Employee Resource Group Excellence

9ERG Analytics: Data‐Driven Insights

With the prominence of employee resource groups within organizations, it amazes me that analytics and data‐driven insights are hardly ever used. To me, this is the missing piece towards achieving ERG excellence. Organizations are simply ill‐prepared, or lack the conviction, to utilized analytics to make more data‐driven decisions as it relates to their employee resource groups. Given that I hold a doctorate and understand the value of data analysis, it could be that I'm a bit biased on this subject. But it is my belief that the next frontier for ERGs will be the greater utilization of data analytics to measure ERG performance, impact, and analysis.

Organizations must increase the use of data to drive ERG strategy and effective decision‐making. Our ERGs must be able to capture data from which they can glean actionable insights. Data analytics encompasses many diverse types of data analysis. Any information can be subjected to data analytics techniques to gain insights that can be used to improve ERGs. Data analytics can help an ERG notice trends and metrics that would otherwise be lost in the mass of information that is flowing every day.

Based on my vast experience of working with hundreds of organizations and their ERGs, I see four distinct types of data analytics that organizations need for their ERGs. First, they need descriptive analytics that describe what has happened to ERGs over a given period of time. This could answer questions ...