Listen to the Latest Podcast Episode
Episode 13: 5 Free Career Tools That Help You Find a Job Faster with Lauren McGoodwin
0:00
43:34

Why You Should Start a Women’s Club at Your Company (+ How to Do It)

Is there an inclusive women's club or organization at your company? If not, maybe you're the one who should start a women's committee at work. Here's how to do it.

We all grew up alongside one of the greatest women's groups of all time, whether through books or television. 
This particular women’s committee created a safe space for young, entrepreneurial women to pave the formative road to their careers. The women’s club I am talking about, of course, is The Baby-Sitter’s Club.
I’m not even joking. The Baby-Sitter’s Club, a book series written by Ann M. Martin between the years of 1986 and 2000, sold over 176 million books. These books were made into television shows and movies, inspiring several generations of young girls to lean in before they even knew what leaning in was. The Baby-Sitters left such an impact that Netflix revived the entrepreneurial tales of Dawn, Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Claudia. 

Table of Contents

Fast forward about a decade—or two...Nowadays, many of the top career fields are still dominated by men. Though not always intentional, these boys' club atmospheres can regularly alienate women in the workplace. If you're a woman of color, the intersectionality problem is even worse. 
What to do? Do what Kristy, Mary Ann, Claudia, Dawn, and Stacey did back in 1986. Start your own group. Create a place to discuss specific topic, share valuable resources, and work towards real equity. 

The Risks of Starting an Affinity Group at Work

Before we get into it, *sigh*, we have to address the elephant in the room. With every attempt to elevate and diversify comes pushback, which is why everyone needs to take care when structuring affinity groups. 
These groups are also commonly called ERGs or employer-recognized groups. When starting an ERG or any other type of group, everyone involved needs to address the possibility of discrimination concerns. While your idea of a women's empowerment group or LGBTQIA+ group comes from a pure place, prepare for others to feel differently.
It's widely recognized that the benefits of ERGs are well worth the effort. Some of the benefits include attracting a more diverse pool of candidates, better retention, and increased employee morale. 
If you're looking to start the first affinity group at work, you'll work closely with leadership, following some of these protective guidelines:
  • Leadership needs a unified position on affinity groups. If one is permissible, others should be, too. 
  • Every affinity group should have a manager-level representative who oversees goals and initiatives. 
  • Organizations with affinity groups should also provide anti-discrimination and implicit bias training to all employees. 
  • Each ERG should have a dedicated application process and mission statement to clarify the work they intend to do. 
Women's Club

Why Are Workplace Groups Important?

Women’s clubs, affinity groups, and ERGs are hugely important for many reasons. They help groups of people work together through issues and pain points that uniquely affect them. 
For women, these include questions like:
  • Want to start a family and continue your track to CEO?
  • Do you feel spoken over in most meetings?
  • Do you fear resistance and even the dreaded b-word when you take the chance to assert yourself?
Like it or not, these are still hot-button issues in virtually every workplace. Couple with that with the fact that industries, like technology, are still overrun with men, you can immediately see a need for a women’s committee at every workplace.
Everyone needs (and deserves!) a space—not to gripe about these issues—but to resolve them together. 
In addition, a women’s network is a great place to foster an environment of learning and mentorship across disciplines. For example, if you are a social media manager looking to learn from the project marketing manager, the women’s club may be the perfect place to connect with her.
Women's Club

How to Start a Women's Club or Other Affinity Group at Work 

When starting an affinity group or club at work, take these steps to get the ball rolling while keeping everything as inclusive as possible every step of the way. If you're looking to start an official group with funding, there will be more formalities to starting your group, including inviting one or more folks in leadership positions to oversee the group. 

1. Test the Waters

Before going full-on with your women’s committee, get feedback from your team. Is there an interest in forming a women’s club? Will the women on your team actually show up? Caitlin Reyda, a mechanical engineer at Formlabs, noticed the existing women’s club at her company had become a little...inactive.
Recognizing the need to engage the few female engineers on her team, Caitlin restarted a weekly "women in tech" lunch. This gave the women across different engineering teams a safe space to talk about professional growth, development, and ongoing projects. These weekly lunches yielded many positive results, including a "women in leadership speaker" series. Beyond that, invaluable bonds were formed and strengthened. 
Once you have established that there is an interest in a women’s group (in Caitlin’s case, a male engineer respectfully requested to join a meeting to gain insight) you can choose to receive company funding. Funding can be great, opening your group and its attendees to opportunities. You can book meeting space, attend special events, expense meals for group meetings, and benefit from your workplace's resources. 
However, funding usually also requires a dedicated agenda for each meeting, ground rules, and other company-directed guidelines.
When starting and expanding your club, you may remain independent from company funding to keep it free of a targeted agenda. We'll explore this direction later in the article. 

2. Approach HR or C-Level With Your Ideas

Once you have an interested group of committee members, you will want to carve out core values, clear goals, and objectives for your club. Write a detailed mission statement outlining your group’s purpose and take it to the next level.
Present your ideas and goals to HR or C-level executives. They will be crucial in empowering your women's committee to get funding and other resources to thrive.  As mentioned, you can choose to remain unfunded and “unofficial.” However, seeking funding will help your club access more resources, including women-centric events and advanced educational opportunities.
In addition to getting initial approval from HR or C-level executives, you might ask a senior-level executive to chair the committee. Having an executive involved at a high level can help your committee align with the entire company's overall goals. In addition, this is an opportunity to foster mentorships within the committee itself. Take advantage.
Women's Club

What Do These Committees Actually Get Done?

