I attended a presentation on Employee Resource Groups, one of my rare non-youth-related sessions from this week. Kristy Lorenz (Columbus Metropolitan Library, OH) told us about her experiences in the Working Caregivers Employee Resource Group (or ERG) and shed light on the way these groups can have ripple effects throughout the organization. While an organization might view ERGs as beneficial mainly because they promote retention and provide a way to gather feedback from different groups, staff can benefit from the supportive environment in so many ways. These groups provide a play for validation, a sympathetic ear to have your voice be heard, and also a soft place to land for new employees. They can exist for members of a particular race or ethnicity or for people with shared experiences, such as parents and caregivers of elders. Lorenz highly recommended the book The Power of Employee Resource Groups (Berrett-Koehler, 2022), by Farzana Nayani, for a detailed guide to creating structure, policies, and plans for a new ERG. Lorenz shared how her group for Working Caregivers was originally pitched to staff by HR during the pandemic as a group for Working Parents. Their meetings originally centered around sharing frustrations about pandemic schooling and parenting struggles. As time went on, there was a natural shift from venting to sharing resources with one another and eventually having a budget of their own to bring in speakers and hold programs to benefit her group as parents. One presenter, for example, talked in-depth about how working parents could use HR benefits in ways that many staff were unaware of. Over the lifetime of ERGs, they can grow and evolve in unexpected ways. She talked about how Working Parents changed into Working Caregivers, as many of the members were also providing care for older family members. Lorenz, in that situation herself, also had children who were “aging out” as teenagers but still wanted the support from the group. It was clear that the ability to grow and evolve with the needs of the actual people in the ERG is paramount to its success. In addition, Lorenz described how it was important to think about burnout and succession planning for the Working Caregivers ERG. Allowing new faces to step forward as leadership lets an ERG move into new arenas and become what it needs to be for the members at that time. There is a spectrum of roles that an ERG can occupy, ranging from simply providing support to each other, to bringing programs to fellow members and connecting them with resources, all the way to raising awareness among the organization at large and even advocating for changes in policies when necessary. The session got me thinking about a working caregivers ERG at my workplace. As a Youth Services staff member who doesn’t have children of my own, it would be great to have a group like this to attend as an ally and hear about others’ needs and concerns. And as a member of a marginalized group as well, I know I’d love a place to vent about things only other people in libraries would understand.
Ellie Richardson (she/her) is Youth Services Librarian at Arlington Heights Memorial Library (IL). She specializes in services to K-3 rd grade students and loves to nerd out over literacy and cognitive science. While not at work making overly ambitious DIY projects, Ellie enjoys karaoke, befriending cats, and long walks in nature to look at birds. This is her first time at PLA (and third conference, ever), and she’s excited to soak it all in while blogging for ALSC.
This post addresses ALSC Core Competency VII: Professionalism and Professional Development.
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.
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