Thoughts on Employee Affinity Groups: A Resurgence

Here is a link to a report on Employee Affinity Groups See Resurgence in Popularity: www.mercer.com/ERGreport

My Response to the Report, specifically to the following statement:
“For 30 years, ERGs have helped women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and other demographic groups navigate the corporate world,” said Michal Fineman, a consultant in Mercer’s global equality, diversity and inclusion practice and the study’s chief author. “Many of the new generation of employees don’t tend to identify as strongly as their older colleagues with race and gender affinities, leading some to question whether ERGs are relevant today. This new study concludes that they are alive and well and, furthermore, that they can serve an important business purpose.”

ERGs are not irrelevant; rather we need to re-think how they can best serve a new generation while helping those who find value in its current purposes. It seems presumptuous that we would think a new generation of workers, because they are not interested in their older colleagues’ race and gender affinities, would lead us to think that ERGs are irrelevant. The last time I checked, Millennial workers, like the generations before them, have a strong sense of social identity, albeit for many, it may not be race and gender. Do they not also want to feel a sense of belonging within their place of work?

Second, I was a bit perplexed that there was surprise around the insurgence of ERGs among race and gender groups. In fact, the research used the terms “post-feminist” and “post-racial”. Race and gender have always been strong social identities and for many people of color and women, these two social constructions still remain powerful assets and barriers to upward mobility within corporate America. Until we have conversations at a corporate level to discuss power and privilege around race and gender, I believe ERGs will continue to see a high level of interest in these groups. This is because these are places in which people can still feel acknowledged and respected for their identities, and feel valued for the strengths they have without justifying it to a supervisor, manager, or executives.

Finally, the last piece I am most concerned about, and I thought was completely brushed over in this report, is the role ERGs will take in the future. In particular, I am concerned about the use of ERGs as “cultural knowledge vessels” and “burdens of representations” or “tokens.” I think this is a serious issue for companies to think about. Certainly when it comes to inclusion, this notion of “tokens” can be disruptive and not beneficial to a company’s work and progress. Additionally, there is an underlining implication and cultural assumption that using ERGs solely for the purpose of mining cultural information seems to “release” others in the organization from knowing and learning about culture. If we truly seek to be inclusive, we would think about how ERGs can share a space of collaboration and shared leadership, while honoring the knowledge that differences bring to an organization.