i4cp Flash Call: Rewarding Your ERG Leaders - Compensating Meaningful Work

Establish ERG business plans and success metrics – Consider including ROI, movement/succession, engagement, retention, referrals - to help build a business case. Anything that shows contribution to the overall business, employer brand, market brand, etc.

Determine who among ERG leadership will be compensated – Determine key figures and criteria to determine budget. Amounts and type of compensation will need to be worked out with comp experts and take into account any global or tax issues. Additionally, consider spot bonuses - gift cards, swag, etc. - to reward others for contributions.

Consider development and non-monetary rewards – ERG leadership should bolster career progression by offering development programs/coaching/stretch assignments/etc. ERG leadership should be considered for PM and succession plans, network building and exposure to leadership.

Communicate broadly – Share what you are doing both internally and as part of the employer brand and EVP.

“At Marsh McLennan, we’ve aligned our pillars to three focus areas: colleagues, clients, and community. We’re planning to implement Teleskope to help us analyze and measure our ERG impact and maximize employee engagement.”

Chloe Benson, Global Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging Specialist, Marsh McLennan

See Marsh McLennan’s ERG Strategy here.

“When we designed our ERG rewards program, our Compensation team benchmarked through surveys, networking and trends to help us develop our ERG leader rewards strategy. We’re fortunate to have an ELT who is incredibly invested in our ERGs, and also serve as sponsors to some of our ERGs. As part of our quarterly rewards process, we reach out to each recipient’s leadership so they know what that person has contributed and why it matters. We hold an annual business review and social mixer with our entire ELT and ERG leadership group to provide access, relationship building and visibility. Many of our ERG leaders have honed their project management and people leadership skills which has helped them be better prepared for career growth and promotions.”

Sherri Alvarado, Sr. Director, Human Resources Business Partner, Nintendo of America Inc.

“We evolved to BRGs from ERGs a few months ago and launched a new BRG Academy. It is a developmental 'giveback' for our BRG leaders globally. It builds leadership, DEI acumen and equips them with skills to lead their membership. We’re also offering certifications as part of our sessions to recognize their engagement, and to connect their learnings as part of talent development.”

Cheryl Kern, Vice President, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, MillerKnoll

“We wanted to intentionally provide leadership training to our leads, so we launched an annual BRG Summit. We hold bi-monthly sessions as part of our curriculum to increase their DEI acumen.”

Ann Noe, Leader for all BRGs, MillerKnoll

For 2022, we recognized our ERG leaders with spot awards. We also enrolled each of our ERG co-leads in a 3-month external 1x1 professional coaching engagement (through Torch) to invest in their leader

Adam Riley, Talent Development and Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity, Impossible Foods

27% of our referrals from via our ERGs. We have an analytics team that works with our Talent Acquisition team. We are looking into ways to link high-potential candidate development to our ERG leadership opportunities.

Kenny Robinson, Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President, Northrup Grumman

At Dow, the intentionality and focused effort around ERGs has led to the rise of ERG participation from 15% to 55% in the last 5 years. Based on our annual survey data, there is a double digit difference in ‘overall satisfaction’ between ERG participants and non-participants.  This demonstrates the business case for ERGs.

Shruti Bahadur, Global Leader, Employee Experience and Employee Resource Groups, Dow