Engaging Employees through Employee Resource Groups | Insights | ow

7:03AM Aug 25, 2021

Speakers:

Laura Sabattini

Kristen Anderson

Keywords:

dni

people

args

employees

board

plant

support

rg

company

megan

ames

leaders

insights

called

birla

louisa

er

podcast

conference

employee resource group

You're listening to insights from the Conference Board. Hello, I'm Laura Sabatini, Principal researcher in the human capital Center here at the Conference Board. And it's a pleasure to welcome you to another edition of insights, a podcast series that helps talented leaders stay informed about current issues across all of human capital. Today, we're speaking with a few member of Birla diversity and inclusion team, who I will introduce in a second to speak about their employee resource group strategy and more specifically about how they have been able to engage employees across regions and in their plans. The Conference Board recently published a case studies on very less work with their your GS, It's entitled engaging employees through your GS and the link to the case studies can be found at the bottom of the podcast description on our website. Now, a few words about our guests from vanilla, we have two people joining us from the companies headquartered in Parma, Italy. We have Kristen Anderson who serves serves as very less chief diversity officer. She reports to the company's CEO and leads the DNI board comprised of internal members from eight key countries as well as external advisors. Louisa ercoli, is Global Diversity and Inclusion manager. And in this role she partners with and supports diberi LED d&i board to drive programs that integrate diversity and inclusion in the business. She also works with DNI initiatives with different regions and countries. Last but not least, joining us from Ames, Iowa we have Megan Christie here in the US. She's assistant plant controller at Burleigh Ames. Megan has been with barilla, almost six years and she's joining us as the CO leader of the AMC ergy called Paul's, which has been in place since 2018. Kristen Lewis, and Megan Welcome to the podcast. So Christina wanted to start with you so that we can provide some context for our conversation today. You and I first spoke about berrylands er G's in 2019. This was part of one of the studies that a Conference Board conducted on employee resource group it's called what is next for employee groups. And at the time you shared barillas a core strategy as well as how you're gone about taking your GS to regions where people may not be familiar necessarily with these type of programs and and how you expanded your initiative by educating employees and people act buddy like our er G's are about and so on. Can you tell us a bit more about that and also how your strategy has evolved since the beginning.

Thank you, Laura for the invitation. On behalf of the Birla team. We're very pleased to be here today to speak to you about our DNI journey, but more specifically about our work of brgs. As you may know, we started our DNI journey almost seven years ago, with very strong leadership commitment from our chairman and our CEO and our senior leadership team. We spent some years building a solid foundation by forming the DNI board that you mentioned, creating the role that I have as Chief Diversity Officer, training all employees on the business case for diversity and inclusion. We also launched a survey by annually to get feedback from employees around the world. And we learned from others by partnering with a key organizations such as catalyst and glad and Tyler Clemente foundation. I say those those that background information because these steps were critical to making the ground fertile for the growth of VR G's umbrella, which we began in 2015. In the US, I'm an American, and I've lived and worked in seven different countries over the last 20 years. So for me, the concept of employees volunteering to form an affinity group to make what we call the invisible needs of the minority visible to the majority is much more comfortable for me. But this is not the same in each culture. So when we wanted to expand our args outside the US, we learn very quickly that you cannot cut and paste. And I'll give you an example. We planned our first roundtable event to launch vocia er G and Adelina vocia stands for voice, as you know, well, Laura, and Italian. And this is our er g that works on increasing inclusion of LGBTQ plus, plus allies within our company. And we had an event planned in Atlanta, our headquarters here in Parma, with our DNI board member David mitzner. And we had hundreds of participants that signed up and showed up for the event. And at the end that we saw the signup sheet there was 12 people 12 people signed up for the RG. We said okay, we have a lot of energy, but I think employees in some cultures don't understand what an ER G is, you know, it's not a an obvious thing for them to get involved in. So we needed to take a step back and focusing a focus on educating our brilla people on why to forming the RG Why did join one and what are the benefits for you as an employee and for the company and tell them that they can be part of the culture change that they want to see at barilla. We also really focused on consistent communication about er G's in many forums. You know, in our town halls, which we have locally and local language, we also have them video three times a year in English, we have executive sponsors for each TRG and they spend time talking to their groups and the company in general about er G's and the value of the ER G's. Our CEO travels around the world and when he goes to different sites, he has a breakfast with the ER G's specifically to understand how they're doing what they need to help him what support they need. In regional sales meetings, we even had er G open days where plant employees and office and sales employees can come to learn more. And we actually named one of our years which was 2018, the year of VR juice, because every year we have a theme. And so that really got the focus and attention on the args and the DNI board gets regular update from the RGS so now we have more than 1300 members around the world. And that vocia Italy that only had 12 people at the beginning now has 250 it's a really it's a you need to culturally communicate and train people. And let them be aware that there's a benefit for not only for the company, but for them. And then compiz is really to develop tools and provide a governance framework. So we've created er g toolkits for both the office er G's and for the plants and Megan, we'll talk more about the plants in a moment. And some of our bigger sites with a larger population, we have the traditional I call traditional args around a specific affinity for example, inclusion of people disabilities, different multiculturality different generations, gender equality and work life balance. But we also developed a second model for smaller sites where they can decide their focus areas annually, depending on employee feedback, and the external culture in the country in which they're, they're working. And these can change from year to year. So for example, last year, our Russia colleagues formed in the RG called bridge, which has both office workers and factory workers, and they work on areas that are important to them culturally. And that can make the culture of the company better and also can address some cultural challenges in Russia. And finally, I would just say create opportunities for er DS to share learnings and best practices amongst them around the world. Since we have 15. Now we do yardie, sharing webinars and sharing materials to try to learn from each other in this path.

