Global Conference 2024 highlights: Building confidence through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).

Business Disability Forum’s Rebecca Elliott shares highlights from the Disability Networks and Employee Resource Groups session at our recent global conference, ‘Disability inclusion in a changing world’ (sponsored by HSBC).

Of all the amazing sessions in our Global Conference on 21 November, this year I think I was most excited for the “Building Confidence Through Disability Networks and Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)” session.  

The panel was chaired by Katie Coates, Senior Business Partner here at BDF and she was joined by Brendan Roach from PurpleSpace, Amber Singsayachack from SLB and Renee Anastasi from HSBC.

As one of the managing directors at PurpleSpace, Brendan works with leaders of disability employee resource groups and networks to help organisations build disability confidence from the inside out. They aim to do that by accelerating the global growth of the disability ERG movement and by building the inner confidence of every employee with a disability.

Both Amber Singsayachack and Renee Anastasi, as members of PurpleSpace, joined the panel discussion to talk about their experiences and share their perspectives.

Working with SLB as a Customer Service Manager, Amber is also the co-lead for their Disability ERG and she explained how their focus was on building confidence, giving everyone a voice within their community and also supporting other ERGs within their organisation.

Renee Anastasi has been proudly working for HSBC for 21 years and as US co-chair of their Ability network for the past 3 years. She described their work with local and global colleagues within Ability locally, as well as their ERGs – globally and nationally – to spread the inclusion message.

I listened to Renee talk about ERGs being born out of different needs and how for her, having lived with a non-apparent disability for over 30 years, the ERG brought her into contact with other like-minded people who accepted her and showed “the human side of the disability of our employees, of our employees’ families and of our clients and customers”.

She also mentioned the importance of being open to learning and providing different ways for global ERGs to engage with each other, in order to grow membership numbers (by 70% in one year at HSBC) and to help those employees feel safe to share their disability. For example: meetings not being recorded and allowing colleagues to join calls off camera and anonymously, if they don’t feel ready to share their identity or disability.

On the subject of global collaboration, leadership and understanding the benefits of bringing national ERGs together globally, Renee spoke about the positive impact of sharing common ideas and best practice at SLB. She also highlighted that, although each country had different legal compliance, regulatory and risk issues to consider, the intentions of the employees working in these different countries were typically similar.

She also shared what her role as disability co-lead for America had meant for her, talking about immense personal growth and her appreciation for having the “opportunity to give back”. She also spoke of renewed confidence to share her own lived experiences and to make an impact on anyone else going through the same. “It also helps me see things from different perspectives that I wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to otherwise.”

She shared the benefits seen at SLB of taking embracing the intersectionality of different ERGs to run combined global events in order to organically grow their membership base.

Finally, I listened with interest as Brendan explained the crucial work of PurpleSpace to develop the leadership skills of ERG leaders who may be looking after the interests of around 20% of the workforce and defined “Networkology” as the art and science of running a high impact ERG.

Brendan also spoke about this year’s United Nations theme for the International Day of People with Disabilities, thinking about how to amplify the leadership voices of disabled people.

Personally, I can’t think of a more effective way than by giving space to your ERGs to connect globally, time to allocate to that role, and an active listener on the senior leadership team to take notice. For me, the ERG is a hugely important piece of the inclusion puzzle, amplifying those voices needing to be most urgently heard. They are the voices of the disabled talent (and their allies) and their commitment often comes with no traditional reward, save for the instant gratification Amber mentions, of seeing the attendance at a successful event, or perhaps watching ERG membership numbers grow 70% in one year, as highlighted by Renee.

When Brendan spoke of developing inner confidence, I recalled how my own confidence grew from being a champion of a disability network and I smiled when Brendan mentioned the astonishing number of ERG leaders shortlisted for the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 2024 awards, as influential disabled changemakers in the UK.

In my previous role at Shaw Trust, joining their ERG gave me a chance to go beyond the limits of my day job and to consciously put my passion for driving disability inclusion into practice. However, like many ERG leads, I didn’t necessarily think of myself as a leader at all – that took some time.

Brendan’s final point was on the search for macro-achievements, such as driving culture change, advocating for new departments, or better policy and processes. He suggested we perhaps we should pay more attention to measuring the micro-achievements too because “the simple act of connecting one employee with MS in one country who felt alone and without hope to another…we often miss that but it is huge.”

From a personal perspective, knowing what the ability to connect has meant for me and my career, I have to say that I agree with him.

Being an ERG lead and connecting with others working in that space across the globe was transformative for me and now I get the chance to give back to support others to transform their organisations too.

Members and Partners can watch the sessions from our Global Conference on the Knowledge Hub.