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December 13, 2022 14 mins

You might think, as a manager or HR professional, that you’re already doing all you can to advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in your workplace. But there are always ways you can step up your game – and building a team of diversity advocates is one great way to do it. Join Holly Norton and host Shari Simpson as they discuss ways to create a DEIA-friendly workplace.

Guest: Holly Norton, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Division Group Program Manager, County of San Diego | Department of Human Resources

Holly Norton is a Program Manager with the Department of Human Resources Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) division in the County of San Diego. She has worked as a learning and development professional for over 15 years across academic, secular, corporate, and government. In every position, she has found ways to leverage her passion for creating opportunities for transformational growth and connection.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(upbeat music)
- Hey, and welcome to "PCTY Talks."
I'm your host, Shari Simpson.
During our time together,
we'll stay close to thenews and info you need
to succeed as an HR pro,
and together we'll explore topics around
HR thought leadership, compliance,

(00:22):
and real life HR situationswe face every day.
Holly, thank you so much
for taking a few minutes of your day
to sit and chat with me.
- Thank you for having me.
- So we are talking all thingsERG, employee resource group.
This is obviously a passion of mine

(00:42):
as a co-chair for our ERG forwomen inside of Paylocity.
So I'd like to start with
why are employee resourcegroups so important?
- Well, employee resource groupsbring a very dedicated lens
to all the different things that we do
at the County of San Diego.
We have 11 ERGs within the county.
We have one that's beingbuilt at this time,

(01:05):
which is close to your heart.
Yes, at this point, we don'thave a women's group yet.
- Wow.- It's in the funnels.
We have some very passionate individuals
who are helping to get that going.
And we hope, I guess I should say,
ideally it'll launch withinthe next year as well.
But our 11 ERGs are usuallymore culturally based,

(01:29):
I guess you could say, in that sense.
But we also have our veterans group,
and our emerging work group,
and all of those differentpieces inside there.
And we're excited now to have the women's,
we have Diverse-ability,
which is all the accessibilitygroups inside there.
So our ERGs started offprobably 20 plus years ago

(01:51):
with our Latin American ERG,
and now it has grown into all of these
many beautiful voicesthat come to the table.
In the county we use those voices as
a sounding board a lot of times.
However, for a whilethey were all singular.
And I know a lot of different industries,

(02:13):
they have their ERGs and it's like,
"Look, we have people and they're diverse.
Check mark, here's ERGs."
But what are they doing?
How are they feeding thelife of an organization?
So a few years ago, the county said,
all right, how do we bringall these voices together
to have multiplied impact?
So we have an ERG Council.

(02:33):
The presidents of allof our ERGs meet monthly
and they get together ondifferent initiatives.
One of the things that our team,
so I sit in the Departmentof Human Resources
in the Equity, Diversity,and Inclusion team
that brings an internal lensto all things that we do.
And we get to also sit onother spaces in other things,

(02:55):
such as we get a voice with the council.
And we've helped toassist them in creating
a united internal network,
a quarterly opportunity for mentoring.
It's a passive mentorship,
but they bring in theirleadership and they talk through,
and it's bringing to the20,000 plus individuals
at our county a way of looking at

(03:17):
what it looks like to buildyour journey as a career.
So that's one of thefew things that we do.
- Wow, 11 ERGs.
I feel like we're a baby ERG organization
when I hear that number.
So that's exciting.
I mean, I know thatthere's so much out there
when it comes to reallyhearing the different voices
of your employee population,
and it's been exciting to hear,

(03:37):
just as I've networked withother HR professionals,
the different types of ERGs that exist.
One of the things I thinkthat we all struggle with
when we think about ERGs isincreasing participation.
And I heard somebody recently talk about,
specifically in a women's ERG,
is having representationof everybody in that ERG,
even men, is so important,

(03:59):
because you're talking about inclusivity.
With 11 ERGs, and now almost 12,
how have you really worked on
making sure that there'srobust participation
in each one of those groups
and in the initiatives thatthey want to accomplish?
- So I will say that withCOVID, like many things,
we saw a reduction in participation.
People were scrambling justto cover basic life, right,

(04:22):
figuring out what that looks like
and how to cover their own mental health,
their physical health.
So we're building back up
in a lot of our ERGs at this moment,
but we do have a waythat they've come up with
you can buy into, I guess,or you can join all at once.
So there's an all ERG pass.- Wow.

