ERGs are formally organised volunteer groups that seek to champion important issues such as equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within a business.
Not only can they help to create a sense of belonging for all employees, improving employee engagement, but they can also have a hugely positive effect on a business’s culture. As such, ERGs can play an important role in helping to deliver a successful mental health and wellbeing strategy.
Below, we give an overview of how your organisation can set up an employee wellbeing ERG, how to use the ERG to deliver a successful wellbeing strategy and how it can help to deliver equality, diversity and inclusion.
How to set up an Employee Resource Group
For an ERG to have meaningful impact, it needs to be formally recognised within the business and structured in a way that it can contribute to overall company goals:
- Both HR and senior leadership need to support and empower the group.
- A written Group Agreement should be created that documents the purpose and remit of the group, including operational details like who should sponsor and chair the group, how many people should attend and how often the meetings should take place.
How an Employee Resource Group can deliver a mental health and wellbeing strategy
A mental wellbeing strategy provides the foundation for improving employee wellbeing, but it needs to have people on the ground to help deliver it.
An ERG that focuses specifically on mental wellbeing can be a proactive way of doing this. Not only can group members help to champion the available wellbeing benefits and support, but they can also collectively review key statistics like employee satisfaction and engagement, along with employee absence rates, helping them to measure the success of the strategy and identify areas for improvement.
Good candidates for wellbeing ERG members include Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAiders®), as they will have a solid, practical understanding of mental health issues that can crop up in the workplace – an understanding that can be applied proactively to improve employee happiness and productivity.
ERG members should be empowered to request support after areas for improvement have been identified. For example, they might identify a lack of formal mental health knowledge among team leaders and therefore recommend Mental Health Training for Managers. Or, they might discover that employees generally have low-awareness of the mental health and wellbeing support available to them, and therefore recommend informal wellness Lunch and Learns to help familiarise colleagues with the help that’s on offer.
Other ways an Employee Resource Group can improve mental health and wellbeing
An ERG can also help improve mental health within the organisation in the following ways:
- Set the agenda for employee mental health by regularly reviewing the progress and success of your strategy, then recommending specific actions and next steps for improvements.
- Run internal communication campaigns to help raise awareness of common mental health issues, reduce the stigma around mental health challenges and promote your organisation’s wellbeing support services.
- Advocate for change within an organisation, for example pushing for policy changes such as flexible working arrangements, mental health days, or adding clauses to employee contracts about treating others with respect.
- Identify which benefits will have the most meaningful impact on employees’ lives, and then work to have these included in an Employee Assistance Program (EAB) – (e.g., counselling sessions or financial wellbeing support).
- Organise appropriate mental health and wellbeing training to help equip employees with the knowledge and skills needed to support themselves and their colleagues.
- Organise cross-departmental meetings, including senior leadership and various department heads, to ensure that the whole organisation is on the same page when it comes to improving employee mental health and wellbeing.
How Employee Resource Groups can help to deliver equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) through wellbeing
Many ERGs are rightly focused on improving equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. As part of this remit, it’s important to remember that different communities face their own unique wellbeing challenges. For example:
- According to the Mental Health Foundation, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people can face higher rates of mental health problems than White people.
- The Centre for Ageing Better surveyed workers over fifty and found that half had depression or anxiety. Their survey also reveals how older workers are more prone to physical health conditions, which can create extra stress and mental health difficulties.
- A report from the TUC flags that menstruation, menopause, pregnancy and the gender pay-gap all have an impact on women’s mental health and their participation in the workplace.
- National disability charity Sense reports that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to have mental health issues.
- Mental Health UK highlights how LGBTQIA+ people are one and a half times more likely to develop depression and anxiety disorder compared to non LGBTQIA+ people.
Because of this, wellbeing can and should play an important role in achieving EDI goals. EDI-focused ERGs can take steps to raise awareness of the specific issues faced by different communities, ensuring that everyone feels appropriately supported with wellbeing initiatives that create a more inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.
How Altruist Can Help
Altruist Enterprises has supported more than 500 organisations in the establishment of effective employee wellbeing programmes through training and strategic consultancy.
We can help your business create and develop an Employee Resource Group (ERG) by working with your HR team, senior leadership and employees to define the group's purpose, scope, and priorities. We can also deliver training to ensure its success.
If you’d like to discuss setting up an employee mental health and wellbeing ERG, please drop us a message, call us on 0121 271 0550 or email us info@altruistuk.com.