Hello, everyone. Welcome to Beyond the Buzzwords, how to leverage employee resource groups for strategic Business Advantage. And thank you everyone for joining live and welcome to those watching the replay.All right, I'm given one more minute for people to join, but I will go ahead and get started because this has been recorded. So it would be helpful to get a replay. All right, welcome again. Hi, everyone. My name is Lola Aemo and I'm going to go ahead and get started. Here's an agenda of what I'm going to walk through today. I will go through a brief introduction of myself and then I'll talk a little bit about the state of the workplace and the context of the conversation we're about to have and then I'll go over some definitions and then we'll go into more about er GS and end with strategies for business advantage from er GS and you hear me say er G a lot.

Um but depending on where you are, where you work, what you do, um that's employee resource group. So I am a black person. I am a woman. I'm a mom, I'm an entrepreneur. I have experience walking across multiple global organizations. I also have my background is as a scientist. So I walked across multiple biotech spaces and uh I am a Nigerian. I put bean black at the top of the list because I am also an immigrant and coming from Nigeria. One of the things that I had to flip to the top when you work live and work in America is being black, learning about being black in America and is if I had to switch these when I first got into the United States um as an adult. So at age 25 I will start with the identity being Nigerian, right? Uh But getting into the workplace, living and working in America for me, the block has become a key part of that identity. And so when I talk about introduction, who I am, this is the other 4/5 of my family. This is my husband and my three kids. I had all three of my kids while working in corporate America. And I also talk about the corporate workplace has been my space. Uh In fact, I only spend I spent the first year of being in the US in uh school in graduate school full time. And then I got into corporate America. So my experiences have been with large global corporations uh that touch across different cultures, different countries.

Um But from it, from the inside, when I was an employee and then currently from the outside as a consultant and as an entrepreneur and then I'm a scientist, I think that myself is something I also like to call out because uh a lot of my experience has been in the biotech, space, life, science, space.

And so working with engineers with um biotechnologies, biochemists. And so it's in this space with a lot of technically skilled employees and um just it's a different, it's a different community working in a an industry, highly skilled tech industry. So, um and it's very applicable to the conversation we're having here because um there's a lot of similarities across, you know, uh biotech I I tech uh companies and the structures and the hierarchy. So a lot of things come into play when you're not just talking about industry, but you're talking about working in tech space and, and, and it, it changes the, the ex experiences and uh the challenges that we have to work through in the workplace. So a little about the state of the workplace. Currently we are in post COVID-19 and I put post in um a little bit of a shout out there because again, it's almost like a lot of things when we think about it is the way the world of work is. We think about it, how it was before COVID happened. We think about it the COVID season and I think we just had the final call out of the restriction from COVID um from the federal standpoint. Um uh in the US.

And I know different parts of the world have sort of eased into what does the new normal looks like in the, in the last couple of months? And we are still there, we are still there at the IBD and Nomad work. So again, one thing that is dominating in the workplace now is being able to work um across different, different uh platforms, different formats and the Nomad work style, of course, uh depending on what generation you are, there's a lot of working from different location, walking from everywhere and it's on the increase now and then the social justice movement.

Um A lot of things were also, you know, switched out, woken up, stirred up in, in 2020 if you are based in the US and all over the world around uh George Floyd's murder and a lot of things that have been kicked off since then and then the three area assessments. So a lot of companies made a lot of decisions and changes in 2020. This is 2023. So that's about the time frame when companies starts to reassess. OK. What have we accomplished in the last three years? And where are we going next? Right now? They've gotten enough data to say this is what we've done. What's, what's working, what's not working. So right now there's a little bit of a reshuffle shift, uh shaking up, pause and freeze. We're hearing the term freeze and, and pause happening. Right now, we're, we're hearing a lot of uh strategic realignments going on. And so Candidate Attraction is still a challenge. It's been a challenge for a while. But now it's what does it really look like? How can we get the people that we want to come work with us? Right. So that's a big issue right now, especially when you think about the tech space where in addition to talking about the fact that there are lots of roles that people are hiring for is there's a lot of layoffs, right?

