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Forbes
10-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
5 Steps For Encouraging The Formation Of Employee Resource Groups
Jennifer Morehead is the CEO of Flex HR. Companies everywhere strive to create a culture for employees that is engaging and special. After all, it's expensive to hire new employees and train them to become productive members of the organization. But according to Gallup research, only 21% of employees globally are actually engaged in the workplace. One of the crucial ways to engage and retain employees is to ensure they have a buddy, and employee resource groups (ERGs) are a meaningful resource for making people feel like a true part of the organization. What sets these groups apart from other engagement efforts is that they're entirely employee created and led. If HR leaders and people managers want to encourage ERG formation, it requires a delicate balance to avoid imposing their will. This five-step guide can help organizations foster an environment that encourages the formation of ERGs and supports their lasting success. 1. Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging. Our workplaces are full of diverse talent. Whether it's gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation or simply interests, employees' lived experience shapes how they view the workplace. Promote inclusion and belonging by modeling this behavior as a foundational company value. For example: • Create a space that encourages open conversation and actively seeks out diverse points of view. • Build company policies that support individual identities and needs, like offering expanded time off for religious holidays, compassionate leave or mental health days. • Invite employees to share more about their cultural celebrations, like sponsoring a lunch or event to bring people together. 2. Establish a clear process for ERG creation. Successful development of ERG requires a process that's clear, consistent and transparent to ensure all groups receive equal consideration. It could begin with an application form where employees state the potential group's mission and objectives, as well as identify a leadership council. Requiring some thoughtfulness and groundwork prior to the application will make the review process easier and set the ERG up for long-term success. 3. Make your leadership available to serve. In some organizations, executive sponsorship is a vital aspect of employee resource groups' success. Sponsors are typically an existing manager or leader who either identifies with the community or is a vocal ally. Their role is bridging the gap between the ERG and company leadership, as well as amplifying the group's mission, advocating for its initiatives and promoting its visibility at the highest levels of an organization. Organizations need a culture where executives are enthusiastic about sponsoring ERGs. This involves promoting the groups' value at the leadership level, explaining the potential for impact and clearly outlining sponsorship expectations. It will also require reasonable accommodation for the time commitment required to be successful. 4. Offer financial support. The simple act of allowing ERGs isn't enough to maximize their impact. Organizations should offer a designated budget to each one. There are a few approaches to this. Some organizations choose to offer the same amount of financial support to every ERG, regardless of size or scale. Others may require ERG leaders to build a budget based on their goals for the year, which company leadership will review and approve. No matter the approach, providing some level of financial support demonstrates the organization's commitment to ERG success. 5. Integrate ERGs and professional development. Employee resource groups can be hugely beneficial when building a leadership pipeline. Being an ERG lead provides opportunities for employees to develop critical management skills like meeting facilitation, collaboration, empathy and budget oversight. This experience can prepare rising talent for future roles within an organization, which strengthens the internal leadership pipeline and reinforces a culture of inclusion and belonging. Supporting the formation and longevity of employee resource groups is a strategic investment in your people and your culture. When ERGs are supported with intention, structure and transparency, they become powerful agents of connection and positive change. Let's face it: the success of ERGs mirrors the success of the workplace culture, where every employee has the opportunity to lead and achieve, all while showing up authentically. Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?
Forbes
19-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What Bold CEOs Need From Their Chief People Officer
CEOs must stop asking their Chief People Officer to run better processes and start expecting them to ... More drive performance transformation. In the most successful companies, HR doesn't just support the business. It scales it. Shapes it. Sometimes, saves it. But for that to happen, CEOs must stop asking their Chief People Officer to run better processes and start expecting them to drive performance transformation. That kind of shift doesn't come from dashboards or engagement programs. It comes from bold partnership. To learn more about what this partnership between the CEO and CPO should look like, I had the chance to interview Elaine Page. Page has built high-impact cultures inside fintechs and tech startups and transformed a Fortune 100 healthcare system with over 80,000 employees. As a CHRO and GM, she's led remote-first scaling, restructured underperforming functions, integrated $2B acquisitions, and rebuilt trust after cultural breakdowns. At the center of each success story? A CEO who treated HR as a strategic growth function, not a support one. 'Great HR isn't a department,' said Page. 'It's a system of leverage for the business.' 'But the CEO has to want it,' Page elaborated. 'Most CEOs say people are their greatest asset, but then they treat HR like a liability. That disconnects costs from companies more than they realize.' Elaine Page, Former Chief People Officer at TaxJar and GM, Stripe The difference between HR that performs and HR that transforms comes down to one mindset shift: Stop asking what HR can do for you. Start asking what kind of company you want to become. The best CHROs—the ones who drive business value—ask questions like: Specifically, Page said that CEOs should expect their CHROs to pull three enterprise levers: When Page took on a culture transformation at Northwell Health, she didn't start with posters or PowerPoints. She started by listening to thousands of employees, from emergency room nurses to IT leads, to understand what truly mattered to them. From that came a bold new Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that moved far beyond branding. It shaped how the organization hired, onboarded, promoted, recognized, and paid its people. It wasn't just a culture statement. It was an operating system. The results? 'If your EVP lives in a slide deck, it's dead on arrival,' said Page. 'If it lives in hiring rubrics, bonus plans, and performance reviews, then you've built something real.' At Stripe and other fintech companies, Page faced a different challenge: scale without chaos. Rather than defaulting to plug-and-play HR templates, she asked leaders what outcomes truly mattered, and then built simple, agile systems to drive clarity, energy, and momentum. The result? Performance systems that matched the business's pace. Talent strategies that flexed with growth. Leadership frameworks that aligned to outcomes, not just values. 'Great HR doesn't mean complex. It means aligned,' she said. 'At scale, you need simplicity that drives consistency, not bureaucracy that slows things down.' Today, AI is forcing every function to evolve, and HR is no exception. Page is currently advising a tech company on embedding AI into the employee and recruiter experience. They're using it to: 'AI shouldn't be a buzzword in HR,' Paige said. 'It should be a scale enabler. A trust builder. A real-time insight engine.' Page is candid about where CHROs fall short and where CEOs miss the mark. 'Even the most talented CHRO can only deliver at the level the CEO allows,' she said. 'And the highest-impact partnerships are forged in truth.' She's seen too many HR leaders stuck in compliance land because their CEO didn't invite them into the business. She's also seen CHROs shy away from hard feedback out of fear of rocking the boat. The best partnerships share three traits: 'I've made mistakes,' Page admits. 'I've stayed quiet when I should have pushed. But the longer I've done this work, the clearer it's become: you don't earn a seat at the table by playing nice. You earn it by delivering results and telling the truth about what's in the way.' If you're a CEO reading this, ask yourself: And perhaps the most important question: 'Do I want HR to run more smoothly - or do I want the business to run better?' There's a difference. And it shows up in trust, speed, retention, and results. Page's message is clear: The CHRO you need isn't the one who runs HR well. It's the one who helps you run the business better - through people, performance, and possibility. And when that partnership clicks? That's when HR stops performing… and starts transforming. Kevin Kruse is the Founder + CEO of LEADx, scaling and sustaining leadership behaviors with behavioral nudges, micro-learning, and live cohort-based workshops. Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author of Great Leaders Have No Rules, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, and Employee Engagement 2.0.
