Introduction
A fact sheet from the NSW Public Service Commission (PSC) says that, “An ERG is a voluntary, employee-led group that connects members based on a shared lived experience or identity. They foster inclusion in the workplace and offer support, connection and/or advocacy opportunities.”
The word voluntary has several widely accepted meanings:
- Done or undertaken of one’s own free will.
- Acting or done willingly and without constraint or expectation of reward.
- Normally controlled by or subject to individual volition.
The word volunteer also has widely accepted meaning:
- A person who performs or offers to perform a service voluntarily.
- A person who works without pay or assumes an obligation to which he or she is not a party or otherwise interested.
A voluntary member of an ERG isn’t signing on to be a volunteer in the 2nd sense above, but that’s not necessarily what they, or their organisation, might assume.
Here’s a quote from a consultancy’s website:
Time, Energy, and Resources. These groups have tremendous potential, but much of that depends on how you structure them. Affinity groups aren’t a one way street. Individuals put in a lot of energy and effort into these groups, and increasingly, there is discussion about how orgs can better support these groups and the individual. The idea of these groups as free labor benefitting the company is a contentious one, and so discussions of additional compensation are becoming more prevalent. Especially since many groups represent marginalized (and often minority) identities, putting an extra burden on staff with no extra pay can actually be a regressive policy.
Below I want to explore the politics of the voluntary.
Taking the time
I noticed that the NSW PSC fact sheet also says, “Depending on your role in the
network, you may be spending a minimum of 2 hours per week on the network.” There is no mention of what the upper range of time might be, and that’s unfortunate because it gives no opening for thinking about what the time burden might be.
A minimum of 2 hours a week averages out at 24 minutes a day, which isn’t much, except that you can’t chunk your time that way. Notice that this is a minimum in ‘some’ roles. Are you expected to factor that time into your daily routine? It is instructive that some public sector agencies figure that only 2 hours a month can be taken out of paid time. The rest must be on your own time. This is a problematic position to adopt.
ERGs must have a clear understanding of the time demands on members performing certain roles, and whether those time demands will be addressed in paid hours.
What problem is an ERG solving?
ERGs have a range of things they can do. They can have a primary focus on celebrating diversity, or they can focus on addressing discrimination, inequity and abuse in a more direct and strategic way. But regardless of what their focus is, we need to be very clear on whether the activity undertaken is part of a legal or moral responsibility of the organisation. If it is, there can be no expectation that an ERG’s activities should be in unpaid time.
The idea that ERG members should put in unpaid hours to assist an organisation to meet its legal and moral duties should be thought outrageous. But it isn’t. Meeting these obligations is often not seen as a core business activity, but a good thing to be able to do – if we could afford it – which we can’t. So, ERG members must step up on their own time to get it done.
It can seem entirely rational that because a person becomes an ERG member voluntarily this means they should volunteer their labour to assist their organisation to meet its legal and moral obligations – because the organisation’s failure to do so injures the people the ERG was created to represent and support.
The problem the ERG is solving can be seen as: The organisation is not meeting its legal and moral obligations to ensure members are not subject to discrimination in any form. So to help it get on that track ERG members must contribute unpaid hours of effort. But that’s misunderstanding the nature of the problem. That’s a governance problem and the resolution is to get competent governance.
In environments where time is at a premium, refusing ERG members the opportunity to participate in ERG activities can seem like a fair management choice of handling competing priorities. This may not force the ERG to schedule activities outside core business hours or outside paid hours. But it can limit participation and restrict the impact of the ERG’s work.
If the ERG’s focus is celebrating diversity and promoting inclusion the impact of such activities can be weakened. If the focus is on problem solving – addressing equity, access and discrimination concerns – weakening an ERG’s capacity to function by denying access to activities on ‘operational’ grounds raises an important question.
Is the organisation arguing that business as usual takes precedence over the welfare, safety and rights of staff members subject to forms of exclusion, inequity or abuse?
Often it is, albeit in an unintentional and unconscious way. Organisations exist to further a particular purpose and thinking about the well-being of staff is a comparatively novel development. ERGs are part of the process of integrating the welfare of staff into organisational business as usual – or at least they should. This is a complex thing to attempt. And it requires professional grade skills.
Machines and buildings are maintained in good working order as part of core business. Maintaining staff in good working order is similar, but also very different. That responsibility is divided between the organisation and the individual. When it comes to what ERGs are about, we enter the complex business of changing social values and how organisations reflect them. Organisations may make independent choices about diversity and inclusion, respond to legislation or comply with government policy. All these options may be carried out with varying degrees of enthusiasm by leaders. Individuals are free to make choices, including whether they will comply with expectations to be more inclusive and less biased.
ERGs represent the perspective of staff with certain lived experiences generated by personal attributes or identities. They are a critical partner with an organisation’s key business areas to ensure that policies and practices conform to agreed principles and standards – and that things are working out as intended.
An ERG with a celebratory focus will have a different operational model and skill set to one with a focus on addressing equity, inclusion and justice needs in a more direct and strategic manner.
