ERGs aren’t just for corporate giants (here’s why we built one)

You might think that feelings of isolation or loneliness only affect members of gargantuan international teams or remote workers. But when we considered implementing an ERG, an anonymous team survey I shared for insight told me that many of our colleagues thought they were the only person at Candour who ever struggled to complete their work unaided.

One of the biggest reasons I had for getting an ERG started at Candour was empowerment. It’s very easy, in a business of any size, for people with frustrations or challenges ahead of them to sit back and hope that leadership teams will figure everything out in their own silo. People may get as far as voicing something that isn’t working, but leave any thought about how to change things for the better to somebody else. When it comes to neurodiversity, what works for one person may not work for another – so how could we improve things for a range of people, without a range of people being involved?

I’m a big believer in the idea that it is through self-advocacy that confidence and motivation grow, but I also understand that not everyone is naturally wired up to stick their head above the parapet and lead change. If you have colleagues who have worked under managers with a ‘my way or the highway’ ethos, there can be a lot of fear to assuage and support to be given before those individuals feel secure enough to come forward with their own suggestions and ideas. And that’s exactly what an ERG is for.

By creating a community of people with shared experiences and actively encouraging those people to bring ideas around whichever topics matter most, you can help your team or teams to feel empowered. This, in turn, enables new innovations you may not consider when entire demographics within your organisation are keeping quiet out of anxiety or apathy.

Our employee resource group meets for an hour once a month, with a video link as well as a meeting room booked to ensure attendance is accessible to all. The group collectively decides on any particular themes and topics they’d like to know more about, and attendees take it in turns to host a ~20-minute knowledge share at the start of the meet, followed by ~40 minutes of general discussion time and conversations on broader topics for the remainder.

Past topics have included ADHD, autism, PTSD, executive dysfunction, chronic anxiety, emotional regulation and stress resilience, among many others. From time-blindness to communication tips, we encourage each other to arrive at the group having thought about something we may have used to try and overcome a challenge, whether it did or didn’t work for us. 

While knowledge shares are recorded for the wider team to play back if they are interested, general discussion time is not – what is discussed in the ERG is treated as a private conversation unless explicitly agreed. For example, if someone suggests a policy or process change, or flags a recurring issue they haven’t been able to overcome in their work, we may agree that this is something to be passed on to the leadership team. But someone discussing their personal health and wellbeing can rest assured that this will not be discussed elsewhere unless there is a genuine safeguarding concern, and group members agree to protect this privacy as part of their attendance.

A 2025 survey by Radius Networks found that across more than 9,000 people at over 1,400 global brands, 99% of respondents believed employee groups and networks were having a positive impact on their organisation. 94% felt that those groups influenced change, and 93% said they contributed to a sense of belonging.

Our most recent ERG survey showed that 100% of attendees find the group useful for:

• Informing company policies and culture

• Giving them a sense of community and belonging

• Supporting professional development and skill building

• Supporting personal development and skill building 

• Offering general support and mentorship

For some companies that sell their time by the hour as we do, setting aside the equivalent of several days in saleable time for teammates to attend an ERG is something leadership may need to be persuaded of. So if you’re looking to understand the ROI of providing colleagues with this resource, consider things like:

• How much does it cost you to recruit and train a new team member? 

• How much would it cost to secure third-party training on soft skills that teams can instead develop together through an ERG?

• How much time are you currently losing to miscommunications and misunderstandings in your workflows that may be ironed out through the feedback loop these groups provide?

Though boosting morale and building community are key motivations for running an ERG, the reason we opted for a neurodiversity ERG in particular is that many issues with workflows, efficiency and profitability could be linked back to a need for more neurodivergence-friendly communication and planning styles.

Feedback from these meetings has driven a host of updates to the way that we work, saving us time on a varied list of regular client tasks and helping us to be more profitable as a result. It has also facilitated peer-to-peer training that is not only effective but also reduces pressure on managers while creating free-of-charge development opportunities for people across the business.

For smaller organisations, ERGs are most likely to be successful when they’re tightly aligned with a clear need in the workforce.

Starting with a single, focused group rather than several at once can help to avoid overextending the time and resources you have available, so identify the most visible need and let that group serve as your pilot.