ERG Development Workshops
For the people who lead ERGs — and for the organisations that want them to thrive.
Running an Employee Resource Group is meaningful, energising work. It can also be demanding, often invisible, and almost always done on top of a full-time role. ERG leaders are asked to build community, influence culture, engage senior sponsors, and demonstrate organisational value — all without a dedicated budget, a formal mandate, or protected time to do it.
These workshops are designed for exactly those people. They give ERG leaders the skills, confidence, and tools to champion their community, build genuine organisational buy-in, and sustain their own energy for the long term.
For HR Directors commissioning this work: investing in your ERG leaders is one of the most effective ways to ensure your ERGs deliver real value rather than quietly burning out the people who run them. These workshops can be delivered to ERG leads across your organisation, creating a community of practice and a shared language for ERG leadership.
Make the Case Championing your ERG.
The most important skill an ERG leader can develop is the ability to articulate why their community matters — not just to its members, but to the organisation. Without that ability, ERGs remain a passion project on the margins. With it, they become a recognised and resourced part of how the organisation operates.
This workshop helps ERG leaders find the language, evidence, and framing to champion their community in a way that resonates beyond its members. It covers how to tell the story of your ERG in terms that land with senior leaders, how to connect community purpose to organisational values, and how to position your ERG as a strategic contributor rather than a nice-to-have.
Participants leave with a clearer narrative for their ERG, practical tools for making the case internally, and greater confidence in the rooms that matter.
Half or full day — suitable for ERG leaders, co-leads and committee members.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:The Art of Explanation: Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand by Lee LeFever — a practical guide to communicating complex ideas clearly and compellingly. Directly applicable to the challenge of explaining why your ERG matters to people who aren't yet convinced.
Go deeper:Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath — the research-based guide to what makes ideas compelling and memorable. Invaluable for any ERG leader trying to build lasting internal advocacy.
Watch:How to Find and Tell Your Story — David JP Phillips, TED 2017. The neuroscience of storytelling and why narrative is the most powerful tool available for changing minds and building support.
Change Without the Power Influencing without a mandate.
ERG leaders drive change without formal authority, dedicated resource, or a guaranteed audience. They rely entirely on their ability to influence — to persuade, to build coalitions, to create momentum where there was none. That's a significant skill set, and one that most organisations never explicitly develop.
This workshop builds the practical influence skills that make ERG leaders more effective — both within their community and across the wider organisation. It covers how to map and prioritise stakeholders, how to build the relationships that create allies, and how to drive change in an environment where your authority comes entirely from the strength of your case and the trust you've built.
Half or full day — suitable for ERG leaders chairs.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:Influence Without Authority by Allan R. Cohen & David L. Bradford — the classic text on influencing across organisational boundaries. The Exchange Model of influence applies directly to the ERG leadership context.
Go deeper:Exerting Influence Without Authority — Harvard Business Review, 2008. Practical guidance on building cooperation and momentum when you don't hold formal power over the people you need to move.
Watch:The Power of Vulnerability — Brené Brown, TED 2010. Counterintuitive but compelling — the research case for why honest, human connection is more persuasive than polished argument.
Sustain the Fire Resilience and time management for ERG leaders.
ERG leadership is one of the most demanding voluntary roles in any organisation. It sits on top of a full-time job, often goes unrecognised, and carries real emotional weight — particularly for leaders whose ERG is connected to their own identity and experience.
This workshop helps ERG leaders sustain their energy and impact for the long term. It addresses the specific pressures of ERG leadership — not just generic resilience content — including how to manage boundaries, how to protect your own time and energy, how to avoid burnout without stepping back from work you care about, and how to build a model for your ERG that doesn't depend entirely on your own personal energy to survive.
Half or full day — suitable for ERG leaders and chairs.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:Lucy Hone, "3 Secrets of Resilient People" — TED 2019. Evidence-based resilience strategies from one of the world's leading resilience researchers. Start here if you watch nothing else.
Go deeper:Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown — a research-informed guide to focusing energy and effort on what matters most and eliminating what doesn't. Particularly relevant for ERG leaders managing competing demands on their time.
Watch:How to Make Stress Your Friend — Kelly McGonigal, TED 2013. Groundbreaking research on how our relationship with stress shapes its impact — reframes what it means to sustain performance under pressure.
From Community to Commercial Value Connecting ERG work to business strategy.
Senior sponsors and budget holders respond to commercial arguments, not community ones. The ERG leaders who unlock real organisational support are the ones who can translate the impact of their work into language that senior leaders understand — retention, engagement, pipeline, performance, and culture.
This workshop gives ERG leaders the frameworks to make that translation effectively. It covers how to identify and articulate the business case for your ERG, how to connect community goals to organisational priorities, how to use data and evidence to demonstrate impact, and how to position ERG work as a driver of business outcomes rather than a separate agenda.
