DEI is under siege, but ERGs have largely survived

After companies started dissolving DEI initiatives following the 2024 presidential election, and the Justice Department issued guidance suggesting employers stop having employee resource groups (ERGs), many DEI practitioners worried ERGs would disappear.

But they’re seemingly alive and well.

Of the 52 companies in an HR Brew analysis that changed course on their DEI policies between 2024 and 2025, only 11—including Target, Disney, and Pepsi—changed their ERGs. It’s a trend that Maceo Owens, founder and CEO of the ERG Movement, which provides resources and training for ERGs and the employees who run them, has observed as well.

“It’s been busier than ever in the last couple of years,” Owens told HR Brew. “Companies are still investing in their ERG programs…more or less, probably even kept their ERG program budgets the same.”

How ERGs have been faring amid DEI rollbacks. While Owens has seen many companies keep their ERGs in place, some have had leadership changes. Some of the DEI or HR practitioners who oversaw ERG programs, she said, have either left their companies or moved to different positions, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Without proper guidance from these practitioners, Owens said many ERG leaders have been without the resources and support they need to lead their ERGs.

“ERG leaders have seen, probably over time, two, sometimes three, four, or five different program managers, all of them tried a little bit when it comes to making the ERG programs better, but maybe they were laid off. Maybe they switched to a different role,” Owens said. “The confidence from an ERG leader to say, ‘This program is going to get better,’ right now, it’s starting to waver.”

Lumumba Seegars, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, whose research focuses on inequalities and intergroup identities in the workplace, has also seen companies maintain their ERG commitments, though, he told HR Brew, some have moved their ERG programs out of DEI and into HR or employee engagement programs.

Some companies may have made such changes in an effort to tread the line of “what’s safe for the company” and “what makes employees feel safe,” he added. But as a result, he said some ERG leaders have wondered if other changes—such as loss of funding, recognition, prioritization, and visibility—may be on the horizon.

“What I’ve heard a lot of [ERGs] still question: ‘What [do] these name changes mean? Is there still a commitment to it, or are we kind of being pushed to the side?’” Seegars said, later adding how “some people want to be really visible to show, ‘Hey, look, we really promote this.’ Some people want to be less visible, because they don’t want to be targeted.”

How HR could do better with ERGs. HR can’t just set and forget an ERG program, Owens said, pointing to her three Ps of ERGs: purpose, process, and programming. HR should define the ERG program’s purpose and how it plans to grow and develop, she said, before creating a handbook that defines the ERGs process and goals. Programming needs to go beyond Slack channels and activities, she added, and include training leaders in group communication and facilitation.

Seegar said he’s seen companies, even before DEI rollbacks, bounce between having ERGs focus on putting the business or employees first. Some companies are more “explicit” with ERGs needing to prove ROI, often calling them business resource groups (BRGs), he added.

But most companies want there to be shared benefits for the employee and the business outlook, Seegars said, like one of the more obvious benefits of ERGs: “If you have employees who feel like they’re thriving, employees who feel more included, they’re more likely to want to stay there, the more likely to want to be engaged with the organization,” he said. “There’s definitely a return to the business.”

Since starting the ERG Movement in 2023, Owens said she’s framed ERG programs as an employee engagement priority, rather than a DEI initiative.

“Seeing the connection between ERGs and [employee engagement] has always been very clear and simple to understand and to explain to executives,” Owens said. “Everyone else, because you’re kind of trying to grasp at straws on the purpose of your program, when if you had a clear purpose, it actually makes it really, really easy to explain the benefits.”

There are also scenarios in which employees may feel ostracized or marginalized within ERGs, Seegars said. Employees who belong to an Asian American or Pacific Islander (AAPI) ERG, for example, may have various backgrounds and experiences. When HR and ERGs leaders understand the nuances that can exist, it can help inform their programming.

“As an organization tries to help their employees be able to thrive, you have to understand that everybody may have different challenges, but for some groups, there may be unique challenges,” Seegars said. “ERGs are about helping to celebrate and helping people to come together, to be able to feel better and to perform better in the workplace.”