Many of our business partners, like Covestro, not only create employee resource groups for their team members, but they encourage participation.
As it turns out, there’s a direct link between these groups and direct impact on diversity and inclusion.
PwC and The Manufacturing Institute recently co-published a white paper on this very topic. An excerpt states:
Indeed, for industrials of all sizes, diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs are not just viewed as a “nice to have” but rather a top priority for their businesses.
Moreover, there is increasing agreement that while setting the tone from the top is critical to creating a welcoming culture, clarifying expectations and achieving goals, it is also important to encourage grassroots engagement of employee groups to drive initiatives from the bottom up. This employee-led activism is doing much to change the face of manufacturers and industrial sectors such as oil refiners and petrochemical companies.
It is no surprise that, as demographics in the U.S. continue their formidable shift, employee-led engagement is helping reshape the face of manufacturing. Employee-led groups, typically called employee resource groups (ERGs), can range from small and informal gatherings to hundreds or even thousands of members organized across continents (in the case of large multinationals) and covering a wide spectrum of issues, including D&I for women, older workers, LGBT employees, ethnic or racial minorities, people with disabilities and military veterans, just to name a few.
Visit their blog to read the entire study.
