Passion Plus — Creating Future Leaders Through ERG Board Development

Description

Our employee resource groups — GuideWell Communities — have gained more visibility in the organization since 2020 and they conduct quarterly discussions to interact with and present to our most senior leadership team (CEO and direct reports). They also produce multiple employee discussion forums each year that involve senior leaders and other officers across the organization. This increasing exposure to our leaders allows the Communities’ board members to not only share their experiences, perspectives, and recommendations for enhancement or change, but also allows them to be seen as trusted in-house experts about the affinities they represent in the marketplace, external communities, and workforce to help our organization advance business goals.

To support this development, we developed a plan to “level up” board members’ skills and knowledge to help them better understand their board member roles, expand their knowledge about the affinities they represent, and increase their business acumen. Our program has two components: 1) Channel 1 is group learning focused on board management best practices and in-house SMEs sharing their business/functional expertise; and 2) Channel 2 is self-directed learning focused on DEI concepts, professional skills, and knowledge about the diversity dimensions they represent. We piloted this program in 2022 and we will review why and how we developed this program, how we have executed, and outcomes to date.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand how one organization created a development program for ERG leaders
• Learn how to help ERG leaders better manage board functions and increase their own business acumen
• Exchange best / next practices for ERG board development through audience sharing