Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast, chats with Hazel Izler, a member of the Booz Allen diversity, equity, and inclusion team leading the firm’s employee resource groups and associated networks. Tune in as they discuss the evolution of employee resource groups, how they create value for employees and the business, and operational best practices.
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with a diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Unstoppable Together podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Brooks, and I'm thrilled today to chat with Hazel Izler. Hazel is a part of Booz Allen's diversity, equity and inclusion team and leads the firm's employee resource groups and networks. Hazel, welcome to the podcast.
Hazel Izler:
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be a part of this impactful podcast series.
Jennie Brooks:
I'm so excited to speak with you today. To get us started, can you just baseline us on what is an employee resource group. What's the difference between some of the varying terminology we hear, business resource groups, networks, affinity groups, et cetera?
Hazel Izler:
Yes, absolutely. Employee resource groups, or ERGs, are employee-led volunteer affinity groups. These groups foster diversity and inclusion within organization and provide a sense of community, belonging in a safe space where employees can share and learn from each other, while supporting and helping each other and inspiring impactful conversations. Majority of companies have established and offer and support groups like this for the employees to engage with, and so does Booz Allen.
Business resource groups, or BRGs, are an evolution from ERGs where the groups not only provide support to employees and foster diversity and inclusion, but are also closely tied to and support the organization's business priorities or strategies.
Networks, on the other hand, are the different groups within the ERGs or BRGs that's directly align with the goals and mission of the group. For example, our firm's military and veterans BRG currently has two networks, the armed services network and the military spouses network.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay, so at Booz Allen, we have both. We have business resource groups and networks. How did we go about making that decision?
Hazel Izler:
Yeah. At Booz Allen, our groups are called business resource groups, again BRGs for short, and this is intentional on why we chose to form our groups as BRGs.
Our groups and their networks aid Booz Allen's commitment to promoting and supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. These groups not only provide support to employees, but also support the business strategies or needs and are integrated closely into the firm's DEI strategy and action plan, supporting various goals of the strategy. The group's own formal plan strategically [inaudible 00:02:56] aspects of the DEI strategy in efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion.
Some of our BRGs also have affiliated networks, as I mentioned with our military and veterans BRG example, and all the groups have an objective to support our growing diverse population, to acknowledge and celebrate intersectionality and help attract and retain a diverse workforce while influencing the business with their diverse perspectives and ideas. These groups engage in networking, learning, volunteering, mentoring and professional development, welcoming all identifying members and allies who seek those meaningful connections at our firm.
Jennie Brooks:
All right. How do the BRGs influence the business? Can you give us an example?
Hazel Izler:
There are many examples, but some of the latest ones include our disabilities BRG providing support through digital accessibility efforts across the firm over the past year. The group has performed accessibility reviews and testing and provided valuable inputs to enhance accessibility for the firm's digital hub, when it was being revamped, and COVID vaccination validation process as well, when it was being implemented.
The group also identified and helped address accessibility issues with our time sheet and time recording tool at the firm. They spearheaded a meaningful, reasonable accommodation effort for vision-impaired employees at the firm. They also procured JAWS Inspect, which is one-of-a-kind accessibility testing tool that is beginning to pilot with a number of technical testing teams at the firm to see if it's a worthwhile investment for our firm to make in the future. This tool would help identify any potential accessibility issues with our firm's platforms in a quick and easy way.
Another example is from our firm's military and veterans BRGs military spouses network, where the group affected an internal firm policy change, where military spouses who have to leave the firm due to their service member spouse's permanent change of station would not be responsible for flexible education benefits, which are tuition reimbursement benefits that the firm provides due to the nature of the life event and in order to support our military spouses through this change.
There are many examples like our BRGs and their associated networks supporting by providing other programmatic feedback and inputs as necessary, proposal efforts as the need arises at the firm, but these are some of the latest ones to name a few.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the how. How do BRGs and networks drive the strategy for DEI? For example, how do they create more equity for our employees?
Hazel Izler:
Booz Allen's global business resource groups directly support people being seen, heard and cared for and use the group's voice to advocate for and support advancing equity. They understand and promote the importance of equity. They help the firm communicate on topics of diversity, equity and inclusion, and the importance it plays in our workforce. Equity is about empowering employees and these groups play a key role in our employees feeling empowered to speak up and use their voice to support one another and thrive in what they do.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay. Can you give us some examples at the employee level, the employee experience, of how that manifests through the BRGs and networks?