So it's a mix, it's a blend depending on where you are on the the career track, you are experiencing one or the other of this, right? And so motivating and engaging employee is also very, very important right now. So we've moved away from just pay people more money to what, how can we motivate our employees and how can we engage them in the best way that really works for them and that works for our company as well. And then we talk about career development opportunities. So that's been listed among the top three reasons why people are accepting offers and are leaving their jobs. Where am I going next? Where is this taking me? Where is this moving me to? So when we talk about all of these, this is the world of work we are in now is going through a lot of shift, a lot of changes and there's lots of questions, there are things being reshaped and remarked. So to go into the buzzwords that I, I wonder I liked, I wanted to touch on um a couple of definitions of, of things that we might be hearing, we might be using, we might be leveraging. But what does it really mean? So when we talk about diversity, we talk about a range of different identities and perspectives in a given setting.

So diversity itself is a fact and sometimes it's so overused that we misuse it and, and right, we, we don't want to make it just a part of a sentence, right? Like everybody is diverse, a diverse person, a diverse person can be a phrase that becomes insulted depending on, on how you use it, right? Uh But when we talk about diversity, there's race, there's ethnicity, there's gender, there's sexuality, there's ability, there's religion, there's a host of other factors uh that plays into the diverse mix of people of individuals, of personality. Intersectionality is a word that I've just really um got to explore in the last two years. I, I have a, I have a book that came out in the fall of 2022. It's called Thriving In Intersectionality. And the process of even getting to title my book, using that word means that I had to really think about the context and the research I was doing and, and um and yeah, so it's a word that is used to describe the interconnected nature of our individual identity categories, especially the underrepresented ones.

So I think I have one of the people I had a conversation we talked about, well, intersectionality is just about saying that everybody is a mix of different things. And I said, well, it's not just a mix of different things. When we are talking about intersectionality, we're talking about a mix of the underrepresented identities and how the sum and the impact is way accelerated when there are multiple under representation, right? So it's not just um a black woman is black, being black on its own and being a woman of it on its own. When you take it together, the impact of those two underrepresented categories that we talk about all the time um around diversity uh topics. The impact when those two things are present for one person is way more than what it would have been if it was just one, right? So intersectionality is that word that helps us to capture the interconnected nature of those underrepresented categories um in, in a lot of instances, especially when the word was first coined by um uh relatively new. Um I'm going blank right now, but uh Kimberly, Kimberly, pretty sure um it, it focused on race, it focused on race and ethnicity, it focused on gender and ethnicity.

And so uh one of the things that I've really introduced into the mix when I started exploring the immigrant identity combined with the gender and the race in myself. And in a lot of the people that I talk to and work with is um it's more than just the gender and the ethnicity. It's combining underrepresented identities in one person and, and the impact of that. And then when we talk about belonging is that feeling of being accepted, valued and included in a given community or a group. So let's dive into the core topic that uh we are here about today, er GS employee resource group. So first I want to talk about the word community. So when I say employee resource groups, there's a lot of other names that companies call it. There's a lot of names that this might go by in the organization. There's um affinity groups, there's business resource groups, there's colleague resource group, there's associated resource group. Uh but taking a step back community, I I use the term inclusive community a lot when I'm working with companies because that sort of captures the essence of what companies should be trying to do with the employee resource group.

We're trying to create an inclusive workplace based on preferred representation. So for me, as an immigrant from Nigeria, the preferred representation that I migrated towards at the beginning of my career in the United States um was being a woman. This is because of how I was raised and the gender impact of growing up as a woman in Nigeria, West Africa. Uh So for me, that preference is very important. Um your way, your choice of two of deter determining what group to associate with. And that's where uh the word community takes on a new meaning, especially in the workplace. It's why the power of employee resource group cannot um cannot be over explained because a lot of times I think companies miss it and, and employee resource groups are just seen as people that come together and you know, we want all black people, all women to come together so they can socialize.

So it's there's a day factor when some companies are looking at it. But to be clear, you know, an employee resource group is a community, it's an inclusive community in the workplace. And the key is that employees get to choose which group they associate with based on their preference, right? Because if you think about um identities and intersections, we all have so many of them, but there's one or two that really is one that we prioritize is, is in a space that we seek to be connected with others. That's the powerful um nature of effect, effective employee resource groups. So employee resource groups are sanctioned but employee led groups that come together based on shared characteristics to increase employee engagement and belonging. And of course, a lot of other benefits that also includes career development and organizational goals.

