Demonstrating value of ERGs

If you're wondering how to show the value ERGs has to your company or organization as a whole, you're not alone. Whether it's to an executive leader, a middle manager, or your broader team as a whole, proving why ERGs are integral to success is not an easy task. That said, it's never been more important to be able to paint a clear picture of ERG value, success and progress.

Here at Verbate, we get to work with hundreds of ERG Leaders across the space and we've seen a clear pattern: to demonstrate success of any ERG program, qualitative data is just as important as quantitive data. Showing the stories and impact ERGs have on human level is powerful, and can help move the needle across the org when you're faced with hard questions about why we should commit to this work. This template should give you a good start.

How to Use this Asset:

This asset is a flexible template that you can use to get ERG Leaders or Members to share their stories of how ERGs have impacted them.

Here's two ways to use this template for ERG Engagement & Story Sharing:

1. Asynchronous Story Campaign: Share these questions via internal form (i.e. Google Form or Microsoft Form, or any other internal form) that routes to an internal drive (i.e. Google Drive or Sharepoint). Ask people to share their stories and answers throughout the month. At the end of this campaign, you should be left with an incredible repository of stories of how ERGs have impacted individual employees. Tip: Emphasize they can share short and sweet moments or anecdotes - welcome anything from one line to several paragraphs!
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2. Live Story Hour: Set aside 30 min in an upcoming meeting for ERG members to interview each other, using these questions as a guide. Encourage them to record the conversation and upload those recordings to a central place. Use an AI tool, or your next hour of ERG work, to consolidate these stories and centralize them for the next time you need to point to ERG impact.

Where to use these stories:

• End of Year Reports
• One-on-Ones with Managers
• Executive Summaries
• Leadership Stories
• Town Halls
• Employee Engagement Reports
• People Team Highlights
• ERG Newsletters

...the list goes on! Dip into this amazing well of ERG impact any time you want to aggregate qualitative data on the impact of your Employee Resource Groups.

To use the template, you can make a copy of the Google Doc by clicking here, or download the worksheet by clicking here.