A sampling of various ERGs within the tech sector and the ways they are making an impact.
When we welcome and empower team members to show up at work as their true selves, the results are amazing. Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) help us
create that sense of inclusion for all. Our award-winning ERGs are communities within Dell Technologies in which team members with common interests or backgrounds can come together to connect, learn and develop new
skills, and impact the business.
ERGs focus their annual programming around five key pillars: community, business innovation, professional development, team member experience and our
unconscious bias foundational learning. Team members who participate in ERGs are encouraged to think outside the box, using their unique expertise and perspectives to enhance the work environment and bring about business impact.
Dell Technologies’ Women in Action (WIA) Employee Resource Group is a volunteer led organization that is a community leader aligning team member engagement in three key areas: Girls in STEM, Community Involvement and Women in Tech. The ERG has been a supporter and enabler of the company’s social impact, which total more than $65 million in corporate giving to advance digital literacy and STEM education.
Dell’s WIA group has been a key partner with many nonprofits such as Girls Who Code (GWC), Girls Inc, Girls Scouts of America, SheTech, No Girl Left Behind and many more. In 2018, WIA impacted over 2,500 middle school and high school girls across the United States. The Eureka! Program, a 5-year long, STEM-focused
college and career readiness program, resulted in 100 percent of the first cohort graduating high school and were college bound. Of this cohort,
• 50 percent were first generation college attendees
• graduates selected STEM- related majors at a rate almost 20 percent higher than the national average; and
• were awarded over $600,000 in scholarships.
• In addition to their work with young women, Dell’s WIA collectively donated over $100,000 and provided over 20,000 food servings to low-income families in 2018. In 2018, they launched an initiative called Dell Career ReStart, which brings technical talent, predominantly women, back into the workforce after a career
break.
Early 2018 presented a unique challenge to the Asian community within Dell – Immigration policies defined by the US government created a lot of concern and uncertainty in the employee base regarding their existing and progress of immigration status in the country. Employees spent incredibly long cycles with attorneys and/ or trolling web-sites for information—equally creating a huge
work-load for our immigration legal firm, Ogletree, due to the surge in requests and concerns. Saudamini Kadam led the charter for the Asian ERG at Dell to create a series of sessions to bring together Dell attorneys at Ogletree with human resources, and our membership base to present the facts regarding the changing landscape of immigration in recent years, and how it impacts their ability to work in the US. The intent was to keep people informed with accurate information on policy changes directly from the immigration attorneys vs. relying on external unreliable news sources.
A pre-event survey was deployed to define key and critical concerns to be addressed to ensure efficient utilization of time for all parties involved. The session gave members a platform to get questions addressed by specialists and get guidance on resources they could refer to stay updated on an ongoing basis—removing the churn of email communication on all sides of the equation.
The lawyers were able to invest the bandwidth back into building strong visa applications ensuring maximum applications received work permit approvals – and Dell has been able to keep a success rate of 100 percent for the cases they file. Employees can focus their time back on supporting business making Dell one of the best companies to work for by maintaining Dell’s diverse workforce with one of the highest visa/green-cards approval rates in the tech industry.
Over 300 employees participated in each session. Asians In Action collaborated with Latino Connection as this is a relevant subject for this ERG member base. This was so successful, our Immigration team and Ogletree have worked with Saudamini to make these sessions a regularly occurring event. An attendee said the session “instilled confidence that Dell Immigration has our backs and looks out for us. [I] got an appreciation of the hard work that the immigration team did.”
Last year at its Adobe for All Summit (an internal, D&I in-person event), the D&I team began a focus on storytelling. A handful of employees were selected from those interested in sharing. The group was provided training and given 10 minutes on stage to do a sort of Ted Talk about their life stories. Audience impact was immense as participants shared emotional stories and their vulnerability. The approach resulted in heightened empathy and appreciation for others and their experiences. Ultimately, in fewer biases and greater inclusion.
The pandemic necessitated adaptation of the storytelling to the remote work environment. The Adobe for All Coffee Break takes place live every Friday at 10 am Pacific Time (with replays available for other time zones). Duration is 30 minutes, and the D&I team invites an Adobe leader (known to have a diverse background) to be interviewed. The interview is streamed on a live platform with the guest seen in her/his home.
Goal: build inclusion and empathy through personal stories. Particular emphasis on senior leader participation demonstrates to diverse employees that there are leaders who also embody diversity and share similar
experiences. Series is likely to continue until employees return to the workplace or until a drop-off in participation signals waning interest. Average attendance: 1,000 – 2,500 stream the live event, additional numbers view the recorded version. Employees respond well to the informal, unscripted approach, which also includes participating leaders’ responses to a few questions submitted through chat.