(04:43):
- Which means if you havetrouble choosing which one
do I wanna participate in,you can do the all ERG pass,
which means what's calling to you,
and each of these mightbe community service,
and there might not bea community service ERG,
but you then join in
to all those opportunitiesthroughout the ERGs,

(05:03):
and it's like a build your own adventure.
And when you feel completely connected,
or you wanna be moreconnected with a group
because they're morein line with the values
that you bring to it,
you can participate a littlebit more in that space.
Or even just say, "Okay, I'mgoing to back this more,"
by becoming a board member,
by going off for an officer's position,

(05:24):
and that sort of thing.
I loved this morning atthat opening session,
I'm not sure if you were in here
or if you got to participate in it,
but Sint from the Mavs wastalking about her expression
and her experience withsitting around having coffee
with a lot of the guyswho are board members
and talking about,"Okay, I see these gaps."
And they came back at it and said,

(05:46):
"We're already full members of these ERGs.
Just because it doesn't say my title
doesn't mean it doesn't speak to me."
And I wish that that was theverbiage around all ERGs.
- It sounds like with themodel that you guys are using,
that you've opened the doorfor a lot of intersectionality
while also supportingindividual goals of ERGs.

(06:10):
And that's an assumption on my part.
Does that seem to be true for you?
- Correct.
The hope is that whereyou see yourself reflected
or where you see yourvalues being modeled,
that's where you're going to participate.
And we're hoping that ERGswill pick up even more
because there's this drawto and for connection

(06:30):
that we're seeing allthroughout our organization,
and from what I hearon different podcasts,
and everything else,belonging is necessary, right?
It's part of the fabric of us as humans,
and ERGs feed into that
in ways that sometimesorganizations just can't.
But what we have at thecounty is a little different.

(06:52):
And that's kind of whatwe're talking about
tomorrow in our talk isour champion network,
that internal network happensin everyday work life.
So our ERGs are nonprofits
that are affiliatedwith the county itself.
So each ERG is its own nonprofit.
And then within inside the county itself
since about 2014 when atask force came together,

(07:16):
they decided there neededto be something more robust.
If we were really going tomove the needle on this,
if we were going to have equity,
well, not at that time,
it was just diversity andinclusion at that time,
if we were going to havediversity and inclusion
really mean something for the county,
it had to be spoken of and through and for
at every level in every space.

(07:36):
And so we had a D&Itask force come together
and they came up with a strategic plan,
and they laid down thefoundational work for the county.
And that did two things.
It opened up the D&I Executive Council,
which gives us more ofthe operational view,
seeing it threaded
at the very highest levelsof our organization.
And they said, "Well, that's not enough.

(07:58):
It needs to come from every direction."
And so what way can we do that?
By identifying departmentalchampions all throughout
and seeing how we can geta united, consistent voice.
And that looks like every department
or office throughout the county,
which is about 60, havedepartmental champions.

(08:19):
And those champions have committees
so that in every division,
ideally people are speakingof the same information
and then support resources go out
so everyone's kind of on the same page
at the same time moving forward.
- So I'm gonna ask a verytactical question next,
'cause as I hear aboutthis, this seems like
there's gonna be a lot ofchange management involved

(08:41):
and a lot of communication.
How do you make surethat all the information
that all your ERGs are doing
can come through thesechampions in a way where
it doesn't get drowned out
or it's not like, "Okay,yeah, there's another thing."
How have you tackled that?
And maybe you're still working through it
'cause I think it's a challenge
we're all experiencing right now.
- Absolutely.

(09:02):
I mean, there's so many layers.
You have benefits, and health,
and all of these different things that
you want people to be awareof it on their plates,
and surveys.
So what we've found is our consistent way
of making sure that it comes through is
A, there's that leadershipcomponent to it,
and B, we've taken out the vetting process

(09:24):
for a lot of the resources that
our champions have to go through.
So in HR we put together aquarterly newsletter digest,
and it has podcasts, andarticles, and videos,
and internal resources thatwe're hoping people will pick up
and utilize for that whole three months,
whatever it's going to look like for them.

