Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) – An Under-Utilized and Under-Organized Way of Developing New Staff, Management and Organizational Culture

Abstract

We evaluated impact of employees’ participation in an employee resource group (ERG) on their soft skills learning and development and proposed a tool for assessing competence development that is often difficult to quantify. ERG has a positive effect on soft skills development, however certain soft skills do not develop in the interaction between management and new employees. Some soft skills require focused and organized learning. The role of ERG stretches beyond integration of new employees only. We propose a multidimensional paradigm where the management and organizational culture are considered as the object of development and new employees facilitate this process.