Employee Networks Groups (ENGs)
What did you want to achieve?
Employee Networks groups (ENGs) have existed at Capgemini since 2007, driven locally by passionate colleagues on a voluntary basis. They have grown organically across the Group – forming global networks under four main D&I topic areas: Gender, LGBT+, Disability (including Neurodiversity) and Ethnicity. In 2022, we started a journey to formalise the governance structure and enablement of these voluntary groups as part of building our inclusive culture and empowering diverse teams –to embed them as a core part of our D&I Strategy to shape our future culture.
What did you do?
We have undertaken some simple, but critical activities to formalise employee network groups whilst maintaining their independence to give employees a voice:
- Appointment of a paid Global ENG Lead to support and coordinate network activities at a Group level.
- Allocated budgets to each Global ENG to enable them to directly undertake activities in support of their communities.
- Mapped ENG activities to employee lifecycle value points – to identify and support the positive impact they can have throughout.
- Positioned ENGs at the forefront of our global awareness campaigns – to personalise the topics covered and bring authenticity to our words and actions.
Above all – we have ensured that ENGs are recognised, empowered, and incorporated into our wider D&I and Inclusive Culture strategy. For instance by providing formalised network leadership training with partner Radius, we have ensured any actions requested of them are appropriate for a volunteer group.
What are the results so far?
One result has been the rapid expansion of Employee Network Groups (ENGs), in terms of growth, impact, and volunteer satisfaction. Globally we are seeing more collaboration between different ENGs leading to a richer experience with greater efficiency, and adoption of the ENG concept into new markets to support their people experience.
At a company level, we have evidence that ENG involvement leads to up to 10% higher retention rates and giving our people a platform to voice their input to policies and strategy direction is valued by both our employees and senior leadership.
What have you learned?
Key successes and things we’ve learned:
- Frameworks and direction help elevate volunteers’ intentions from good to great!
- The most effective action is helping people connect, collaborate and share
- Empowering ENGs is a win-win for volunteers and business
- We are still working on improving recognition for our ENG volunteers’ efforts
- We need to remain vigilant against over-fragmenting the population, and ensure that the spaces we create are inclusive and welcoming to everyone.
