Despite awareness of the lack of gender equality in the Asian workforce and in leadership positions, the inequalities persist. It is difficult to change a country's culture, especially if the government is not a full partner in the effort.
— By Shaniqua Thomas

While speaking about ERGs with Stephanie Browne, MEd, CHIE, Vice President Talent Acquisition, Chief Diversity Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, two facts become crystal clear. First, as Stephanie says, "Employee Resource Groups are the right business thing to do," meaning ERGs are crucial to organizational success. ERGs are leveraged in numerous ways as partners in everything from developing community relationships to developing new products to designing marketing campaigns. Second, ERGs are well-developed groups with clear strategies and execution plans that are based on what the company calls the four Cs: Career, Community, Culture, and Commerce.

Strategic Groups Driving Success
The company has eight affinity groups, and they play an important role in integrating Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) into the organization's DNA. The ERGs are not social groups with exclusionary membership. The ERGs are open to everyone in the company, and members in one group are encouraged to network with employees across the affinity groups and the organization. Each group is required to do at least one organizational endeavor with one of the other groups on an annual basis. Each ERG has two executive sponsors who are at the Vice President or higher level. "The executive sponsors are there to help them find business work which is work the ERG can leverage to move the business forward," explains Stephanie.

One of the many unique features of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA affinity groups is they develop strategic plans each year, based on the 4 Cs. This takes them into different directions that may include working with an account, doing education around their affinity to a specific business area, helping in the digital space, defining and designing new business opportunities, and working with the real estate group to ensure buildings are accessible for people with disabilities.

Ambassadors Linking Market and Business
A subset of the ERGs are the 15 ERG members who become Talent Ambassadors and are leveraged for prospecting job candidates and for refining branding in the marketplace. Stephanie explains, "The Talent Ambassadors go through holistic education from our Corporate Responsibility Group, our Corporate Communications Group, the Talent Acquisition Team, and our management group so they develop skills to know how show up in the marketplace." They assist with doing marketing brand work, participate in meetups in the marketplace, do videos that are posted in places like LinkedIn, and are tapped when someone is needed to explain what it is like to be an employee.

The 4 Cs are at the core of the talent onboarding process too. When new employees walk into the organization, they are introduced to the 4 Cs as strategies for the ERGs and the company as a whole. There is a robust overview of how D&I is connected to everything the organization does as a business, including building products and services and marketing. D&I is used to ensure the workforce has cultural competency because the customer base mirrors the makeup of the ERGs.

In fact, D&I drives how the company builds products and services. The traditional health care plan criteria are only a starting point – the customer, required benefits, size of the company, and so on. Innovation through D&I is built on the traditional requirements. "What we added to that process is a questionnaire with 10-12 different questions as to how we take into account the actual members that will use the product – race or ethnicity perspective, age perspective, culture perspective," explains Stephanie. She continued, "We make sure when we are building product from an economic perspective that we understood who the end user would be, so the final product is holistic for that customer." ERGs also work with the marketing team to ensure marketing and branding is inclusive.

ERGs are Good for Everyone
A third of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA workforce are members of ERGs. Members decide what they have time to participate in, like Black History month or D&I culture dialogue activities. There is a corporate internet site that promotes the work of the ERGs and keeps people informed as to what is happening in the organization. There is also a platform called Diverse that is dedicated to ERGs. Anyone in the organization can find events, read about ERG activities, and sign-up to participate in events. The Diverse platform is also used for budgeting and strategic management by the D&I office. ERGs are funded and measured for their success in meeting their annual strategic plans.

"ERGs are really good for talent development," says Stephanie, "We have ERG leaders who learned skills they would not learn in their current jobs because their roles did not call for the particular skills. They have been able to expand their careers through on-the-job training and get visibility with senior leaders that they would not get otherwise." She sees voluntary ERG leadership as stretch work for people who are motivated to advance their careers while doing valuable work for Blue Cross Blue Shield.

In the final analysis, the ERGs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts are good for its members and the organization as a whole. Stephanie also deeply believes that the business culture became more diverse and more inclusive because of the ERGs. They are critical to success because they help people build careers while also helping the company provide a diverse marketplace with innovative products carefully crafted to meet customer needs.