So the key is it's company sanctioned and is also employee led that changes that changes the dynamics of these and makes it different from a uh a functional group within the organization like your department group, right? Is the employees are leading the charge for the organization has to support it. Employee resource groups are spaces for belonging your way. So again, when we talk about those identities and intersections is I get to choose which employee resource group I closely associate with and want to feel included in at this point. Now, of course, coming from where I come from growing up in Nigeria, my first um employee resource group that I actively participated in was the women employee resource group. Um When I had my first child, there's a different needs that came up, right? Being a mom in, in corporate America, how do people do it? What am I, how do I combine this? How do I get my work done and still be in this space? And you know, I saw a lot of people quit when they had kids. And I also, this was I was 29. I also didn't have a lot of um parents who were working. So it was almost like the, the the the communities that I found myself. It was one or the other.

Then I found parents who were not in corporate America and I found people in corporate America who didn't have kids. Those were my closest circle, right? So I had a different need. So I ended up starting an employee resource group for working parents at my company. And that was super helpful because at that point, that was the community that I really needed and, and that was my choice to find belonging in that space for that season. So I want to talk about er, g myths and er G facts. Um Again, I use er G a lot, plug it in whatever it is in your organization. If it's BRG, employee resource group, associate resource group, when your organization have sanctioned some groups and some communities do exist um and bring people together, that's your inclusive communities and, and depending on your role, if you are a leader within an organization or if you are an individual contributor, right, you will be aware of uh some of these groups that exist and you might, you may or may not be plugged in or connected.

Um But I wanted to share a little bit about some things that I see as meets and, and also clarify what the facts are when it comes to employee resource group. So a lot of the organizations um that I work with are, are coming to that stage where they are getting to unravel like, er GS are more than social networks, but that's the prevailing myth. So a lot of people that don't know a lot about, er G or a lot of companies that are resistant to starting these groups. Um You would hear terms like, er, GS are social networks. It's a network for people to just gather together and have happy hours or whatever the definition of the social networking is in that organization. The fact is, er GS can be a key resource to employees and the organization that's actually the key uh to effective er GS and I will talk about that um in a little while as well. But um er GS can be a key resource. Er GS are diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion or DE I or DEA I or D Eib. Um er GS are not your DE I department. Er GS are a key part of turning your DE I strategy into action.

So two different things, companies that have been successful with, er GS have been able to plug er G in as part of a larger DE I strategy at the organization. So your er G is not your DE I but a key part of your DE I er GS uh HR L is another one. So er GS are not uh hr led the company supported and sometimes the companies will identify the hr as a part of that um supports mechanism that is put in place, but GS are really employee led. Um Another myth is that egs are only for employees who are a member, who are members of that underrepresented group or of any underrepresented group. So a lot of time people pull away when they don't associate with that group the fact is GS are for members and allies and most er GS call that out in the a mission statement about the different will be in the programs that are put in place. Uh Companies will use the er GS to create safe programming for members and brief space programming that are more educational and for those that um identify as allies, so two different things but can still be captured under the mission and the vision of er GS.

So this um I love sharing this deck. I'm a very visual learning styled person. And so for me, when I think of the er G people strategy, because a lot of times when we hear the term er G um I think we, we are thinking of only one group of people, which is the people that are members of that group that are captured within that group. So I like to put it in this way, employee resource groups. So we have the er G members, we have the er G leaders, we have the er G managers and this is a relatively new role for a lot of organization and then we have executive leader. So again, how the company structure it is very different, but I think about the member group, if you have an employee resource group for women and I'm a woman at your company, I don't have to sign up to lead. I am a member of that employee resource group. I am captured, I am covered under the mission and the vision of the organization. So programs, initiative strategies should be taken into consideration the demographics at the organization um to capture members. So some companies kind of combine that er G member with er G participants.

