re an essential source of feedback on elements of the employee experience, and how changes might impact certain communities. They can help spot red flags in draft policies or campaigns – things a less diverse team might not notice.
When your ERG leaders aren’t trying to balance three different roles at once, you’ll find they’re much more effective at doing what they’re supposed to.
Step three: take the burden off your ERGs
Remove the expectation on ERGs to be activists and change-makers. Instead, invite them to focus on building networks, offering advice and mentorship and creating community. Work with them as a source of feedback and input.
4) Introduce communities of common interests
You don’t have to be ‘different’ to want to belong to a community. In not-too-distant memory, we often had a ‘third space’ – a place that wasn’t work or home. That might have been a pub, a sports hall, a choir or a fundraising group. These third spaces offered people access to friends, advice, a place to vent frustrations before heading home. Many community spaces have lost funding or closed altogether, which means people lost their third space. What’s more, thanks to Covid, our work and home are often now the same space.
So communities can offer a new sense of connection. They’re built around common interests: football, films, knitting, video games, anything that connects people. They’re open to everyone and anyone. Communities are a place for joy and connection – a place to unwind and share passions. They aren’t typically something that’s actively managed by HR or DEI teams, but they have the potential to contribute to the sense of belonging that encourages people to stay in an organisation and advocate for it as a great place to work.
Step four: create communities
Introduce communities – that can be set up around almost* any shared interest, hobby or passion.
*It’s important to set boundaries for what is and isn’t ok. Most organisations discourage people from bringing politics into the workplace, for example.
5) Set clear expectations for your people
Your people are the most important part of your organisation.
You can have the most progressive DEI strategy and robust structure for your safe spaces, and there’ll still be a proportion of people who don’t engage. While it’s ok that they might not go out of their way to be an ally, it’s not ok for them to behave in a way that goes against your minimum expectations around respect and inclusion.
At least once a year, it’s appropriate for some DEI content to be mandatory. That could be standalone training, or it could be embedded into something else such as Code of Conduct refresher training. However it’s delivered, it has to set crystal clear expectations about what’s not ok and what to do if a line is crossed.
Step five: listen to your people
Your people are a key source of cultural understanding. What’s considered ok to one generation might be completely counter-cultural to another. Our collective understanding of right and wrong is changing all the time. The best way to stay up with that change is to constantly listen to your people. Consider listening to people who’ve left your organisation, or members of the public who know nothing about you. Use that insight to pinpoint where your guidelines might be ready for a refresh.
Empathy, not apathy
The most powerful outcome you can hope for is empathy. Empathy builds understanding and creates deeper connections. Empathy encourages us to invest some of whatever privilege we have going spare in someone who needs it. Empathy eats apathy for breakfast.
Creating safe spaces that exist entirely for the purpose of safety is a true demonstration of empathy. That can’t happen overnight – it takes support structure above them and below them to make sure that ERGs can operate at their optimum. But investing in changes like this can reap rewards: think belonging, retention, attraction, representation and brand perception.
Put simply, Maslow was right – safety’s fundamental.
Russell Norton is an expert in all matters relating to employee engagement, particularly when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion and behavioural change. Throughout his career, Russ has proven himself as a trusted advisor, guiding organisations through complex challenges relating to workplace transformation and change management – working with businesses such as Rolls-Royce, Aviva, eBay and Nationwide.
Russ approaches employee engagement by finding and celebrating people-led stories and crafting meaningful narratives that celebrate workplace diversity, an approach that continues to reshape the discourse. Through his work, Russ demonstrates his knowledge and commitment towards pushing the boundaries of employee engagement.