Yeah, this is great, thank you. Yes, it's a great background. And I know, you know, you and I spoke about this before, of course, but but I know that this is so helpful, we get questions about taking energy globally, or juice globally, but also about how to engage employees in different regions a lot. So I think that people, you know, many companies will be listening to this very carefully. And I had it kind of a follow up, given, you know, the current situation with the global COVID-19 health crisis. And it really impacted many regions. And I was wondering if you had any, any thoughts or any examples how you wouldn't be been able to engage your era G's during the crisis. And now that people are in some regions slowly going back to the office, and if you have any examples of things that you've been able to do with your groups during the current, you know, current events and current COVID-19 crisis?

Well, during the covid 19 crisis, we involve the directly our args and ask them to be our network of listeners about the concerns and needs of our very people. They each organize their own way, setting up listening groups, surveys, motivational meetings, feedback sessions, with all their members or simply with people interested to speak up. They identify at risk groups and collected specific needs in this critical period. Results then have been consolidated into global key themes and presented to the CEO to the DNI board and our chief HR officer. And they were also able to suggest a draft of action plans. There were very important needs, identify the from the feedback from our colleagues. As an as an example, we heard that there are many challenges for our mental health during this crisis. And HR responded with a program. Initially it was called alto fianco, which means by your side in which mental health counseling, childcare as the Medicare, tutoring for children, assistance for those not self sufficient is provided with the problem. Yeah,

no, this is great and great example. Thank you, Louisa. We are now going to take a short break for some quick announcements and be back in just a minute to continue our conversation with the very last team about their er G's.

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Hello, and welcome back to our conversation with the realist team about their initiative, engaging employees through employee resource groups with our three guests, Kristin Anderson, Louisa ethically and Megan Christie. Before the break, we outline some of the history and strategy behind barillas er G's. The case study that we created with them highlights also that a couple of years ago barillas energy started to engage plan porkers. And Megan wanted to hear your perspective on this. Can you speak a little bit about this opportunity. I know that many companies struggle with engaging employees and workers outside the office when it comes to employee resource groups. So your I would love to hear your insights on this.

Thank you, Laura. The args at the plant are quite different. There's over 85% of the employees there that are hourly. And so we're also in a 24 seven environment that was one of the things that we found even going to different symposiums in our community that we didn't really relate to any of the ER G's in the different companies. So it is quite different manufacturing 24 seven, completely different model. Um, one of the things we did so I co founded polsce, with Brian mo Colvin. And he was an hourly employee. And we, we actually went out and recruited authentic leaders. So we went after people that are natural leaders, you know, they're able to influence their teams, they're kind of the voice of their departments. They're really open and, and are able to influence so that was one of the things we did at the plants. Of those founding members, there's six males, and they were all hourly. And then there's two females who are both on the salary team. We also one of the great things about barilla. In this push for yard Jesus, we had support. So our plant director at the Ames plant, Larry cummington, he was our champion. We also had another manager Q and R to Q and T manager who was our er g supporter. She also focuses on other DNI events in the Ames plant. And then we had corporate support as well, so to Lita Erickson is our corporate supporter, so she's able to, you know, really be a sounding board for us, um, you know, get us connected with other people that are coming up with the same problems that we might need help with. So not only that support, you know, Kristen mentioned the DNI board. But the DNI board actually came to Ames. And so pulse was able to, you know, highlight what we were doing, what some of our challenges were, in anything, you know, any help that they could offer us they were really there to support us. Another thing, it wasn't just the support of the team, but also brilla gave our TRG a budget. So we can do a lot of things but we can do so many more different things with money. And that's a big thing to have that support.

