Effective Employee Resource Groups
Last month, CiC held its first event of the year, Effective ERGs: Advocating for racial diversity in shifting times, in collaboration with MindTribes. The event was hosted at Canva Space in Sydney and marked the launch of MindTribe’s report What makes ERGs effective developed in partnership with CiC and the University of Melbourne.
Following an overview about the report’s key insights from Dr Belle Lim (She/Her) - Organisational DEI Consultant at MindTribes, we were fortunate to have Div Pillay (She/Her) - CEO and Co-Founder of MindTribes, Hayley Yeates (She/Her) - Cultural Diversity Leadership EAG Chair Westpac and Matthew D’Cruz (He/Him) - Australia and New Zealand regional Co-Lead for Canva's People of Colour Collective and Strategy and Performance at Canva share their insights as part of a panel discussion. The discussion for the evening was moderated by Victor Ho (He/Him), CiC’s co-founder.
The panellists shared a range of insightful perspectives about role of ERGs in promoting DEI in Australian workplaces. Despite the recent backlash towards DEI initiatives especially in the US, Div noted that this broader context actually provides an opportunity to reassess and reconfigurate the role of DEI initiatives such as unconscious bias training. Although the unconscious bias training is a multi-billion dollar global industry, these training opportunities do little to measure the level of bias in recruitment and promotions.
Hayley provided an overview about Westpac’s various ERGs including its ERG for culturally diverse staff. She stressed that membership numbers is only one measure in assessing an ERG’s effectiveness, and that anecdotal experiences such as the ability of ERGs to foster professional networks and empower employees to seek promotions is also important. Matt outlined his experience in Canva Australia’s people of colour ERG, which is a relatively new initiative expanding on the success of Canva’s womens and LGBTQIA+ ERGs. Aside from the role of ERGs, Matt highlighted Canva’s successful experience with promoting DEI through hiring diverse content creators.
When asked about how we can increase the effectiveness of ERGs, panellists provided recommendations including selecting appropriate executive sponsors responsible for overseeing ERGs, carefully distinguishing between the role of HR and ERGs and ensuring that ERG members practise self care to prevent burnout. It was also pleasing to see a high level engagement from audience members during Q&A, but we wish wish there was more time for more questions!
We thank our speakers and everyone who attended, Canva for hosting us for this event and MindTribes for being our event co-organiser.
Sign up for MindTribes’ ERG course! This self-paced, evidence-based course equips ERG Chairs, Leaders, and Members with the skills to define strategic goals, secure executive sponsorship, and deliver data-informed initiatives. Join a growing community of ERG leaders making measurable progress in workplace inclusion. Enrol here using the code ‘CIC-CSP10’ for 10% off.