Hazel Izler:
Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to the DEI strategy and action plan, when we set up our goals and strategy for that plan, the BRGs use the goals within it to inspire belonging, use our voice to drive the strategy down within their member base. They're constantly speaking up for their groups depending on what... They may see, for example, a policy within the firm that may need a little bit more enhancement or a clarification. They will speak out and talk to those folks who may be helping advance that policy to be able to have a voice at the table on how that should be, whether that's benefits or it could be wellness-related policy. They really come to the table. They keep their eyes and ears open, come to the table to be able to make sure they help advance things on behalf of their constituency and member base.
Jennie Brooks:
The BRGs and networks offer networking, learning, recruiting, professional development. Can you give us some examples of those?
Hazel Izler:
Of course. This may be a long list of examples because there are so many good ones to highlight, but some examples include our women's BRG-hosted conversations for learning and professional development to explore topics around equality for woman. In one event they brought in a global woman's rights expert as a speaker for a learning session. This group also hosted an event where members and employees could come together to network and learn about how to establish boundaries and create balance as a working parent and how to better manage competing priorities.
All of the groups work closely with our firm's diversity recruiting program and needs to help with attracting, hiring and retaining talent at the firm. They partner with the employee referral program to attract talent to join our firm and help fill critical roles at the firm.
Our Asian Pacific American network and the Google Plus BRG is currently sponsoring listening sessions to connect with our employees at a deeper level, to have conversations on the spike of attacks on Asian American women and public safety concerns around it and around the topic of increased conversation in the United States on legislation and policy affecting LGBTQ+ rights. Both these sessions will be open to all employees with intent to create that space to listen, learn, share thoughts, personal stories and experiences with each other.
The African American network hosted professional development conversations with black leaders at the firm to hear from the executives on their career experiences and their lessons learned toward building successful careers.
The GLOBE Plus BRG and the indigenous network held intersectional panel discussions celebrating experiences of employees with both indigenous and LGBTQ+ identities.
Our disabilities BRG has an upcoming wellness event to learn about tactical and practical mindfulness techniques that are easy to learn and quick to apply for our employees.
Our military and veterans BRG supported the employee assistance program counseling sessions for our employees at large following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
As a part of the indigenous network's professional development series, this group is looking to support relationship building among the indigenous community at Booz Allen and kicking off mentoring circles as a informal atmosphere creation to foster that open dialogue about how to navigate your career at Booz Allen and help create that mentor-mentee relationship with others around the firm.
So I named a lot here, but the list goes on and on, and this is only a very minor portion I'm highlighting here.
Jennie Brooks:
Are there trends that you're seeing in feedback coming through those loop through like employee listening sessions, given the journey that we've been on over the last couple years with the pandemic and just the unrest across the nation? Are there sort of common threads that you're seeing come back through the BRGs and networks in terms of what organizations need to consider today?
Hazel Izler:
Our BRGs themselves are now, at this point, trained to be able to hold and guide their own listening sessions. We've been holding a lot of those at the firm, depending on what the topic at hand may be for an impact to that specific member group, and they've been doing a great job supporting their member base with those listening sessions.
Really the common theme, the reason why those listening sessions have been so successful, is sometimes people want to join them just to listen in and learn from each other. Sometimes they want to use that platform to be able to speak up and say how they feel given a specific situation. So that's been really an impactful way for our BRGs themselves to be able to listen and learn from each other and speak up and say what they need to say throughout those conversations.
Jennie Brooks:
And you can hear more about our listening sessions in our episode about why listening matters with our guest, Dr. Malcolm Glover.
What advice do you have for organizations that are at the stage of wanting to start their own business resource groups or networks? How would you advise them to just start?
Hazel Izler:
Yeah. Recommendation for me would be to develop a governance model that all the groups can align from and allow the groups to have their own autonomy for day-to-day operations under that overarching model.
It is okay and good for the group to format themselves differently, as long as they align under the same strategy and move forward together under the same charter and long-term vision, playing by the same rules and processes. For example, all of our groups must have executive sponsors and co-chairs driving the group's mission and goals. However, they can format their committees and their board of supports differently. Let's say if a group wants to launch a new network, there needs to be a business case, mission, key objectives and a plan vetted and authorized by our firm's DEI executive council. This same process would be followed by all the groups.
