Comprehensive Exam - Application
In order to graduate with my Masters of Science in Communication, I was required to successfully pass my comprehensive exams: three essays covering theory, methods, and applications of my learnings. Completed Spring 2021.
Application prompt: Social support groups (Employee Resource Groups) are “voluntary, employee-led groups made up of individuals who join together based on common interests, backgrounds or demographic factors such as gender, race or ethnicity” (Forbes). These programs can be an important part of a company’s diversity and inclusion efforts, culture, and overall business strategy. More importantly, these groups could instill a feeling of belonging for employees, allowing for individuals to network and grow within the organization from typically under-represented groups (BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+).
You’ve been asked by your immediate supervisor to create some guiding principles for these online social support groups (ERGs). Suggest 5-7 principles that might help employees and/or companies in the creation, maintenance, moderation of, or engagement in these social support groups (ERGs) at work. In your description, explain how each principle is informed by communication theory (or theories), concepts, and/or studies.
In conclusion, address the benefits/challenges of social support groups in the workplace and any benefits for employees and/or companies that might come from these groups.
Developing ERGs for an Organization
Social support groups, commonly known as “employee resource groups (ERG)” or “affinity groups” are employee-led groups where individuals can come together to celebrate or bond over common interests, backgrounds or demographic factors such as gender, race or ethnicity. Many companies launch and sponsor these programs as a part of their DE&I and culture efforts, help increase employee retention by reducing social isolation, as well as help their overall business strategy.
The first “ERG” group was created in the 1960’s by Xerox to help black employees cope with racial tensions happening in society. HP launched the first LGBTQ ERG group in the 1970’s. Fast forward to 2020/2021, and you can only imagine the importance of these groups to individuals of an organization. We have experienced a global health crisis (COVID-19), social justice movements (BLM, asian hate crimes), and more. From a company standpoint, how can a company not only stand in solidarity with under-represented groups, but also support them and help grow the organization to include more diverse groups of people?
Through work experience, research, and my graduate studies, I have compiled five recommendations that might help employees and/or companies in the creation, maintenance, moderation of, or engagement in these social support groups (ERGs) at work. I recommend the following:
Listen to employees
Get support from leadership
Attract and retain a diverse talent pool
Create a Respectful and Inclusive work environment
Set goals and continue to progress
Recommendation 1: Listen to Employees
ERGs are groups of like- minded minority employees, formed to act as a resource for both members and the organization. ERGs are typically associated with a culture or perspective that has traditionally faced challenges in the workplace. The Corporate Executive Board (a subsidiary of Gartner) has reported that women’s ERGs are the most prevalent ERG. Other popular ERGs include LGBTQ groups and other under-represented racial or ethnic groups (black, latino). Although less frequent, some companies have groups based on age (GenZ, Millennial, GenX), lifestyle (parents), etc. There are two ways an ERG will come to life in your organization:
Bottom-up: A bottom-up approach, the most prevalent approach, is employee-led, where the employees initiate the ERG development process. This approach begins with a group of employees proposing the establishment of an ERG, appointing a leader, creating an ERG charter, and garnering support.
Top-down: A top-down approach involves HR or the leadership team initiating the ERG creation process. Companies take this approach when they feel that there is a need for a specific ERG that has not been raised by employees.
Regardless of how an ERG is presented (bottom-up; top-down), it is crucial that we listen to our employees wants, needs, and interests in starting or maintaining an ERG. I’d suggest streamlining conversations with employees through focus groups or surveys to check the pulse of your under-represented groups. We can turn to a critical feminist theories like Standpoint theory or muted group theory to further explain the importance here. These theories aim to shine light on and challenge inequities and unjust discourse that keep women and marginalized groups “in their place” in society. Although these theories come from a “feminist” lens, I think they are extremely applicable for any marginalized group.
Muted Group Theory and Standpoint Theory
Cheris Kramarae created Muted Group Theory in the 1970’s after studying cartoon characters. This theory is meant to provide critical perspectives on how relationships do and could operate as well as challenge conventional ways of thinking. Muted Group Theory has these shared assumptions:
Men and women view the world differently because they have different perception shaping experiences. Those different experiences are a result of men and women performing unequal and gendered division of labor.
