How Your ERGs Can Succeed with SEGMA

ERGs can create significant value for employees across backgrounds and organizations across industries. Cited in Forbes, the ERG Leadership Alliance’s research suggests that healthy ERGs elicit up to 16 percent more employee engagement. However, inclusion leaders often lack the insights needed to understand how healthy their ERGs are, and consequently, they misdiagnose what’s working, where groups need support, and which improvements should be triaged.

That’s why we created the Seramount Employee Group Maturity Assessment (SEGMA). Since 2025, 500 ERGs and counting have used SEGMA to accurately evaluate their current performance and better understand their future potential. A year later, that figure alone is worth celebrating, but what’s more exciting is what SEGMA’s insights can help leaders accomplish.

Three Ways SEGMA Evaluates and Elevates ERGs

1. Pinpoints problems through detailed assessments

Although inclusion leaders may suspect that their ERGs are struggling, they rarely know why. Participation numbers, event attendance, and informal feedback are not enough to determine how mature an ERG’s core processes and purposes are.

SEGMA takes a more comprehensive approach. The process begins when inclusion and ERG leaders complete an assessment of more than 100 expert-designed questions that uses a specialized scoring algorithm to examine the practices that help ERGs effectively operate and contribute to organizational goals, including:

This broader view helps uncover strengths that may otherwise go unnoticed. It can also reveal gaps, such as unclear roles, ineffective leadership, or goals that are disconnected from business priorities.

SEGMA in action

When SEGMA was deployed to help an insurance company create more mature leaders, it helped more than 100 people learn where they could grow. Along with hands-on expert coaching, SEGMA upskilled leaders and improved overall ERG efforts.

2. Turns data into decisions

Data alone will not improve an ERG—people need to interpret what the results mean and decide what to do next. That’s where inclusion leaders can lean on Seramount.

After participants complete the assessment, they receive a custom scorecard revealing what’s working, what needs improvement, and what steps to take next.​ A Seramount expert helps leaders review findings, clarify priorities, and turn results into tangible recommendations.

That guidance makes it easier to move from a laundry list of improvements to a streamlined, strategic plan. Leaders can use the results to determine where additional resources can make the greatest impact, how to strengthen executive sponsor onboarding, and how to incentivize and reward ERG leadership.

The intent is not to push every ERG toward the same model. Rather, SEGMA gives organizations a clearer starting point so that they can make targeted improvements that reflect each group’s purpose, maturity, and potential business value.

SEGMA in action

In one SEGMA engagement, a manufacturing company wanted to shift from just scheduling activities to executing a strategy grounded in business needs. SEGMA revealed that employees were trying to do too much, and with those insights, 50 ERG leaders built more focused ERG programs and plans.

3. Builds a unified strategy

When organizations use SEGMA across their ERG portfolio, they can identify shared challenges, compare maturity levels, and uncover successful practices. For example, several groups may be struggling to retain executive sponsorship, while another group has a solid leadership model that recruits high-performing leaders. SEGMA helps illuminate these patterns so that leaders can use these insights to strengthen other ERGs and even other business units.

This enterprise-wide perspective also supports smarter investment decisions. Instead of splitting resources evenly or responding only to the most immediate requests, leaders can identify where funding, coaching, or additional infrastructure can address the most pressing problems and create the greatest value.

Finally, SEGMA helps organizations connect ERG operations to enterprise priorities. In other words, assessment results can show how groups can maximize their cultural and business impact.

SEGMA in action

When a financial services firm needed its ERGs to drive business impact, SEGMA helped deliver. It strengthened the firm’s ERG strategy by offering a list of priority improvements. This clarity energized and empowered leaders, with 30 enrolling in an ERG leader certification program to improve their skills.

A clearer path for the years ahead

SEGMA’s first birthday is more than a milestone. It reflects a growing need for organizations to understand whether their ERGs have the structure, support, and strategy required to meet ever-evolving expectations.

Although SEGMA may be getting older, its purpose is timeless: to help organizations understand where their ERGs are today so that they can succeed tomorrow. With ample data, targeted recommendations, and guidance from Seramount experts, leaders can move beyond measuring activity and build ERGs that are made to last.

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