Employee Resource Group Excellence

11High Performers and High Potentials: ERGs and Talent Management

Traditionally, ERGs have been leveraged at leadership incubators with the perspective that senior organization leaders should serve as sponsors or advisors. Almost every organization treats ERGs as leadership incubators, providing junior staff the chance to flex talent muscles they might not have the opportunity to otherwise. The thinking is that if companies give ERG members access to professional development workshops and experience running a team and developing strategy, ERGs will build the next generation of group leaders.

However, once these ERG members begin to demonstrate their true leadership capability, they often leave the ERG. While helping to produce more leaders for the organization is still a valuable outcome, it does little to meet the growing leadership demands of the ERGs. Corporations also tend to assign senior leaders and executives to serve as ERG sponsors or advisors, rather than as leaders of these groups. This is not necessarily a bad decision, but often these busy individuals provide limited attention and support to the ERG. In many cases, the executive sponsor or advisor has never been an ERG member and thus has a limited perspective on what is needed to elevate performance.

But we are starting to see companies take on a new approach, one that has a focus on securing both junior‐ and senior‐level employees as ERG leaders. Promoting from within an ERG helps to create a steady pipeline ...