Employee Resource Group Charter Template
Most employee resource groups fail on the questions the charter was supposed to answer: who can join, who pays, who decides, and what the group is allowed to ask for. Settling those in writing at the start is what separates a group that lasts from one that quietly stops meeting after a year.
See the coursesEverything on this page is yours to copy and adapt. The courses cover the decisions behind it: what to charge, what to promise, and what to put in writing.
What yours needs to cover
- ✓ A purpose statement tying the group to something the organization is trying to do
- ✓ Membership rules, including whether allies can join and vote
- ✓ The executive sponsor’s role, written as commitments rather than as a title
- ✓ A budget and what it may be spent on, with an approval route
- ✓ Leadership terms, elections and succession, so the group survives its founder
- ✓ Time allowance: how many working hours members may spend on this, agreed with their managers
- ✓ Measures of success, and how the group reports on them
How to use it
- Agree the purpose with the sponsor before recruiting members, so the group is not later told it is out of scope.
- Settle the time allowance explicitly. Unfunded ERG work is unpaid work, and it falls on the people it is meant to support.
- Write the succession rules while the founders are still enthusiastic.
- Agree what the group can be consulted on, and what it cannot block.
- Review the charter annually against what the group actually did.
Employee Resource Group Charter Template FAQs
What should an ERG charter include?
Purpose, membership, sponsorship, budget, decision rights, leadership terms, a time allowance and measures. The time allowance and the decision rights are the two most often left out and the two that cause the most trouble.
Should ERG leaders be paid or given time?
Give them time at minimum, agreed with their line manager and written into the charter. Some organizations add a stipend. Running an ERG on goodwill alone concentrates unpaid labour on the people the group exists to support.
Can anyone join an ERG?
That is a decision the charter has to make explicitly rather than leave to custom. Many groups are open to allies with membership defined separately from voting rights, and Unit 9 works through the trade-offs.
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