The real power of ERGs
I am not arguing that all ERG work must be in paid time. Running a highly effective ERG takes professional level skill, so there’s a lot of professional development that is necessary. And with that, there’s a lot of thinking and talking to be done. Anyone passionately involved in a cause will understand this.
Besides, a lot of ERG activities take place in paid hours, and those that don’t are the more abstract or governance functions like planning and organising, administration and skill development.
To be effective, an ERG must have a shared understanding with its organisation about what its focus is and what the scope of activities is. This will then make it possible to agree on what work must be done, and when. It is important to understand an ERG’s activities are work – intentional, purpose driven and accountable.
I made the Disability ERG I led into a de facto business unit. We were professional and accountable because we were committed to getting results. The welfare of our members was our priority. We had what our department didn’t. We had lived experience of disability in the workplace consolidated into a trusted representative voice. Plus, we were ‘politely impatient’. We kept disability inclusion on the agenda and defended it against competing priorities.
Disability ERGs have the potential to have significant impact if they have clarity on their roles and they have the means to deliver. While having the time to do the work that must be done is crucial, without clarity about what the ERG is doing it will be impossible to negotiate access to that time in an appropriate and fair way. Time is a resource that is often scarce, so it must be managed and allocated. An ERG must honour its responsibility here. Getting enough time is one thing and how it is used is another.
The need for clarity
Being an ERG member is voluntary, and members volunteer their time, taking on additional demands. If the ERG is professional in how it operates, participating in its activities can be genuinely a valuable exercise in career development. This might merit use of personal time in the same way enrolling in a course can be personally rewarding. For that to be a realistic prospect there must be widely acknowledged recognition that work done in the ERG counts as ‘real work’ and it has an honoured place on one’s CV.
Volunteers are often seen as amateurs with no skills. This might justly offend rural firefighters and emergency service workers. Part of the problem is that ERGs are seen as employee-led associations – like a social club. The NSW PSC fact sheets take this approach. It’s out of date. It was the go-to model when ERGs were mooted as a good idea ages ago. They were employee-led, ergo they are like social clubs.
But social clubs do not have the critical brief of working to address issues related to staff wellbeing and welfare where their organisation has a legal and moral responsibility to act. In fact, seeing ERGs as equivalent to a social club has been an unintentional misdirect that has squandered a lot of effort and opportunity.
A Disability ERG is a critical partner with its organisation in addressing concerns which the organisation is required to deal with. Responding to needs to address access, equity, inclusion, discrimination and abuse issues impacting staff with disability isn’t a job for amateurs, and most certainly not unpaid ones.
The lived experience perspective is vital. But without skilled, informed and professional advocates the benefits of that perspective will be lost. It is far better to see an ERG as a genuine stand-alone innovation rather than a reincarnation of what seems to be a scarce entity these days – the social club.
It would be far better to create an ERG as a genuine business unit. The fact that it is employee-led is hardly an issue since all business units are employee-led. The fact that it concerns staff welfare and wellbeing isn’t remarkable since there are other business units with the same focus. What’s awkward about an ERG being a voluntary staff-led business unit is that it must have a voice to ‘talk truth to power’. That disrupts the normal order of things and exposes an organisation to accountability that it might not be all that comfortable with.
But we can’t camouflage a moral issue as a resource issue – despite the persistent intent to do so. The reality is that in some organisations Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is an exercise in compliance rather than a commitment to a social goal. That makes DEI a cost rather than investment.
So, the fact that an organisation has sanctioned the establishment of ERGs doesn’t mean it is prepared to accommodate them operating at their peak potential. It may not have a well-developed understanding of what an ERG is, or what the optimal relationship with an ERG might look like.
ERGs must not assume that any such understanding exists. Being able to negotiate what voluntary means is essential if there is any prospect of addressing the more complex problems. This must be clarified first because it’s the foundation of all ERG activities.
Conclusion
In May 2018 I attended the Australian Network on Disability’s Annual National Conference in Sydney. The keynote speaker was Kate Nash, founder and CEO of PurpleSpace, a UK based organisation dedicated to supporting staff with disability. It describes itself as: The world’s only professional development hub for disability network leaders.
Kate’s speech set my imagination on fire. The following day I attended her workshop on Networkology. So, there was a science, a methodology, to running an ERG. How I operated as a Disability ERG lead was transformed, and I turned the ERG into a very effective body. How effective can be measured by the fact that my successor was offered a full-time role as ERG lead. This was a remarkable experiment. The ERG had made a compelling case to be treated seriously – as a professional partner in driving the change we all knew was needed and required.
There are sound grounds for asserting to an organisation that the work an ERG is doing is what the organisation is responsible for and that expecting unpaid labour to help it meet that responsibility is hardly fair or reasonable. That’s a good basis for a robust negotiation.
But you must have something to negotiate with. What is your value proposition? What insight do you offer? What is your accountability argument that makes you an invaluable partner? If you see yourself as an amateur volunteer body with no compelling professional perspective, you’ve got nothing.