In this episode, Jamey provides actionable insights for organizations striving to maintain effective Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) amidst evolving regulatory requirements. Building on a previous episode about executive orders and ERG compliance, Jamey recaps six crucial tips for sustaining DEI efforts and dives deeper into strategies for keeping ERGs open to all employees while ensuring compliance and fostering meaningful engagement. He stresses the importance of focusing each ERG on the experiences of a specific group, while promoting inclusive participation and connection among all employees.

Jamey outlines clear behavioral expectations for ERG spaces, emphasizing inclusion, respect, accountability, and confidentiality. The discussion highlights the need to articulate these expectations to create safe and productive environments, allowing participants to learn from each other and grow together. By setting firm ground rules and professional standards, organizations can ensure that ERGs remain valuable, transformative spaces that enhance the employee experience and advance DEI goals.

To learn more and connect, visit: www.Equity-At-Work.com

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Key Topics Discussed:

• Why ERGs should remain in place and open to all employees
• How to keep the focus of ERGs on specific group experiences
• Defining ERGs as formal, professionally governed spaces
• Core behavioral expectations for ERG participants
• The necessity of articulating clear expectations for ERGs
• The potential for ERGs to transform company culture
• Call to action for organizations needing support with DEI implementation

I'm Jamey Applegate, Senior Director of DEI at EquityAtWork, and this is your DEI minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with the actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Join us every other week as we break through the noise and help you do DEI right.

Let's get to it before we get started. This is Michelle Pfefferman and I'm really excited to let you know that my new book Do Di Write is now available. This is your guide to the Equity at Work Maturity Model, which shows leaders how to make DEI part of every day and drive great results. You can get your copy through the link in the show notes or wherever books are sold.

So In a previous episode I talked about navigating executive orders as it relates to ERG compliance, and I shared six key tips for sustaining DEI in the workplace. So as a recap, those six tips were 1 clarify your company's policies around ERGs to ensure alignment internally and then with any regulations 2 be explicit that all ERGs, regardless of their focus, are open to all employees that ERGs have no relation to formal recruiting, hiring, retention and promotion processes and that participation in ERGs is voluntary 3 there is nothing that prevents a given employee, group or event from having a specific focus 4. Companies should establish and enforce expectations around professional behaviors in the workplace 5. Companies are legally required to prevent and respond to instances of harassment and discrimination that may take place within ERGs or in any situation and six employees should be reminded that it is okay and in fact encouraged for them to connect with their peers in informal settings. So in that episode, the main purpose was to make the argument that ergs should remain in place and that they should not be dismantled. As I said, then, the decision to eliminate ERGs will harm employee experience, which will in turn harm organizations. Nobody is happy when something that they really like is taken away, and this absolutely holds true for employee resource groups. What I didn't share more about in that episode was what to do when your organization has made the decision to keep ERGs in place and open them up to everyone to make sure that they're compliant with regulations.

How do you do it? Right, so let's talk about it. If your organization has decided to make ergs open to everyone, they should remind everyone of a few core principles. Number one, the focus of a given ERG is tied to a specific group's experiences. For example, an ERG that is focused on the experiences of Black employees should focus on just that, the experiences of Black employees. Regardless of who all is in the room, there are good learnings to be had by both Black employees and non Black employees. But the conversations and discussions should always center around the experiences of Black employees. Number two, ERGs should be designed to promote connection, community, learning and growth. While they should absolutely be spaces for hard conversations around challenging topics or like discrimination, harassment and inequities, they can and should also be affirming and positive spaces where people feel welcomed in.

Number three. And lastly, ERG should be articulated as formal organization sponsored spaces in which all behavioral expectations from an organization's employee handbook or code of conduct are in effect. ERGs are not spaces where people can behave however they'd like and think that there will not be consequences. ERGs are professional settings, and people should engage with each other in ways that align with the expectations that the organization has set for all professional settings. All right, so you've tied each erg to the experiences of a specific group. You've made sure that the ERGs are about connection, community, learning and growth, and you've communicated that ergs are formal spaces where professional expectations are in effect. You're done, right? No, not yet. You should still communicate some specific behavioral expectations that might need reinforcement or just a little bit of an underlining.