Half or full day — suitable ERG leaders, chairs, and sponsors.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:McKinsey & Company, "Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters" (2020) — the most comprehensive and widely cited research on the relationship between inclusion and business performance. Essential reading for any ERG leader building the commercial case for their work.
Go deeper:Robin Ely & David Thomas, "Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case" — Harvard Business Review, November 2020. A rigorous challenge to surface-level approaches to the business case for inclusion — worth reading precisely because it pushes beyond the obvious arguments.
Watch:How Great Leaders Inspire Action — Simon Sinek, TED 2009. The Start With Why framework is directly applicable to building internal advocacy for your ERG — lead with purpose, not process.
Winning Hearts and Budgets Getting buy-in.
Engaging senior sponsors, securing budget, and building allies across an organisation requires a specific set of skills that most ERG leaders learn the hard way — through proposals that go nowhere, sponsors who disengage, and initiatives that die for lack of support.
This workshop gives ERG leaders a practical toolkit for navigating that challenge. It covers stakeholder mapping, how to design proposals that land with senior audiences, how to engage and maintain the interest of a sponsor, and how to build the internal coalitions that create lasting momentum.
Participants leave with a clearer picture of their stakeholder landscape, practical tools for engagement, and a plan for the specific asks they need to make.
Half day — suitable ERG leaders, chairs, and anyone building internal support for change.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind by Jonah Berger — Wharton professor Jonah Berger's research-based guide to why persuasion often fails and what actually changes minds. More rigorous and counterintuitive than most influence books.
Go deeper:Get the Boss to Buy In — Susan Ashford & James Detert, Harvard Business Review, January 2015. Research-based guidance on how to sell ideas upward effectively — directly applicable to the ERG leadership context.
Watch:How to Speak So That People Want to Listen — Julian Treasure, TED 2013. Practical and accessible guidance on the communication habits that determine whether your proposals land or are quietly ignored.
The Belonging Blueprint Building community.
An ERG is only as strong as the community it creates. And building a community that people genuinely want to be part of — one that sustains engagement beyond the launch event and creates real belonging for its members — is harder than it looks.
This workshop covers the practical skills of community design and leadership. It addresses how to create a clear sense of purpose that attracts and retains members, how to design events and experiences that build genuine connection, how to communicate in a way that keeps people engaged, and how to build a model for your ERG that scales beyond the founding team.
Participants leave with a clearer picture of their ERG's community model and practical actions to strengthen it.
Half day — suitable for ERG leaders, chairs and community managers.
Fuel your thinking
Start here:The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation by Jono Bacon — the most comprehensive and practical guide to building engaged communities available. Bacon's own site has supporting resources and tools.
Go deeper:Priya Parker, "The Power of Gathering" — a research-informed exploration of what makes gatherings meaningful rather than merely functional. Directly applicable to how ERG leaders design events that build real connection rather than just attendance.
Watch:The Secret to Living Longer May Be Your Social Life — Susan Pinker, TED 2017. The neuroscience of belonging and human connection — the evidence base for why community matters and what makes it real.
Not sure where to start?
How to choose the right workshop for your ERGs and community leaders.
If your ERG leaders are struggling to articulate their value internally, start with Make the Case — it gives them the language and confidence to champion their community in rooms that matter.
If you need to build senior sponsorship or unlock budget, Winning Hearts and Budgets is the most direct intervention.
If your ERG leaders are trying to drive change across the organisation but hitting walls, Change Without the Power gives them the influence tools to break through.
If your ERG is growing but struggling to sustain engagement and community, The Belonging Blueprint addresses that directly.
If your ERG leaders are showing signs of fatigue or burnout, Sustain the Fire is both the most urgent and most often overlooked workshop on this list.
And if you want to connect your ERG work explicitly to business outcomes, From Community to Commercial Value gives you the frameworks to make that case compellingly.
And if you're not sure — that's what the ignition conversation is for. Tell us where your ERG leaders are and we'll help you work out where to start.
Looking for something different?
If you're looking for broader inclusion strategy support beyond ERG workshops, our DEI & Inclusion Strategy service covers strategic review, ERG governance, and cultural diagnostic work.
Or browse the full workshop catalogue to see everything we offer.
Ready to invest in your ERG leaders?
Every workshop starts with a brief conversation to understand your ERGs, your organisation, and what you want to be different. That conversation is free, takes thirty minutes, and means that what we design is right for your people rather than just right in general.
“Kate’s expertise in facilitating an engaging agenda, guiding discussions - and keeping them on track - fostered collaboration amongst a diverse group of senior leaders. The experience was exceptional.”
