Fortune<\/em> 100 companies, has two employee-led DE&I initiatives that have seen strong participation by women and people of color.<\/p>\n“When we work together as leaders\u2014and there’s no barrier\u2014we learn so much from each other,” said Vanessa J-Douglas, division director of HR at Alorica. “[We] have [an immersive] morale, compassion and openness that results in a global and relatable company.”<\/p>\n
One initiative, Together for Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (TIDE) at Alorica, was founded in 2020 in response to George Floyd’s killing. It conducts “Real Talks” to discuss typically taboo subjects that other workplaces may avoid, J-Douglas said. Through these talks, employees can let their leaders know how to improve and learn about one another’s cultures and beliefs.<\/p>\n
The other employee-led initiative, Making Lives Better at Alorica (MLBA), was founded in 2015. It is a nonprofit, philanthropic group that raises and donates money to the community and to Alorica employees across the globe, said Sunny Yu, Alorica’s vice president of global communications and corporate social responsibility.<\/p>\n
Employees may submit grant applications for money on behalf of a co-worker who needs extra help. That money can be used to help with challenges such as an employee’s housing costs or a neighbor’s medical bills. MLBA has raised $7.6 million to date to support the community and its employees.<\/p>\n
“The [Alorica] leaders offer a safe, culturally nuanced space to their employees for TIDE conversations, and for constructing MLBA opportunities for its employees and community. Then they just run with it,” Yu said. <\/p>\n
Employee involvement is crucial for successful DE&I strategies, according to consultant Robin Pedrelli of VisionSpring Inc., a DE&I strategic consulting and training firm in Natick, Mass. She emphasizes using a DE&I strategy that involves both leaders’ and employees’ input when coordinating initiatives and behaviors across a company. <\/p>\n
“Leadership cannot be the only ones deciding the DE&I strategies for their workplace because they will be riddled with blind spots,” Pedrelli said. “Employees at all levels must be engaged in the DE&I initiatives\u2014a strategy that is not in a vacuum.”<\/p>\n
In addition, employee retention will increase if all employees are engaged and contributing to the DE&I strategy at work, she said.<\/p>\n
Increasing Inclusivity and Belonging<\/p>\n
Qualtrics, an experience management company with offices in Seattle and Provo, Utah, has diverse and high-performing teams that share a sense of belonging, said Farren Roper, the company’s head of DE&I. He noted that this increases the likelihood that Qualtrics employees stay with the company for at least five years.<\/p>\n
At Qualtrics, each ERG, or Q group, has an executive sponsor at the highest level. Q groups are centered on underrepresented communities, including women, veterans and people living with disabilities, Roper said.<\/p>\n
“When we talk about our mission of making business more human, our core belief is that you cannot make that mission come to life if you don’t have a diverse, equitable environment where people feel like they belong,” he said. “We take a quarterly in-house pulse of our community to see what we are doing right and wrong and how [leadership and our workforce] can work together to meet our DE&I goals of inclusivity and belonging.”<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Cohesity, an information technology company in San Jose, Calif., has five employee-led DE&I-related ERGs: Black Cohesity Network, Women’s Impact Network, THRIVE (a well-being group), Unidos Network and LGBTQ+ ERG. <\/p>\n
“In 2022, [Cohesity’s] employees expressed that it was extremely important to have a connection point that could help them build a community with like-minded cohorts across the business,” said Ruth Grigsby, DE&I program manager at Cohesity. “In our hybrid and remote work environments, especially, employees are looking to connect with colleagues who share similar values and perspectives.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Indianapolis-based Engage Mentoring, a software-based mentoring enablement program, has three employee-led DE&I programs that allow participants to “grow and reflect”: Developing Leaders Forum, Project Lead for Women Forum and Pride Leadership Forum, said Yalonda Brown, the program’s president of diversity initiatives. <\/p>\n
“Through our work with companies to aid in [DE&I] areas, we realized that access to relationships in the form of mentoring was especially critical for diverse employees, who sometimes have a harder time accessing critical relationships to help them grow within a company,” Brown said. “[Access] to mentoring relationships is critical when you look through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion.”<\/p>\n
Sarah Dolezal is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va.<\/em><\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/squarehr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/employee-led-dei-programs-can-keep-workers-active-engaged.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/squarehr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/employee-led-dei-programs-can-keep-workers-active-engaged-1.jpg\")
<\/div>\n