Farzana Nayani - The Power of Employee Resource Groups: How People Create Authentic Change

The Power of Employee Resource Groups

The
Power of
Employee
Resource
Groups

HOW PEOPLE CREATE
AUTHENTIC CHANGE

Farzana Nayani

The Power of Employee Resource Groups

Copyright 2022 by Farzana Nayani

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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-0124-8
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-0125-5
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-0126-2
Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-0127-9

2022-1

Book production: Linda Jupiter Productions. Edit: Elissa Rabellino.

Design: Frances Baca. Proofread: Mary Kanable.

Index: Paula C. Durbin-Westby. Author photo: Aaron Jay Young.

TO ALL WHO WISH TO BELONG AND THRIVE
FULLY, WHOLLY, AND COMPLETELY.

Do you remember the first time you heard about employee resource groups (ERGs) or got involved with one? I am always inspired hearing about the journeys of ERG leaders and members. My foray into the world of ERGs came as a result of my advocacy work in support of professionals of color. Many of these professionals were interested in building leadership skills and networking in order to uplift the cause of increasing diverse representation across the workforce. At the same time, they were committed to advancing their own careers and growing within their chosen fields of work. By bringing together employees with a common identity in support of an organizations diversity mission, ERGs seemed to be an elegant and natural way to achieve both of these goals at the same time. Not only would participating in an ERG help members of an underrepresented community gain skills, exposure, and experience at their company, but also, in furthering their career, they would help move the needle to directly and indirectly increase diversity at the highest level of leadership within organizations.

With that double-pronged mission in mind, I took up the mantle of leading a large professional associations programming, curriculum development, and advising on employee resource groups to corporate members and partners. This was both an honor and an immense responsibility over the years: to drive the gathering of thousands of attendees and executives from different industries and identities toward joint learning, sharing, and collaboration. I am grateful that I was entrusted with the opportunity to lead these initiatives, as it allowed me to deepen connections to the issues at hand and to the pioneering thought leaders in the space.

The more I was involved with convening summits and conventions related to employee resource groupsand sharing best practices through advising and consultingthe more I was exposed to how complex and impactful ERGs could be. I heard stories from various companies about how ERGs created immense impact and opportunity. As a public speaker and consultant on topics of diversity and inclusion, I have been fortunate over the years to have interacted with senior leaders and executives from Nielsen, Deloitte, Twitter, Bank of America, Clorox, The Walt Disney Company, Boeing, Wells Fargo, UPS, Bank of the West, SanDisk, Yelp, Google, the Central Intelligence Agency, Ernst & Young, and many more organizations. Hearing these senior leaders most intimate stories and learning from what worked and didnt work, I started to mentally log best practices for ERGs that I could in turn share with others in my consulting work.

With the connections made through ERG networks, and through my continued dedication to efforts to uplift voices and causes from the community, I was invited to visit, speak at, or work with organizations including Nike, Facebook, Walmart, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Cisco, Amazon, Salesforce, eBay, BNSF Railway, Mattel, Experian, The McEvoy Group, LA Family Housing, and more. I had the opportunity to have one-to-one conversations with ERG leaders and their teams, learning about what projects they were working on and how they were optimizing their efforts for the common cause we all seemed to have: developing capacity to increase representation within leadership, enhancing our impact within organizations, and serving the communities that we represent.

Over time, I received special invitations to summits at the White House, cohosted with senior leaders in government, corporate, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit organizations. The dedication to meaningful change demonstrated by the participants at these gatherings was incredibly inspiring and propelled my understanding and commitment around ERGs to the next level. I continued to listen, learn, read, and observe. As I advised organizations, I passed on what I had learned from others, including the questions that were still collectively being answered. This sharing of best practices was particularly beneficial to many organizational leaders, as they were encouraged and motivated by what other organizations were endeavoring to do and how they had increased their effectiveness in achieving their defined goals. In the course of this book, I look forward to sharing with you the insights I have gained from these many initiatives, gatherings, and leaders.

At the same time that my interest and activities with ERGs were peaking, my work as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant was evolving from advocacy for small business enterprise and minority entrepreneurship to focusing on supplier diversity. For a large part of a decade prior to my work with ERGs, I held a position as a business counselor in a program funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)a government agency that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businessesand then later as part of a local chamber of commerce in Los Angeles. The SBA-funded Womens Business Centers across the country, like the one I was a part of, were magnets for minority business owners to seek resources and support. When I made the move from that program to the chamber of commerce, I became heavily involved in corporate supplier diversity initiatives, specifically with promoting educational events and cultivating opportunities for small business owners to do business with major corporations.