So they are the people that actually attend certain programs again when it comes to er G participants, um most people would choose not to take up a leadership role in an er G will participate in one or two programs as it relates to them, right? So I can be a member and a participant without being in the leadership role. And then the er G leaders are the ones that have actual roles within the employee resource groups, right? They are the ones that are investing a little more time in planning in um defining the strategy in, in talking about where the uh budget is going to come from or how they will allocate the budget, what kind of speakers they want to bring into all of that. So the er G leaders and then the er G manager has sort of become that bridge um that companies create under the DE I team is like when I was talking about myths and facts, talking about the DE I is very broad. When it, when it comes to your company's DE I strategy, it touches everything, it's not just um the employee resource group, it's your supply chain, it's your manufacturing team, it's your tech teams, it's your executive leadership team, right. That's what the DE I leader is working on.

Um company uh company wide, but companies now are creating this, er G manager role, who is somebody that is pretty much a member of all the, er GS because supporting each of the, er GS because if you think about it, er G leaders and members all have different titles and roles within the organization that is their primary focus.

So the er G manager role provides an opportunity for the company to fund a full time position for somebody to support all of these groups and and then of course the executive leader. So creating this role for uh to to establish that connection between the er GS and the executive team, right? So there's this executive sponsorship level that organizations will identify for each of the er GS. And then on the right side of this diagram, I put sort of like four different things that when you are thinking about the people in the er G, these are some of the things that are very important, the skills, passion, vision and influence um passion, anybody engaged in any of these roles, you have a passion for inclusion, anybody engaged in it of this role should be an advocate.

Anybody in this role should be um really interested and invested in going above and beyond their day job to build an inclusive workplace. Uh But then when it comes to vision, sometimes there's an opportunity to align more people to that, right. So are we aligned as a group, as a company, as individual employees on what this erg is in place to accomplish? And then we talk about influence who is involved, right. So this is part of why the um executive leadership, this is, this is a key um skill for that role, right? We want somebody who is influential uh being a sponsor, being an advocate in those rooms where a lot of the er G members might not be those rooms where the decisions are made at the organization level, right? So then with this, then um beyond all of that is when we get to the skill set, right? So I volunteered to lead an er G doesn't mean I know everything about running projects, about planning programs, about measuring metrics and translating it into useful information, right, the analytic side of things.

So there are certain technical skills that are still needed for members of the year depending on um what role they have. So when we talk about the erg people strategy, we need to think about all of these levels and be able to provide the right training for the right people and also identify the right people for the right role in order to build a successful and impactful erg program. I think it's also key here to also call this is where if you are talking about as an erg advocate, what is your role and what do you need to work on? Right. Because you need the right skill set. If you're an erg manager, you would probably want to prioritize getting more D I training because you're walking across different groups that you might not be a part of. You are walking across different groups that you need to be able to advocate for all of these groups. Even if you do have a lived experience around that you need to be able to listen better. You need to be able to um broaden your own perspective of inclusion, right? If you're working as part of as a leader of a single er G, you need to think about intersectionality for members of your group, you need to be able to understand the different needs of those different members, right?

So there are different needs for different people within an energy. But if you are listening to these and you are structuring one, these are some of the things you want to think about. If you're listening to these and you're thinking of joining one, this is where you start to think about at what level and what do I bring to the table. So let's talk about leveraging energies for business advantage and successful energies are employee led, kind of touched on this a little bit. Have a chatter, there should be a document that captures who we are, what we stand for. We the frequency of our meetings and where it is we're going, what are the terms for our leadership? Um When you think about companies and turnover and people moving around rules, priorities, shifting erg s will not stand the test of time if you don't capture some of these things. Because then the next, then the person who is most passionate and was doing everything for the G moves to a different role or steps down and then the G is starting from scratch.

So document creates guiding the, which is a charter document that will help your er GS have executive leaders as sponsors. Again, I think I already touched on that is it's important to have somebody who is an influential leader within the organization advocating for your group.

I have at least two leaders instead of putting it all on one person, the er G, I've seen the RGs that have uh 12 and I've seen the RGs that have 12. Again, it depends on how you have structured your erg and how you divide these roles. There should be at least two people who have shared responsibility for ensuring the success of the employee resource group have strategic program plans. What do we want to accomplish in the long run? How are we going to break that down for the next year for the next two years? Right. Have some budget. So that's always a very tricky uh conversation because I've seen companies that have budgets, but there is no leadership support and there are no tools provided and I've seen those that do so much without a budget, right? And they could do so much more if given just a little budget. But if you are starting an er G, it is super helpful to think about putting aside some money to support the program. And then er G should be a part of a larger DE I strategy, the er GS uh part of action, putting uh to action some of the things that you have defined across your organization.

