Employee resource groups (ERGs) have experienced booming popularity in recent years.

Four in 10 employers reported having ERGs as of 2021, according to Sequoia, as did 90% of Fortune 500 companies by the end of 2022, per McKinsey. Despite this, many operate without the resources they need to succeed. Underfunding is a pervasive issue: In 2022, 21% of ERGs operated with zero budget, according to DE&I consultancy The Rise Journey, and 17% had a budget of $5,000 to $10,000.

But leadership buy-in can be critical to success, ERG experts have previously told HR Brew.

Here’s how Vanice Hayes, chief people, culture, and inclusion officer at Dell Technologies, found success with her company’s 13 ERGs. At the Workhuman Live conference on April 16, she shared with a room of roughly 100 HR pros how C-suite support helped Dell’s ERGs achieve a 52% participation rate among the company’s 120,000 global employees.

Keep reading here.—MC

Here’s your ticket to where work happens. A land where business blooms, conversation is a piece of cake, and getting work done feels like a walk in the park.

Transport your org to this wonderland with Slack, the AI-powered platform for growing your business. Slack is built to make work simpler and faster. It’s a place where teams can shed the inefficient processes of the past and discover a smarter future that’s powered by trusted AI.

Slack helps teams be more collaborative, innovative, and organized, with features like:

• huddles for quick check-ins
• clips for recording and sharing video
• Slack Connect, so you can work alongside people outside your company, like clients and vendors

With the ability to automate routine tasks and integrate all the apps you rely on, Slack is your work buddy 4 lyfe.

This week, HR management platform HiBob launched Bob Hiring, a new applicant tracking system (ATS) that connects recruiting and hiring to the rest of the HiBob platform.

The new Bob ATS links recruiting and hiring efforts to insights from the Bob Workforce Planning solution, such as sourcing of hire, sourcing channel spend, and target-versus-actual hires. The ATS offering also prioritizes the candidate experience, according to the company.

“Today’s competitive landscape demands a holistic approach to planning, talent acquisition, and human capital management,” HiBob co-founder and CEO Ronni Zehavi said in a press release about the launch. “Having the right people to grow any business is crucial, and with a bounty of job opportunities available, it is becoming more and more difficult to attract, hire, and retain.”

Zoom out. HiBob has taken the idea of streamlining HR solutions seriously and wants to be an all-in-one solution, according to its co-founder. The platform, which HR industry analyst Josh Bersin once referred to as “Instagram on the front end with Workday on the back end,” set out to deliver a “consumer experience” for both the employee and HR professional on the front-end of the platform.

Keep reading here.—AD

All I’m askin’ is for a little respect.

Nearly six decades since Aretha Franklin sang those famous lyrics, they still resonate, especially with employees looking for a little more courtesy in the workplace.

In her 2022 book, Leading Inclusion: Drive Change Your Employees Can See and Feel, Gena Cox urges HR and business leaders to prioritize respect. Cox, an organizational psychologist and founder and CEO of leadership consultancy Feels Human, says respect is foundational to effective DE&I initiatives.

She spoke with HR Brew about how people leaders can encourage respect in the workplace.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s a key takeaway from your book?

I’ve watched HR leaders and business leaders, really with good intention, [try] to do a bunch of stuff, especially in the last four years since George Floyd was killed…But, they tended to, number one, put the cart before the horse, and secondly, emphasize the wrong things…[We] really want good organizations, healthy organizations where everybody can thrive. But, if you just go out and focus on getting more people of color, or hiring chief diversity officers, or doing implicit bias training, what you discover four years later is that the impact has been minimal, and maybe even in some cases negative. You need to start with focusing on the outcome of respect…because respect is a universally valued outcome, but it’s also the outcome that people from underrepresented groups say they want.

Keep reading here.—MC

Great workforce insights begin with great listening. Employee retention doesn’t happen by accident. It happens after you’ve implemented intentional strategies with consistency and you’re using data analytics tools that identify gaps, strengths, and opportunities. Read Increasing Talent Retention Efforts—Even in Times of Economic Disruption to learn more.