So, number one. Inclusion. Everyone should feel seen, heard and valued. Everyone should be reminded that they are welcome in the ERG and that they can and should participate and share their perspectives, thoughts and ideas. Number two, Respect. Don't be a jerk. Verbal and physical attacks, discriminatory language, and harassment are unacceptable in any situation, and especially so in ergs during which the conversation could be about topics such as those, and so it can create a space where people express views that maybe feel harmful to others. Don't be a jerk.

Be present. Show up on time and stay focused. If you're going to go to an erg, pay attention to the group and avoid distraction. So think about turning off your phones, shutting your laptops, whatever it is you need to do. Number four, Active listening and empathy. Listen to understand, not just to respond. When another participant is speaking, focus on what they are saying and try to understand what they are saying and what they are communicating and their experience. Avoid focusing on your own response that will cause you to tune out and miss what's being said.

Be curious and vulnerable. Start from a position of not knowing. Engage with questions every participant should Acknowledge what they do and do not know and they should focus on engaging with new or challenging ideas with questions. An example of this could be. I had never heard that before. Can you share more about that topic and not acting out of negation? An example of that would be. There's no way that's a thing. You can't be serious.

The goal is productive discussions, not arguments. We don't want folks to dig in. We want people to engage and broaden their understanding of the experiences of other people that they interact with in the workplace. Accountability. Assume best intentions, but you should absolutely hold each other accountable for impact. Call out bad behavior and seek to understand what was intended. If you feel like you were harmed, express that you were harmed and ask what they were trying to do. If you have caused harm, share what your intention was, but apologize for the harm.

Apologize for words or actions that have caused harm, even if your intention was positive. And then confidentiality. What is said in an erg space should stay in an erg space. What you learn in an erg space should leave the erg space. So ergs are spaces for employees to be vulnerable and and share personal experiences. Those can be really challenging experiences they have had that very much negatively impacted them. And they're being vulnerable and sharing that. You should not take what they've said and go out and start gossip or create more tension by sharing that so and so said something about another colleague.

Participants should maintain confidentiality. What another member said about a recent interaction with a co worker, that should stay confidential. While you should absolutely go out and share your overall learnings how to practice bystander intervention effectively, what you learned about a holiday or cultural celebration, anything like that. Share those things, but don't share personal things that other people have shared. These behavioral expectations might seem like common sense. That is 100% the point. As I said earlier, ERGs are professional settings, but they are very unique in that their focus is is on the experience of a specific group. And that experience is subjective.

There might be people who share common experiences and there might be people who have had conflicting experiences of the same type of situation or event. ERGs encourage hard conversations and connection and learning about the messy human side of work. It is not black and white. It is very much in the middle gray. The purpose of setting behavioral expectations for ERGs is to ensure that everyone knows what what's expected of them when they enter the erg space together. So setting a baseline one it confirms that we all know what's expected of us. But it also allows each person to feel safe sharing and connecting and learning and growing together. It allows each group member to hold other group members accountable when things don't go right.

We cannot leave that kind of thing up to chance and just assume that people know what professional behavior looks like in every single setting. When we know what's expected, we can meet those expectations. When we don't articulate what's expected, it can be easy to make a misstep and cause harm. ERGs are too valuable to not be given the attention and structure that will support their success. ERGs have the potential to be transformative spaces for all employees to come together and build community. But that can only happen when the ground rules are clear and everyone knows what's expected of them. Setting clear behavioral expectations is the best way to set everyone and every erg up for success. So once you've opened your ergs up to everyone, this is the way forward and this is the way to do ergs right.

As always, if you're working through how to continue your DEI work or how to support ERGs in this new regulatory environment and how to open them up successfully, we're here to help. Send us an email Connect us on our website thank you so much for listening. That's a wrap. I'm Jamie Applegate and that's your DEI minute for today. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Links to everything can be found in the episode Notes. This episode was edited and produced by Podcone with podcast art by me, Jamie Apk.