Do You Want a
Religious Employee-
Resource Group?
By Barbara Frankel
WHY DO SO FEW COMPANIES HAVE RELIGIOUS EMPLOYEE-RESOURCE GROUPS,
even those on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®? The
answer is clear: They’re scared of polarizing one group against the other,
appearing exclusive instead of inclusive and encouraging an anti-LGBT
backlash. That fear is unnecessary if an inclusive approach is used, as three
companies demonstrate.
Consider this: Of the 352 companies that applied to The 2008
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity survey, only eight have
religious employee-resource groups. We spoke to three of those
companies—Ford Motor Co., Accenture and Toyota Motor North
America (Nos. 27, 38 and 48, respectively, on the DiversityInc Top 50).
They’ll tell you why they started their groups, the opposition they faced
and the best practices they implemented to make them succeed.
