The value proposition for employees at Industrious is simple – just as it is for the members who work in our spaces: we create workplaces where people truly feel like they belong.
To feel like you belong, you must feel welcomed – welcome to be yourself, no matter your background. For shorthand, we refer to that as the ability to #beyou. It’s for this reason that we created Employee Resource Groups (or ERGs) at Industrious to empower our teammates to be themselves fully at work.
What are Employee Resource Groups?
Employee Resource Groups, once called “affinity groups,” are voluntary, employee-led groups organized based on common interests, backgrounds, and identities. In the corporate world, ERGs are one of the most effective tools for promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) in the workplace. At Industrious, we have five ERGs:
- API – Asians & Pacific Islanders – Individuals who identify as or having Asian and/or Pacific Islander heritage.
- Black@Industrious – Individuals who identify as Black or having African or African American heritage.
- Latin(x) Bees – Individuals who identify as or having Latino/a/x or Hispanic heritage.
- Pride – Individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more).
- Women@Industrious – Individuals who identify as women.
We’ve spent the better part of the last year investing in a strong foundation for these groups to thrive. This includes creating a full governance structure (charters, co-chairs, executive sponsorship, etc) and equipping teams with budgets and tools to develop content and host events throughout the year.
By supporting groups that connect people with similar identities, not only do we foster a greater sense of community for those people, but we create large-scale moments of learning and empathy when those groups get to share things with the broader Industrious community. Like when the Pride ERG hosted a speaker for a company-wide event focused on gender identity or when the API ERG shared a cookbook with some beloved family recipes for the whole company.
People do their best work when they’re highly engaged – and one of the key underpinnings of an employee’s engagement is their sense of belonging. This is why ERGs are so important to us at Industrious and a central part of our DEI&B strategy. We’re particularly proud that nearly half (45%) of our team members belong to 1 or more ERG, that we’ve touched hundreds of teammates through our events, and that we’re regularly putting out content that our teammates engage with and learn from.
Moving forward, I’m excited to bring more of that content to the external world. Stay tuned for future posts featuring our different ERGs and what they’re focused on.