Marisa Grimes

expert panel

Even today – perhaps even more so today – it’s not uncommon for colleagues to question or criticize DEI initiatives. Sometimes, that pushback comes from fellow executives or influential department heads. How confident you are as a DEI leader in navigating conversations with DEI skeptics has a lot to do with two key factors: 1. how well you’ve quantified DEI’s impact on your organization’s strategic objectives and 2. how much support you have from the CEO. We asked members of the Senior Executive DEI Think Tank – a criteria-based organization for DEI decision-makers at large companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies – to share their playbooks for responding to DEI pushback from internal sources. Consider the following.

expert panel

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are notoriously under-resourced – often treated as more of an employee perk than a strategic business driver worth investing in. It’s up to DEI leaders to secure more funding for ERGs, a challenge requiring deliberative planning and clear outcomes. How much should you engage ERG leaders to make specific budget requests for their individual groups? Must every ERG initiative align neatly with organizational goals? How will you demonstrate ROI? Should you compensate ERG leaders for their time? (Yes.) We asked members of the Senior Executive DEI Think Tank – a criteria-based organization for DEI decision-makers at large companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies – to share their best practices for securing and making the most of financial resources for their employee resource groups. Here’s what they had to say.