Companies Drive DEI Engagement with New ERG Tools from WeSpire

Industry leaders including Akamai, Eastman and Sanofi leverage WeSpire’s new digital groups management tools to enhance workplace psychological safety and belonging, empower employee action, and reach DE&I and ESG goals

BOSTON – May 25, 2022 – WeSpire, the leading employee experience platform for ESG initiatives, today announced the general availability of its employee resource groups (ERG) management tools, the most comprehensive offering on the market that provides global companies with holistic, data-driven, digital functionality to foster diversity, equity and inclusion for all employees. Groups management tools within WeSpire’s Inclusive Culture platform enable ERG and HR leaders, as well as executive sponsors, to easily and efficiently manage memberships, participation, resources, and communication within their communities while improving employee engagement, workplace productivity and business outcomes, particularly in alignment with greater ESG goals.

Business leaders and ERG program managers are increasingly challenged to meet and exceed DE&I goals, attract and retain top employees, and effectively measure the success of their employee engagement initiatives while enhancing psychological safety in the workplace. Through modernized functionality that is built with behavior design at its core, WeSpire’s groups management digital tools provide enterprise customers, including Akamai, Eastman and Sanofi, with the resources to listen and respond to the passions and demands of a diverse workforce, share ERG leadership training materials and develop more meaningful cross-company connections.

“With a truly global workforce where over 95% of employees have the option to work remotely, we’ve invested in modernized technology to drive meaningful connections between our employees,” said Khalil Smith, Vice President, Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement at Akamai Technologies, a WeSpire customer that has seen triple the participation in ERGs across its footprint in its first year of beta testing WeSpire’s groups management tools. “Effectively rolling out WeSpire’s tools has enabled us to tie the growth of our ERGs - which now serve thousands of Akamai employees - to broader company inclusion, diversity, and employee engagement goals.”

“To attract and retain the high level of talent required to fuel our growth strategy, we needed to accelerate our digital transformation and ensure we’re delivering what today’s employees expect in the workplace, especially from a large company” said Paula Bulcao, Director, Global Public Affairs, Eastman, a global specialty chemical company. “The power of WeSpire’s software has enabled us to evolve and modernize our CSR strategy by empowering ERG champions to easily run programs and events that improve company culture and employee retention.”

Sanofi, a global healthcare company, has generated tremendous engagement through its newly launched race and ethnicity ERGs; these new but rapidly growing groups have transformed Sanofi’s ability to engage with diverse talent and their allies. “In addition to supporting our employee engagement efforts in a competitive industry, WeSpire’s groups management tools provide us with a one-stop-shop platform to engage our employees through career development initiatives, interview training, leadership resources and communication tools,” said Sini Ngobese, Director of DE&I Initiatives at Sanofi North America.

“Cultivating an inclusive culture is no longer a nice to have for companies – it’s a requirement,” said Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO, WeSpire. “We’re providing companies with the digital tools and resources to reduce the administrative load of managing their groups and communities while meeting employee passions. When ERGs are designed, implemented and measured effectively and aligned with a company’s mission and values, they can be transformative in driving belonging and enhancing the strategic benefits of diversity in the workplace.”

Through ERG management tools on WeSpire’s platform, companies can:

• Enhance communication to and within their communities, responding more effectively to employee needs, requests and ideas.
• Empower ERG leaders, who are frequently volunteers going above and beyond their paid roles, to create and publish targeted activities, post and share resources with group members, and access a library of ready-to-launch events and campaigns, as well as leadership development tools, that can be easily edited and modified.
• Generate insights into critical employee issues and HR data to make more informed decisions and growth and retention.

About WeSpire: WeSpire provides forward-thinking global companies with employee experience technology to empower their champions to design, run, and measure the impact of their purpose-driven employee engagement initiatives. On WeSpire, employees are inspired to participate in sustainability, social impact and giving, wellbeing and inclusive culture programs that improve business performance, ESG outcomes and drive a better working world. To learn more, visit www.wespire.com.