However, if a group wants to, for example, format their own website, SharePoint site to have slightly different layout, resources and information than the other, or if they want to hold different events for their tribute months versus how other groups formatted their approach, or if they want to focus more on, let's say, professional development and less on one of the other aspects other groups might focus on, they have the full autonomy to do that to meet the needs of their constituency as they see fit. They know the needs of their member base better than anyone else so basically set guidelines and allow room for differentiation for the needs of the different groups and enable and empower the groups to approach operations this way.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay. What about intersectionality? What if you have employees who feel like they don't necessarily fit the description of a given BRG, what would you offer to them? How should they think about participating in these groups?
Hazel Izler:
Our business resource groups are open to and welcome all employees, whether one views themselves as an identifying member or a supporting ally. These groups support intersectionality with their programming, communications outreach and all initiatives, and all efforts are aligned on creating a sense of belonging at the firm while working together. Our BRGs prioritize and spend time connecting with other group groups closely to foster that intersectionality at the firm. There's so much to learn from each of our groups and for those at the firm, I would encourage involvement with these groups in any capacity.
Jennie Brooks:
This might be a difficult question. How do we know that it's working?
Hazel Izler:
Yeah. One of the trends that I've definitely seen is more engagement with these groups, and that definitely tells me that we're going in the right direction.
Currently, we're happy to say that 25% and growing number of employees are a member of at least one business resource group at Booz Allen since we officially stood them up in 2019. This is a reflection of the impact the groups are able to make in support of our employees and the firm. We engage employees throughout the full employee life cycle, from the time they're interviewing or even interning with the firm, to during orientation when they first start with the firm, to their first year and forward. So that engagement we've definitely seen pay off because of the increasing number number, and increasing engagement we're getting in the communications, outreach and events that these groups are putting forth for our employees and the firm.
Jennie Brooks:
Yeah. I was just going to ask you, 25% strikes me as a pretty good number and if you've got that engagement, it does itself affirms the demand for it, the interest in it.
As the operations lead for the BRG and networks, what are some of the best practices and insights you've gained over time, which help them succeed?
Hazel Izler:
As the BRGs are driving their own day-to-day group efforts in support of their membership base, I try to make sure we're always working closely with them to guide, consult and advise with anything they may need. We make sure to have a set cadence for touch bases, meeting monthly as a collective group, where we bring in programs [inaudible 00:16:47] throughout the firm to talk through how the groups can utilize other subject matter experts to get help and guidance and how to use available programs and resources at the firm to better operations efforts and outreach for their own member base.
Also, I have a one-on-one tag-ups with each of them to talk through any questions, next steps, to-dos and any general support items.
Additionally, I make sure to communicate an open-door policy with the groups where any time throughout the day, they can reach out to ask questions, talk through any issues and so on. This way, we're not always waiting for an official on-the-calendar meeting time in order to talk through anything, and we can resolve things quickly and take that next step on whatever the needed action may be.
Additionally, I do send a weekly Friday digest to the groups of things to know, to do, to share and amplify. We are also in the midst of finishing up a guidebook playbook to distribute soon, which will have helpful resources and information the groups can utilize for their operational needs.
Of course, we will continue to evolve our operational tactics as the groups evolve and grow as well. But at a high level, these are examples of some of the practices we've put into place so far.
Jennie Brooks:
Hazel, at the end of every podcast, we give our guests some free space to share their final thoughts. What would you like to leave our audience with today?
Hazel Izler:
Yeah. Thank you.
Industry best practices show that when employee resource groups, or business resource groups in our case, are a key aspect of an organization, employees are more engaged and organizations are more likely to be able to widely support diversity and increase inclusion and equity. Booz Allen's BRGs have done a phenomenal job bringing diverse perspectives to the table and in creating ways to foster belonging and establish meaningful connections while directly supporting business imperatives. They've supported new ways to look at issues and have been a critical resource supporting various different initiatives at the firm.
So I would personally like to thank each one of our firm's global business resource groups and their associated network for the important work they do on behalf of our firm and in support of our employees in helping us to foster and celebrate diversity at our firm and support inclusion and equity efforts.
Jennie Brooks:
Thank you, Hazel.
Hazel Izler:
Thank you.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.