Definitely. And quick follow up. Do you connect with other energies as well from your plant? Um,

well, there's Yes. So we have vo che, which Kristin mentioned. So there is a vote J. ranch here in Ames. And then also, it's it's not an ER G, but it's a team that focuses on communication. So we we all work together.

Thank you. This is very helpful. And I know a lot of organizations will be interested in, you know, in learning more and reading more about your success here. So it's great. So today, what

can I learn? Can I add one thing on to omega? Two 1.2 things one is the connection. As I mentioned earlier, I think we have a sharing sessions. And that also includes the plan RG leaders, so anyone can come to these sharing sessions, because what you might learn from any RG in Nordics, which we have one that it also has our factory workers and that yardi or in Russia can translate. So I think that's very important. The second point that Megan talked about was the company support, not only is there support within the plant, and when the Birla America office, there's also support within supply chain. So they had a supply chain for the Americas Fabio he really believes strongly the ER G's are going to make the plant environment better which is going to relate to better business. So he's response are also giving hours training hours to start the plants. Er G's which then are head of all global supply chain is also said that's what he wants to do. So it really helps kickstart the RG is when you have, as Megan said budget hours to have people get involved. And then the strong leadership commitment.

Yeah, exactly. And those are, you know, success factors even in main Indian initiatives in general. But here, it seems especially important when you're trying something new like this. And speaking of that, and this is a you know, a question to the group or you know, to, you know, Louisa and Kristin, who I know you work with the DNI board there, but do you have any examples of you know, you started this initiative, you're trying all these different things? Are there your job benefits that you didn't expect? Or that surprised you?

Oh, yes, absolutely. Er, G's played a key role in amplifying any activity, the company organized for our people. They get people from all parts of the company and they involve the people in DNI I always say that the young G's are the best boosters of our communication and engage our people in the cultural change to be more inclusive of all diversities. So this is really the the unexpected benefit from them.

I completely agree with Louisa. And then two benefits that I for sure did not expect at least that we saw. One is leadership development. We saw the RG leaders who came came forward that wouldn't be someone that you would expect to be taking big leadership role, but their passion and energy comes through. And it's really a way to develop and highlight leaders of the future. The second is feedback from people in the ER G's. And I'm talking specifically about Parma where we have 1200 employees, people say er G's are breaking down the silos between functions. Some people told me I've never worked with anyone in this function. But now we're in the rd together and we can have a good healthy debate. And we can you know, we can come up with better ideas together. And so it really, it's really a, you know, it's a perfect example of why diverse teams actually are more creative innovative than than homogeneous teams. Definitely.

Definitely. And, you know, as as, as any Italian I'm so you know, so excited to see at an initiative successful in Italy, of course, where I think I'm hoping other companies will sort of take you as an example and start thinking about this more broadly. So we're almost at time, I wanted to throw a last question to, to the group. And just to wrap up our conversation, and thanks again for the time. Do you have any other thoughts on the topic that maybe I didn't ask about or something that you think organizations should consider when working with their er G's, and let you, you know, decide the order of response, but I wanted to throw this out to the entire team. Megan, do you want to go first?

Yeah, I would say, really, what's worked in Ames is just to create an open environment and listen. And that's one thing that we've been able to do, and, and that really drives the focus of what pulse does and aims. Great, thank you.

And I'm picking up something from my private life because I'm I'm a single mom of two children and I'm very passionate about work life balance. And, as the experts say, the compounding stress from a long work day can be done. damaging without the right support from the company, family and friends. And this is why I strongly believe in the power of er G's because they focus the energy that they come from all employees at the company.

That's great. And I'll just add a final couple of thoughts that I think are the keys to success for args. I mentioned this before I'm create a global framework, you know, governance system that allow for local flexibility. Engage your leaders as active sponsors, executive sponsors can really make this journey much more fruitful, and really getting them to give a lot of support and recognition for the args. And the last point is the recognition gotta recognize the RG leaders you know, recognize them in when they're getting when there's a promotion, this is a promotion, this person is an ER g leader, communicate the value of the args and continue to focus on their motivation because in the end, they will make the cultural difference that will make the company stronger.

Great. That's it. Those are a great last thoughts. Thank you all again for your time, and for sharing your insights. And thank you to our listeners for joining. If you enjoyed this podcast, please remember to subscribe to our insights podcast series, or explored entire catalogue of podcasts programming from the Conference Board. You can find our catalog on our website at www Conference Board. org slash podcasts. This is Laura Sabatini from the Conference Board. And thank you for your time until next time, this has been insights from the Conference Board.