ERG Council: Reenergizing ERG Participation

This highly interactive virtual session helps ERG, BRG, affinity group, and employee community leaders strengthen member engagement in practical, sustainable ways. Participants will explore what workplace engagement means today, why ERGs matter as connection and belonging spaces, and how to move beyond “event attendance” as the primary measure of success.

The session combines current workplace engagement data, small-group discussion, live polling, peer resource sharing, and a hands-on engagement planning activity. Participants will leave with concrete ideas to increase participation, reduce leader burnout, clarify member value, and design ERG experiences that feel useful, welcoming, and aligned with both employee needs and organizational goals.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1. Define meaningful ERG engagement beyond attendance, including connection, contribution, leadership development, shared learning, and organizational influence.
2. Identify common engagement barriers such as unclear value, meeting fatigue, inconsistent communication, lack of leadership support, limited time, and overreliance on a small group of volunteers.
3. Apply practical engagement strategies to improve member participation, retention, and leadership pipeline development.
4. Use a simple engagement diagnostic to assess where their ERG or employee group currently has strength and where it needs support.
5. Create one actionable engagement experiment they can test within 30 days.
6. Share resources and promising practices with peers across corporate and community partner organizations.