So companies with effective er GS have AD E I strategy, they gather data and define their metrics, recognize their G leaders and and celebrate the accomplishment. They also invest in erg leader and group development. So I, I've talked about some egs having been very large leadership teams and a lot of eg leaders and members get involved because of passion. That doesn't mean the skill set is there. And this is where the learning and development uh path for the organization comes into place.

How are you investing in your G leaders? So remember that when we are building learning and development programs, we are thinking of the a day job. So I might be a marketing um analyst in my day job and I'm getting some learning and development in that role. Uh But if I'm leading an erg there's a different skill set that I need to develop, right? So companies, I I, I've seen people actually put together retreats and training for the erg leaders or invest in uh sponsoring some of the leaders to go to conferences, right? Conferences like these, where they get to learn tools and uh go together as an eg and come back and discuss some of the learnings from, from the sessions at the conferences. At least investing in uh summits for the erg leader is super important and then leverage technology as the G scale uh companies uh get to the point where you need to think about a tool, a platform. What are the er G leaders spending on most of the day doing repeatedly all of the er GS. How can we automate some of these things either with our existing platforms within the company um or uh investing in er G tools and platforms? And there's a number of those uh that have been created now specifically to make er G leaders role easier and, and then building a communication channel that involves the er GS, right?

If you think about employee resource group, how is the work they are doing, plugged into the company wide communication, right. I've seen companies that bring the er GS um along to with the company newsletter and highlight some very brief things about the er G programming every month or even the company town hall, right? How are you folding the er GS into your communication plan, leveraging partnerships and collaborations?

So if you have, er GS, how are those, er GS getting data and support and benchmarks from outside the company? A lot of organizations will have each, er, G partner with an external organization, um depending on what the, er G is focused on. Right? Because just doing things in silo within the company, within an, er G. Um what are you comparing yourself against? Right. Have budgets. Again, I put it as the, as the last, not because it's the least important, but it's just because it's the one that doesn't need any explanation.

If you have er GS, if you are trying to move towards your er GS being more effective and a part of your company strategy, there should be some set aside budget for um er GS. So the er G advantage, the highest quit rate is among not engaged and actively disengaged workers. And, and a lot of the research around these is showing that it's important for employees who are engaged uh to, to stay right to it, it's important to give employees a reason to be engaged because that's part of how you get them to stay. Um But with er GS, if you have an employee who is already raising up their hand and leading an er G, they are already engaged and there's a higher probability of staying on er G leaders and engaged but not necessarily skilled. How are you providing training and then how are you incorporating your er GS into your hiring process. So again, when we talk about the broad DE I strategy, uh the er GS can be a key part of that conversation and then er G leaders are engaged and can share their experiences and help other employees to be more engaged.

So essentially your employee resource group can accelerate your culture at your organization. But how are you investing in them? How are you empowering them and uh leveraging them as partners in your organization, inclusion goals. So er G impacts can go beyond just the leaders and impact the organization.

But there is need for work and resources. And I put this final image just to capture everything we just talked about on what er GS are. Er GS are spaces for belonging, it impacts the individual who is a part of that group or the individual who is not, it impacts the group as well. And then we talk about the department, there's a multiplier effect and the organization as a whole. So if you think about er GS, they are belonging spaces and a belonging driven organization is impacted around the culture, the retention, the leadership and innovation. So it's a win, win, win for everybody. So that's it. I hope I was able to touch some key areas of how to move beyond. Just we have er GS or we leverage er GS or we have AD E I strategy. If you want to connect the organization de I strategy to true action and impact employee resource groups can be key to really connecting those dots and driving your inclusion efforts forward for your employees as well as for the. So, thank you very much for joining and I hope this has been helpful. I am looking forward to attending other sessions myself and staying engaged on the platform doing some networking uh during the conference over the next couple of days.

But if you have any question about er g, please take a screen shot, a scan of this code, connect with me primarily on linkedin and um also on other platforms as well and my email is also there. So I look forward to getting some feedback, getting some questions and hoping to shed light on anything. Thank you.