(09:44):
They still need to talkwith their leadership,
see what's consistentand on-point for them,
but they don't have to spend the hours
that champions used to searching for
and then getting vetted resources.
They can turn,
they can pivot and put all thattime that they had reserved
into the connection, into thehumanness of what we need,

(10:05):
which creates belonging.
- And what's so great about that is that,
let's be honest, HR iscrafting the message, right?
So you know it's gonna be consistent.
I've heard of that before.
Some people call it newsletters.
We called it internally fora while HR Meting in a Box.
You know, just a really greatresource that you can do.
Now we do a weekly leadership PDF

(10:27):
that has informationthat comes out every week
from our organization.
So I think whatever way thatyou're looking to communicate
having that consistency, reliability,
and really thinking aboutthe different mediums
that you mentioned it, right?
So it's a PDF,
but it's also got podcasts,and videos, and articles.
So the way people are digestinginformation is even diverse

(10:48):
which I think is reallyimportant to think about.
As I wrap up our conversation
and as somebody who hasa robust ERG program
in their organization,
if you were creating ERGfrom scratch right now,
what are the things thatyou would do differently,
or the advice you'd givefor those listening on.

(11:09):
How do I get this started in away that's gonna be impactful
and be able to grow,
and really hear the voice of the employee,
but in a way that's gonnaimpact the business.
You talked about strategy.
Maybe DEIA isn't in their strategy yet,
but you still wanna start an ERG.
What advice do you have for them?
- So the county wentthrough a big re-imagining

(11:30):
the core processes of what we do.
And what I love, and I thinkthis goes out to all this work,
is we put community engagementat the very center of it.
If you aren't talking with those
that you hope will be members
prior to even getting your logoand all the other marketing,
if you don't have theirvoices at the table

(11:50):
then maybe you're just speaking to
your own little friend group.
Pull the people in
and once you get your support network,
you're going to lighten your own load
because somebody's gonna say,
"Oh, I love doing thisand I love doing that."
And you come online with arobust network already in place.
In that network and in that engagement,
it's not just about one groupof people in one sector.

(12:13):
It's who's the leadershipthat you're already gathering
as your sponsor or multiple people
so that they're kind offighting, clamoring over,
"Oh, no, I wanna be their sponsor.
I wanna be their sponsor."
Do it in fun ways.
Get pizza and say, "All right,
if you could imagine having this space
and what kind of events itwould contain, tell me."
And then you just record it all

(12:33):
but in a really fun, relaxed, casual way.
And then it just meldsinto who that ERG is.
You're creating theculture before it exists.
You're creating that culturebefore there's this logo
and this ERG and it's just natural.
The more organic it is,the more sustainable it is.
- I think that's such goodadvice and very practical,

(12:56):
because you might be listening and go,
"Okay, I don't even know where to start."
But then you might know,
oh, hey, I know that there'sthese women that meet
and maybe they got a book club,
or they are helping eachother grow in a different way,
or maybe there's this groupof underrepresented minorities
that you know volunteer in a specific way,
and so you can tap into thatstuff that already exists.

(13:17):
So I really love that advice.
You've got an amazing story
as to what you're doing with the county
and I was just so excitedto take a few minutes
to chat with you and Ican't wait to hear about
what's coming next.
As we wrap up with our conversation,
what are just some last thoughts
that you have for our listeners?
- One other thing that I wouldadd is who's already done it?

(13:41):
Have conversations with people
who've already walked those steps
because not only doyou want your community
that's going to be there with you,
but why reinvent the wheel?
There are people who've done the hard work
and they want to pull you alongside.
So have those conversationsin those spaces as well
so you see those who've gone before,

(14:01):
and you have all of yourpeople there with you,
and then you're just having fun
getting to create connectionall the way through.
- What great advice.
Thank you so much, Holly.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)
- This podcast is broughtto you by Paylocity,
a leading HCM provider thatfrees you from the task of today
so you can focus more onthe promise of tomorrow.

(14:23):
If you'd like to submit a topic
or appear as a guest on a future episode,
email us at pctytalks@paylocity.com.
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