Qonto’s first ERG: empowering workplace diversity

A workplace that’s fair and equal for all makes moral sense, business sense and plain old common sense. At Qonto, we believe “fair and equal for all” is not possible unless every voice can be heard. But “being heard” is not always easy for communities that have historically been marginalized and under-represented. This is one challenge we’ve been working hard to overcome: how do we provide a platform that allows every Qontoer to be acknowledged, understood and valued?

We believe that the answer can not come from the top; an inclusive, progressive and diverse culture will not simply appear as a result of a C-Suite memorandum. We decided that positive change will be more effective if it works its way up towards the top. After all, under-served communities understand the challenges they face far better than anyone, as well as what’s needed to overcome them.

But we needed a vehicle for this bottom-up approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI), one of two key pillars in our Impact strategy. We found that vehicle in Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs.

In this article, we’ll examine what an ERG is and how Qonto is already seeing concrete results from introducing them to our workplace. We’ll share what we’ve learned on our journey so far and invite you to ponder whether they could work for you, too.

An Employee Resource Group is a community of workers in a company, created by those employees themselves to promote the interests particular to that group. On one level, an ERG provides a forum for those who share an identity, values or other common characteristic. On another level, it offers a platform for them to raise awareness about issues facing their community and advocate for improvements in their workplace experience. 

The idea is that the group’s collective voice will be heard louder and more clearly than the isolated, individual voices of the group’s members. Allies are also invited to lend their voices to support any of Qonto’s ERGs, even if those individuals don’t strictly self-identify as fully-fledged members of that community.

For the company, the overarching objective of enabling ERGs is to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

The first ERG was formed at document management company Xerox in 1970. Begun as a way to combat racial tensions in the workplace which had been rising through the 1960s, Xerox CEO Joseph Wilson encouraged his African-American employees to start their own employee group to protect and promote their civil rights. The idea took root and, over time, grew new branches: the first ERG dedicated to the gay community was formed at Hewlett-Packard in 1978.

In the 50+ years since the first ERG at Xerox, the concept has spread throughout the US and later to Europe and the rest of the world, becoming standard practice in many businesses today. In recent years, ERGs have increasingly been incorporated into business strategies and operations plans - a reported 90% of Fortune 500 companies have ERGs.

The possibilities are almost endless for ERGs, because inclusivity itself is a near-infinite resource. Some of the most common types of ERGs include:

• Gender-based ERGs
• Ethnicity-based ERGs
• Disability-based ERGs
• LGBTQIA+ ERGs
• Military veteran ERGs
• Religion-based ERGs
• Interest-based ERGs

In early 2023, Qonto turned to ERGs to help satisfy the key objective of fostering workplace inclusivity. For Talent Acquisition Director, Marjorie Boruel, ERGs are a good fit for Qonto’s over-riding HR philosophy:

“At Qonto, we’re driven by the conviction that diverse teams lead to more innovative solutions, richer discussions and, ultimately, better business outcomes," says Marjorie. 

"We see ERGs as dynamic spaces made up of like-minded individuals that encourage cross-collaboration, mutual understanding and open dialogue among employees from diverse backgrounds. We want our workplace to reflect the world we live in and ERGs allow us to do this in a way that aligns with our desire to shift from a top-down to a bottom-up approach. And, as always, we wanted to set ambitious targets: part of our OKR initiative is to create of a minimum of 3 ERGs this year (2023).”

So, where did we start? Deciding on an ERG at the executive level and then asking employees to make it happen would pull us back into the top-down mindset we want to avoid. Instead, we looked at the communities that already existed in some form within the company. The members of Qonto’s LGTBQIA+ community were eager to formalize their initiative and became the pioneers of the company’s ERG policy.

ERGs are meant to be much more than just well-meaning; they exist as agents of positive change. Team Pride may be just a few months old but it has already made its voice heard clearly enough to directly benefit Qontoers: our parenthood policy now grants second-parent leave for same-sex parents, thanks to great teamwork between the ERG and HR in encouraging employee engagement and gathering feedback.

The success of Team Pride encouraged employees to take the initiative further. Two more ERGs have followed in Team Pride’s footsteps:

• Women@Qonto, which is (amongst many other things) leveraging its 113 active Slack group members to push forward the conversation around gender-based biases.
• Breaking Social Barriers, an ERG that seeks to raise awareness of and combat inequalities based on socio-economic background.

All new initiatives come with their share of hurdles and starting an ERG was no different. Before getting our first ERG off the ground, we wanted to scope the kind of issues we would face on our journey. That meant listening to and learning from the experience of others.

While the prospect of an ERG was welcomed warmly and its creation encouraged by Qonto staff, the general concept of ERGs comes with some baked-in concerns, which can inspire apprehension.

At Qonto, we believe that what worked for us may also work for other businesses. If you’re a business owner or decision-maker and you agree that DEI will make your company stronger, we’d like to share the key learnings that emerged from our process. Marjorie Boruel identified five important steps.

1. Clarify the purpose Your company should clearly understand the need for the specific ERG you plan to create. Responsibilities, roles and expectations for ERG leaders should be well defined beforehand. Also, set out in advance the actions that the ERG will be able to lead (for example workshops, events and awareness campaigns) as well as the resources you will put at their disposal. Consider offering onboarding sessions to ERG leaders to give them the tools they need to succeed in their role.
2. Choose the appropriate ERGs We’ve listed the most common types of ERG above. Would any of these bring value to your workforce? Are there other special interests and issues that matter greatly to your employees and align with your company’s DEI vision?
3. Identify potential ERG chairs Qonto decided to make the leaders of our ERGs ‘Chairs’ rather than ‘Leads’ in order to distinguish the egalitarian purpose of the ERGs from the more hierarchical nature of our operations. Reach out to the individuals who belong to the community you’re seeking to support, and who may be willing and successful at leading the activities. Consider criteria such as seniority in position, motivation and performance records. We were also keen to avoid adding to the workload and impacting the well-being of our ERG Chairs, so we formalized their role and allowed them to set aside 10% of their working time that they can dedicate to ERG matters.
4. Secure leadership sponsorship To be effective, an ERG needs endorsement from the C-level management. Each of our ERGs has a dedicated sponsor in the executive team.
5. Communicate the ERG’s creation Once you’ve secured the ERG’s purpose, its leaders and its sponsors, use all appropriate channels to promote its launch internally and, if you wish, to external partners. This will help to maximize the membership, reach and engagement of both the ERG’s members and allies.

Even after just a few months, we’ve already seen the value ERGs can bring to our workforce and the early results have encouraged us to journey further along this path. If you have questions about ERGs at Qonto, feel free to get in touch with Marjorie Boruel (marjorie.boruel@qonto.com), or if you’d like to know more about Qonto’s Impact strategy generally, we’d love to hear from you at impact.committee@qonto.com.