Surprisingly enough, sometimes the most resistant people to starting a women’s committee are… women. There can be a negative perception that women’s committees are an excuse to get together and gripe about work. Umm, wrong.
Rebecca Spitzer of Ellevate sees the benefits of these women-centric communities every day. Providing a space to share is just the beginning. Workplace women’s committees often empower huge human resources and company-wide change.  In addition, women are twice as likely as men to start these “non-promotable” committees or events. That’s a lot of females stepping up to learn more and empower their future!
In speaking with several women’s committee leaders and members, I have learned that they have had huge contributions to their companies. Among the many contributions:
Of course, your women’s committee doesn’t have to be all business, all the time.
Kaye Yoon, the founder of Women’s Circle at her company, sources ideas for monthly tutorials from all members. Each month, by vote, one member will showcase a particular skill set to share with the women’s group, which is funded by the company.
These skill sets could either have a quick effect on improving current projects or pique interest for future individual growth. These have included Microsoft Excel tutorials, intro to SQL training, and an amazing slide deck on skincare (if you want that slide deck, you’d have to join the club or email Kaye).

Starting a Remote Women's Club 

If you're thinking, "Yeah, sounds great, but our company is remote," well, that's even more of a reason to start a women's club at your organization. 
Forming committees or clubs is a great way to forge human connections and share personal experiences with your colleagues—especially when you're working remotely. It gives you touchpoints with your coworkers that you wouldn't have otherwise. If you're skeptical about a women's committee (or any committee) "working" at your company, we have a three-pronged argument:
  • Argument One: Your meetings will be from the comfort of your own home
  • Argument Two: You can make connections with women from other departments or those who you might not regularly interface with
  • Argument Three: You can attend the meetings in sweatpants
As remote work becomes increasingly prominent, we are all making adjustments to take the IRL elements of work into a digital atmosphere. Go for it!  
Women's Club

What To Do When Affinity Groups are Banned at Your Workplace

Some workplaces do not allow affinity groups. Do those same organizations have a company softball league or bowling team? No comment. 
Lean in a little closer, and we'll tell you something. 
If ERGs are banned, you can still start one. However, all of your meetings, goals, and messaging will need to be done outside of work hours and without workplace resources. This can include your laptop, office internet, office spaces, and other resources provided by your job. 
You can still do the work to uplift and support your colleagues and coworkers. You will simply need to do it off the clock to avoid trouble. Finally, if your company seems to uplift some affinity groups while discouraging others, it might not be the place for you to learn, grow, and uplift others. 
In the wise words of Ann M. Martin in Baby-Sitter’s Club #14, “A positive attitude makes a powerful mind.”

Tags:

You May Also Like

How-to-Say-No-at-Work-+-7-Specific-Examples Image
Work + Life Balance
How to Say No at Work + 7 Specific Examples

Playing the yes-person isn't always right. Read on for the whens, the whys, and the hows of turning people down. Here's how to say "no."

Our-Favorite-No-Fuss-Professional-Makeup-for-Work- Image
Work + Life Balance
Our Favorite No-Fuss Professional Makeup for Work

We're going a little off-script here, but we wanted to profile some of our favorite professional makeup looks, skincare tricks, and beauty products to make us feel clean and professional at work.

How-to-Not-Work-a-9-to-5-Job- Image
Work + Life Balance
How to Not Work a 9 to 5 Job

If you don't want to work the so-called traditional 9 to 5 job, this one is for you. Explore how to escape the 9 to 5 and the 40 hour work week to build a career that works on your schedule.

How-to-Earn-Money-From-Home-With-Transcription-Jobs-+-7-Places-to-Find-Work-Now Image
Work + Life Balance
How to Earn Money From Home With Transcription Jobs + 7 Places to Find Work Now

Transcription jobs are lucrative ways to make extra money, especially if you speak and write in more than one language. Here are the best work-from-home transcription jobs.

Rethinking-Stress:-The-Meaning-of-Good-Stress Image
Work + Life Balance
Rethinking Stress: The Meaning of Good Stress

We all know stress as the root cause of all malaise—in our mind, body, and emotional state. Have you ever considered that some stress might actually be good? Let's explore.

18-Daily-Affirmations-to-Help-You-Overcome-Any-Work-Hurdle Image
Work + Life Balance
18 Daily Affirmations to Help You Overcome Any Work Hurdle

Calm your inner voice with these 18 daily affirmations. Seriously, print them out.

What-to-Do-With-a-Passive-Aggressive-Boss Image
Work + Life Balance
What to Do With a Passive-Aggressive Boss

Does your boss like to make little jabs in a sarcastic tone? If your boss is passive-aggressive, here's how to handle this juvenile behavior at work.

The-Guilty-Pleasures-That-I'm-Not-Guilty-About Image
Work + Life Balance
The Guilty Pleasures That I'm Not Guilty About

Me? Guilty? Never! Let this be the year we get rid of the notion of "guilty pleasures" because we deserve self-care, regardless of its form. Here are a few "guilty pleasures" we don't feel guilty about.

The-Best-Books-About-Toxic-Workplaces Image
Work + Life Balance
The Best Books About Toxic Workplaces

Whether you're looking for advice on working in a toxic environment or you just want to feel a little less alone, here are some of the best books about toxic workplaces.