Employees take on extra work when they volunteer to lead employee resource groups (ERGs), but they’re often not compensated for it.

That may have started to change in recent years, with more organizations offering compensation—either through cash, equity, or other means—to employees who lead ERGs. A recent report by The Rise Journey, a DE&I consulting group, found that 46% of organizations compensated their ERG leads in some form last year, up from just 6% in 2020.

People leaders at two organizations told HR Brew they see compensation boosting engagement, recruitment, and retention among ERG leads.

Granting equity. Gem, a recruiting software platform, has six ERGs, including groups geared toward Black, Latinx, and LGBTQIA+ employees. ERG co-leads typically spend eight to 10 hours a month on related activities, according to Heather Dunn, Gem’s chief people officer.

Dunn said the idea of compensating ERG leads came up in a discussion with Gem’s chief financial officer shortly after she joined the company in 2021.

“This doesn’t sit right,” Dunn said, describing her thinking at the time. “We’re asking underrepresented folks to do work on behalf of the company, for free.”

She and her team came up with a list of roles and responsibilities employees could expect to take on as ERG leads, including a rough estimate of the hours they’d spend on ERG-related tasks. From there, she got the CEO and CFO to grant $10,000 worth of equity in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs) to each ERG co-lead.

Keep reading here.—CV

Which is…what, exactly? Figuring out what gets employees motivated—and what keeps them around—can feel like a guessing game. But it doesn’t have to.

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Read the report to learn how you can keep top talent comin’ to your org—and get expert advice on how to build and maintain workforce resilience so your employees can thrive.

Tap in for the newest workplace trends.

While disabled US workers have historically had some of the highest unemployment rates, the data shows that the last three years have seen tremendous progress in reducing the community’s unemployment rate. This is largely due to more flexible and remote work.

However, Disability:IN, an organization that aims to increase disability representation across business life cycles, found in its annual Disability Equality Index (DEI) survey that despite progress, disabled talent is still vastly underrepresented.

Overview. The DEI has been released every year since 2015. Some 485 companies with a total of 16.9 million US-based employees participated this year.

While disabled people account for approximately one in four Americans, just 4.5% of hires at participating companies self-identified as disabled (up 0.5% from 2022). But the actual number of disabled employees is likely much higher, since many disabled people are afraid to disclose their disability status to their employer.

Inclusive foundations. The survey found that there are some disability inclusion efforts that the majority of companies report doing. For example, 89% reported having a disability-focused ERG (up 1% from 2022), and 99% said they offer “flexible” work options (96% in 2022). Furthermore, 93% of companies said they have a formal disability accommodation policy.

There are some efforts that Disability:IN tracks that haven’t gained as much traction.

Keep reading here.—KP

A long-awaited law granting workplace accommodations to pregnant workers took effect on June 27, paving the way for workers who are pregnant or have given birth to request a variety of reasonable accommodations from their employers.

Here’s what HR pros should know about that new legislation, as well as recently enacted policies concerning independent contractors, AI, and warehouse-workers’ safety.

PFWA takes effect. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in December, states that employers with 15 or more workers must provide reasonable accommodations to employees who are pregnant, have given birth, or are experiencing related medical conditions, unless such accommodations pose an undue hardship to the employer.

Under the PWFA, pregnant workers may request accommodations such as closer parking, flexible hours, and leave or time off to recover from childbirth, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Law firm Ogletree Deakins recommended employers train their HR departments to recognize potential PWFA accommodation requests, as well as analyze what types of accommodations they could provide to pregnant employees for issues they know currently exist.

Keep reading here.—CV

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Morgan Stanley reported it had spent $308 million on severance-related costs in the second quarter of 2023, after laying off about 3,000 employees. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “I’m confused about how to get a job. You scour Indeed or Handshake. You send in cover letters and don’t hear back. Which of these jobs are really open? You just have to network? But how do you get into a field when you don’t know people yet?”—Dodie Lee Weinberg, a recent Hunter College graduate, on the challenges of finding employment (the New York Times)

Read: Top executives and high earners are the biggest fans of work from home, according to recent research from McKinsey. (the Wall Street Journal)