Men perpetuate their power and suppress women's ideas and meanings, leaving women and other muted groups to create their own models of expression.
In order to be seen and heard, women must alter their ways of communicating for male consumption.
Sandra Harding and Julia Wood, the creators of Standpoint Theory, claim that one of the best ways to discover how the world works is to start the inquiry from the standpoint of marginalized groups in society. This theory helps assess different locations within the social hierarchy, the standpoint of marginalized people (women, poor, gay, racial minority, etc).
Recommendation 2: Get Support from Leadership
Involve C-suite, HR, and DE&I in the conversation on what the creation of this ERG means to the company (this also directly relates to recommendation 3). A recent Corporate Equality Index has cited that 97% of ERG’s have executive sponsorship.
Groups without this type of buy-in and support do not typically succeed and may end up disbanding due to lack of engagement, which I will later talk through in our “challenges” section.
Recommendation 3: Attract and Retain a Diverse Talent Pool
You should set out to support and grow a diverse workforce. Having a homogenous workforce could be detrimental to your business as you are not seeing new ideas or experiences. Improving recruitment retention and development is a huge reason prospective employees will select to interview with your company. I was told recently by a manager coach that interviewees are interviewing me just as much as I am interviewing them. I will need to court them, and tell them all the great things about the company culture, what working for me is like, and why my company is the best place to work. Having a culture than champions around DE&I is a huge selling point for prospects. In fact, a Harvard Business Review article has stated that the majority of millennials are more likely to apply to and stay at a company that supports ERGs. More than 75% of millennials have said that the presence of ERGs at work have made a positive impact on their level of engagement and satisfaction at work.
Many companies, especially tech companies, are home to many under-represented groups (women, veterans, black, asian, latinx, LGBTQ). It can also be extremely hard to hire in these groups, as tech is a male-dominated industry. Some companies have set HR initiatives to hire a certain number of individuals to help achieve their DE&I goals. Many large tech brands like Dell and Salesforce have publicly announced their DE&I goals for the next 2-5 years. For example, Dell states by 2030, 50% of their workforce will identify as female, and 40% of their management will be female. Salesforce has shared that by 2023, they will increase the U.S. black representation by 50%. The main challenge with launching ERG’s is that oftentimes this seems like a “check in the box” situation without addressing why these cultures are the way they are and why they have so many underrepresented groups. Ensuring that your recruiting efforts are in alignment with your company's overall culture and mission is important.
Recommendation 4: Create a Respectful and Inclusive Work Environment
Mentoring, Networking, and Education
Mentoring and networking are also crucial for an ERGs success. These groups can help with career-development support by including senior executives within the group. The presence of senior executives provides junior employees the opportunity to build valuable internal networking connections and learn work practices through insights shared. Companies like Lenovo have launched mentoring programs specifically for their WILL (Women in Lenovo Leadership) ERG.
Management training about diversity, inclusion, and equity is crucial. Training about unconscious bias is crucial. I think that there are general concepts from Attribution Theory that we can leverage to help make recommendations on training and education. Attribution Theory basically explains why someone acted a certain way or did a certain thing (i.e., they got the job because they were black; she got promoted because she’s sleeping with the boss). We do not want people making false assumptions and attributions in the workplace, which is why education is so important for managers and individual contributors of a company. This education should be led by the DE&I department. Though it is not the ERG’s responsibility to lead this education, it is important to note that this should exist in the organization if you are truly wanting to grow and develop a respectful and inclusive culture.
Support for Employees
Thinking back over the past year, I feel as if these ERG’s might be a lifeline for certain individuals seeking support. COVID strikes in early 2020, causing millions of students and working professionals across the global to transition to remote work. The ability to have human interaction has been severed because our workplace dynamic has changed. Many workers have felt isolated and alone during the early months of COVID-19. Months later, social justice movements erupt after stories of police brutality in cases like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor flood the internet and news. My LinkedIn page was filled with articles titled “how to support your black employees” and “your black co-workers are not okay.” Earlier this week, many organizations and individuals celebrated International Women’s Day. Many of these topics and movements are impactful and can cause anxiety, depression, and low-morale, among employees.
