Building Better Employee Resource Groups

For decades, employee resource groups (ERGs) were known for “food, flag, and fun."

In their mission to promote diversity and inclusivity at an organization, ERGs tended to focus on the social aspects of building community—helping their members expand their professional network and celebrating cultural events.

But those were yesterday’s ERGs. The employee resource groups of today do so much more.

They still promote social activities, but they also help create a more inclusive culture, assist members’ career advancement, support business goals, and help build a sense of community. Their holistic value proposition adds value to their membership and to the organization.

One tool that modern ERGs use to broaden their impact is the 4C ERG Model, a strategic framework that encourages employee resource groups to pursue initiatives in four key areas: career, community, culture, and commerce. Developed in the early 2000s by Robert Rodriguez, founder and president of diversity consulting firm DRR Advisors, the 4C Model is used by approximately 300 corporations, making it the most used strategic framework for ERGs in corporate America.

That includes insurance companies such as Allianz, Allstate, American Family Insurance, MetLife, Northwestern Mutual, Prudential, and TruStage.

Central to the success of the 4C Model is its simplicity, divided into just four pillars:

• Career: These are efforts by ERGs to enhance their members’ skill sets and career advancement. Typical initiatives include professional development workshops, mentoring initiatives, events with external speakers, and panel sessions with executives.
• Culture: These activities are intended to create a more inclusive culture within the company and to promote a sense of belonging. They often include cultural celebrations, allyship initiatives, programs that address intersectionality, input on HR policies, and diversity recruiting practices.
• Commerce: ERGs are now also becoming business resource groups by aligning their work with key business goals or initiatives. This can involve ERGs supporting supplier diversity initiatives, serving as an internal focus group for marketing or ad campaigns, and supporting sustainability efforts, among other efforts.
• Community: ERGs often supporttheir companies’ efforts to build a sense of community both within the organization and the area in which it operates. Typically, these efforts include organizing volunteer activities, supporting local nonprofits, participating in community parades, and raising funds for scholarships.

By segmenting their efforts into four pillars, ERGs can better see if they are focusing too much or too little in any particular area. For example, an ERG may have many initiatives supporting community outreach efforts and allyship, which would fall under the community and culture pillars. By applying the model, it might find it has no career and commerce pillars. This insight typically encourages ERGs to expand priorities.

Data from businesses that use the model suggests that ERGs that tend to have sustainable, long-term success provide initiatives in each of the four pillars. This creates the holistic value proposition so desired by their members and the organization.

Some ERGs will conduct an initiative each quarter that falls into a specific 4C category. For example, they will do a culture-related event in the first quarter, a career-related effort in the second quarter, a commerce type of initiative in the third quarter, and a community project to close out the year. A more common approach is to focus on one or two pillars in a calendar year and then on the other pillars in subsequent years. Using this approach for example, an ERG could focus on career and community initiatives in 2025 and then culture and commerce efforts in 2026.

A good starting point for companies that want to implement the 4C ERG Model is Robert Rodriguez’s book, Employee Resource Group Excellence, which outlines the value of the model and how to leverage it to establish and prioritize initiatives, collaborate with other ERGs, and allocate budgets.

Next, ERGs must train their leaders on how to best use the model. That can involve workshops to train ERG leaders on key elements of each pillar, helping them develop stronger initiatives within each of the four Cs.

ERGs then put together plans outlining which 4C pillars they will prioritize. Finally, to really embed the model, companies will conduct the 4C ERG Model Assessment on their ERGs. This online assessment allows companies to see how well their ERGs are performing in each of the 4C pillars and provides a comprehensive overview of group performance. It also enables companies to make data-driven ERG decisions, establish a baseline from which to measure progress, and compare their ERGs against the ERGs at hundreds of other companies for benchmarking purposes.

Introducing the 4C structure for Ryan Specialty’s employee resource groups keeps us focused and purposeful.

Ryan Specialty’s first ERG, Women. Opportunity. Winning! (WOW!) reenergized itself and expanded its view by implementing 4C. It is now connecting with external organizations including the Association of Professional Insurance Women, partnering with industry allies, and identifying ways to give back to the community.

Ryan Specialty’s second ERG, the Multicultural Alliance, has a broad responsibility of addressing all aspects of diversity with the company. The 4C has helped it become more inclusive and to identify initiatives that intersect across multiple aspects of identity for our team members across the globe. Whichever model you use for your ERG, we are thankful for the people who lead these efforts. These individuals are talented, dedicated, and passionate about the work. Maybe one day, all our ERGs can come together and collaborate on a big idea. That would be special to witness and truly move diversity, equity, and inclusion forward in our industry.