Capgemini’s Millennial Innovation Council (MIC) has built a strong reputation for its use of hackathons to ideate and crowdsource innovative ideas. The hackathons bring together Capgemini employees, partners, clients, students and business professionals from different companies, industries and regions of the world, to generate ideas and solutions around a problem or opportunity. To date, MIC has hosted twelve hackathons, several in partnership with Capgemini clients. The hackathons provide a forum for building stronger relationships with clients, who participate in the events as mentors, judges and/or hackers, or provide their technology environments for participants to use as a platform for the event.
The hackathons have also proven to be an impactful way to showcase Capgemini’s innovation ecosystem and capabilities to clients, and provide a downstream revenue source when ideas generated are developed into fullscale applications. For example, a Capgemini team from the Millennial Disrupt hackathon was tasked with building out their solution from the challenge. The team is currently working to develop a new go-to-market solution for clients.
The hackathons have had a significant impact on Capgemini’s business. As a direct result of the events, the firm leveraged six global alliance partnerships (IBM, Microsoft, AWS, Salesforce, Stibo Systems, and Intel), sold two global
client hackathons, and actively engaged with a wide range of industries and sectors. In addition, MIC leaders have commercialized a model approach to deliver hackathons as a managed service for clients. Hackathon as a Service is
now an innovation offering for sector leaders and Capgemini’s innovation labs around the world.
CAPGEMINI CARES (Community Action, Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability)
• CARES efforts resulted in overall community engagement of 1,818 employees, 8445 hours donated and over $200,000 donated to 70 unique charities.
• ISO14001 Certification: the CARES ERG played a pivotal role in securing this environmental certification for Capgemini NA, and has promoted sustainability through national in-office signage campaigns and by teaching offices how to improve their recycling programs.
• Pro Bono Consulting: The biggest contribution CARES led in this arena was for Habitat for Humanity. Leveraging consultants in between projects, the CARES ERG worked with H4H on a SharePoint project in order to improve their internal processes. In addition to this charity, Capgemini has successful completed pro-bono consulting projects at Boys and Girls Club and the Atlanta Ronald McDonald House, donating 2,160 pro bono hours through the 2015 year end.
• CARES Local Leads Community Service: Beginning in February 2015, the CARES ERG began its Local Leads campaign to engage CARES members in cities across North America. Each local team is encouraged to organize a community
service event and/or drive once a month—this results in over 250 community service acts a year.
• The goal is to be able to fully track and account for all community service activities across all cities in North America by the end of 2016. The CARES ERG is doing this through 2 venues: Completing a pre-event form with details about the
city’s upcoming event or drive and completing a post-event survey-documenting amount raised, number of volunteers, etc. The combination of these efforts will lead to a firm system for tracking metrics for NA Community Programs, which we hope will translate into a system for Global Capgemini Outreach programs.
Intel’s Warmline – an employee hotline to confidentially report concerns – provides insight to workplace problems and improves retention rates. The Warmline works as an employee hotline to confidentially report concerns. If an employee is
experiencing a problem, or considering leaving, they are encouraged to reach out to the Warmline first. The employee submits a confidential email request to the Warmline, answering three simple questions that help case managers determine the nature of the concern and the best person to handle the case. Warmline case managers are trained to assess complaints and flag those that may require an investigation. Within 48 hours of receiving a request, a Warmline case manager connects with the employee and sets up a confidential one-on-one meeting to address and work through the problem the employee is experiencing. Warmline case managers take confidentiality seriously and get the employee’s consent before reaching out to anyone else to help fix an issue.
The Warmline team is within Intel’s Global Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) group, which is part of Intel’s overall corporate HR. The Warmline team is staffed by case managers whose full-time job is to work on employee cases and concerns. The case managers are driven by a goal of promoting diversity and inclusion within the workplace and between employees, encouraging them to be their best selves. They are screened for certain competencies: empathy, listening skills, being able
to navigate difficulties, ability to engage with diverse employees, and capacity to negotiate and influence at all levels. The Warmline team has handled cases from employees at all levels of the company—ranging from entry-level to senior
executives.
Since its launch in 2016, the Warmline has handled over 20,000 cases and successfully retained 86 percent of employees that submitted a request. Intel’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Group credits Warmline as a key contributor to the early attainment of the company’s representation goal two years ahead of schedule. As part of its initial roll-out, the Warmline was just available for U.S. based employees. This year it is rolling out globally. Currently, Intel has begun the
expansion of the Warmline program to its Latin American Region and Israel site.
Intel’s Intentionally multidimensional and multicultural ERG – EXTEND
• The group provides an opportunity for employees without a “community” to participate in a resource group and get involved in the wider D&I effort.
• EXTEND chapter leaders meet with business leaders in the company to brainstorm how the group can help drive inclusion and develop talent at that site.
• EXTEND worked with a business unit to develop soft skills in the operations engineering workforce and developed a career development series of “Tech Talks” to build the interpersonal skill sets needed.