A great benefit of ERG’s is the support they can offer to individuals. Supportive communication is verbal and nonverbal behavior that influences how people view themselves, their situation, and their relationship with others. We have learned through supportive communication theories such as the Dual Process Theory of Supportive Message Outcomes that simply “being there” for someone can be more effective than long messages. Through this theory, another takeaway is to always take a recipient-centered approach to support (high person-centered VS low person-centered).
Through my company, we have hosted a plethora of “support” group sessions over the past month. A few of these sessions included:
Leadership by Influence: Women’s ERG group lead
How to Thrive During Change and How to Remain Relevant: Women’s ERG group led
The Antidote to Burnout: Women’s ERG group led
Parenting During COVID-19: Black + Women’s ERG group co-led
Meditation and Affirmations on Black History and Legacy: Black ERG led
At my company, we use Slack. There are different groups in Slack for ERG’s, even broken up by location (i.e., Webscale Women, Webscale Women Durham, Webscale Women Seattle, Webscale Women India, Webscale Women EMEA, Webscale Women Remote, etc.). This helps those in these geographies connect and relate on a deeper level.
Recommendation 5: Set Goals and Continue to Progress
If a company is not “practicing what they are preaching” then these efforts could look like a performative allyship. Ensuring your company's identity aligns with their actions is so important for the success of any ERG, CSR, and DE&I program.
I read another article recently (may have been from Arnold, 2005-2006) that stated that organizations should provide guidelines for developing an ERG, and a process to build out their mission, goals, and volunteer-based leadership team. Setting clear goals and expectations should be a requirement for an ERG. Goals could be number of meetings per month, amount of money allocated from the company to host events or gatherings, and increase in overall employee satisfaction.
I think overall a company can measure its success in DE&I/ERG’s is by implementing a “culture” survey. Quarterly, companies like Nutanix (Culture Amp) and Lenovo (Lenovo Listens) send out company-wide surveys to gauge employee satisfaction. Soliciting ongoing feedback from employees is a great anonymous way to measure your objectives and determine if your overall business goals are being met.
Benefits and Challenges
Although there are immense rewards when launching ERGs, such as retaining and recruiting talent, decreased turnover rates, increased job satisfaction, and more, organizations should still proactively manage risks associated with ERGs, such as low engagement and legal risks.
Low Engagement
Studies have shown that lack of engagement, participation, and company support could drive an ERG to disband. Having a strong set of volunteers, along with executive support as mentioned in recommendation 2, are vital to the success of any ERG.
I read an article/op-ed from a female professor who was angry that her university was sending out women mentoring emails to all the female professors in the department. The article stated that they had monthly meet-up’s at one of the professors homes and that they would send out a mass invite to include all female professors. Although most people seemed interested in attending, there was enough opposition for the group to not succeed.
Bierema (2005) was a research study about a women’s ERG. Ultimately, the group was unsuccessful because of lack of participation and the “patriarchal” culture. Many women were resistant to participating because they felt like participating in the group could be “career damaging.”
Legal Risks
McDonald’s was sued in mid-2000’s for ‘racial discrimination’ among Employee Resource Groups. The judge ruled that these groups must be voluntary and should not be limited to a particular group of people (i.e., white allies should be allowed to join the black ERG; men should be allowed to join the female ERG; straight allies should join LGBTQ ERG). Obviously a way to mitigate this risk is by allowing inclusivity in all ERGs.
Legally, it is improper for such groups to discuss any issues that a union would tackle, including work hours, assignments, pay, or promotion. An organization needs to ensure that their workers are not unionizing or using these groups improperly as means to discuss these items. Bierma (2005) stated that many men joked that their female counterparts were probably secretly “male bashing” and “recipe exchanging” during their ERG meetings. Having sponsorship from executives or allies join the discussions in these volunteer-based groups would be one way to mitigate the risk of employees turning against the organization.
