Employee resource groups (ERGs) are no longer a "nice to have." We now know that, when leveraged correctly, they are an important part of a company’s retention efforts, recruitment programs, product strategy, and revenue growth. In fact, a recent study by Great Place To Work found that, of those employees who are active ERG members, 70% are more likely to have confidence in their executive teams, and 87% are more likely to say that their company is a great place to work. This is particularly critical since additional research found that 41% of American workers report feeling burned out at work, and executives struggle to gain employee trust amidst the continued sentiment that employees feel disengaged.
But are all companies leveraging their ERGs to the fullest extent to drive business results?
To better understand the impact of ERGs, Great Place To Work® launched The Great Transformation (TGT), a groundbreaking three-year research study to unlock the untapped potential of ERGs to solve business problems, innovate, and serve as hubs of talent development.
As part of The Great Transformation, UKG created ERGx, the Employee Resource Group Experience, bringing together ERG leaders from 11 participating TGT companies representing over 1.4 million employees. The goal was to learn to solve business challenges using design thinking methodology, relying heavily on data-driven decision making and selecting business problems to tackle a significant ROI for their organizations.
The ERG experience also provided attendees with a safe space to share personal experiences, connect, and discuss professional development and opportunities for advocacy.
The findings: Four ways to leverage ERGs to drive business outcomes
While many companies report having ERGs of varying degrees of maturation, the ERGx-participating leaders are committed to leveraging their employee groups to deliver positive business outcomes across the organization, specifically in these four areas:
1. Talent recruitment: ERGs can be plugged in to support human resources initiatives to recruit underrepresented talent to support equity initiatives and retain top talent.
2. Develop future leaders: These groups provide talent development, mentoring, and networking opportunities that help employees grow professionally and personally.
3. Providing a place for innovation and branding: ERGs leverage their diverse knowledge and perspectives of their members to inform the development of their products and branding campaigns.
4. Cultivate belonging: ERGs can help an organization develop a company culture where people feel connected, celebrated, and valued by promoting a sense of belonging for all by creating connection and networking events, celebrating differences, and advocating for equity.
Examples of ERGs in action
Employee resource groups at UKG have helped to improve employee belonging, retention, and engagement, and serve as a credible conduit of communication for the executive leadership and management teams.
They have been leveraged to solve business challenges and inform decisions related to benefits and product design. As an example, ERGs have worked in partnership with UKG marketing and advertising to adopt accessibility practices. Another ERG partnered with human resources to expand the military leave policy to support time away for duty, as well as access to systems while on active duty. Other ERG teams worked on a retention and recruitment initiative by developing a reskilling program to identify underrepresented talent and provide internal talent with learning opportunities to make them more competitive.
It’s not just large organizations like UKG that can transform their ERG programs and leverage them for business success. Small businesses can also harness the power of ERGs. Once Upon A Farm is a California-based company that provides healthy organic snacks for kids. With just 87 employees, they formed an employee engagement and empowerment committee that functions as the one resource group for all employees and offers an essential listening channel. Ten members meet each month to discuss upcoming activities for employees, as well as sharing updates on the cultural health of the company and developing programming to honor awareness months and cultural holidays across the organization.
Want to be part of the ERG discussion?
ERGs will continue to evolve and remain a growing part of a company’s future success. If you would like to join the conversation, visit 2025 ERG Experience to learn more about the selection process for participation at next year’s event.
