There’s a lot of companies say they care about ERGs. But if you look closely, what they actually care about is the appearance of ERGs. Programming. Optics. Calendar moments. Just enough movement to check a box.

And that’s the real issue:

You cannot build community in a system that doesn’t value connection.

ERGs aren’t just a DEI thing—they’re a signal of how your company treats employee experience as a whole. So here’s the question that needs to be answered before anything else:

What kind of employee experience is your company trying to build?

Because if your leadership can’t answer that—

Then you’re not building ERGs. You’re just staging them.

You don’t need a culture audit to see what’s really going on.

I’ve worked with hundreds of companies—and the signals are always there if you know what to look for:

They seem small. But they’re not. They tell you everything about whether community is real—or just staged.

Every ERG program sits somewhere on this scale. The problem is when you design like you’re at the “authentic” end, but the environment says otherwise. Your job isn’t to pretend the company is fully bought in. It’s to understand where you actually sit—and build accordingly. That kind of clarity protects your energy, sets realistic expectations, and lets you focus on wins that are possible (not just performative).

If your ERG program is performative, there’s a hard cap on how successful it can be. Employees know when something is just for optics. They can tell when leadership is checking a box versus making a real investment. You can wrap it in beautiful branding and well-written comms, but if the intent isn’t real, it shows. Culture isn’t something you can fake for long—especially in ERGs, where authenticity is the whole point.

And the people who feel this disconnect the most? Your ERG leaders. These are volunteers trying to create real impact inside a system that often doesn’t back them. They’re pouring energy into events, comms, surveys, and engagement strategies—usually in their spare time—with the hope that maybe, just maybe, something shifts. But when the company doesn’t value connection, doesn’t prioritize employee experience, and doesn’t view engagement as a business strategy, the burden quietly shifts onto the ERG leaders to “fix” the culture from the bottom up.

That’s an impossible job—especially for a volunteer. No one should be asked to carry the emotional labor, internal advocacy, and cultural repair of an entire organization without power, pay, or positional support. And no amount of SOPs, Canva flyers, or toolkits will fix that. When the company itself is performative, there’s only so much your ERG program can achieve. You can’t coach your way out of a culture that isn’t aligned. And you can’t expect your ERG leaders to hold up the weight of what leadership refuses to own.

You’re in it. The kind of company that says it supports ERGs, but when you zoom in, it’s all vibes and visuals. No depth, no support, no strategy. Just surface-level gestures and a rotating list of calendar events. But that doesn’t mean all is lost.

It just means you need to stop trying to “fix” the culture—and start playing the long game.

If the company doesn’t care about “engagement,” they probably do care about things like morale, productivity, and retention. That’s your angle.Use your ERGs to quietly gather intel:

This isn’t about making the case for inclusion. It’s about surfacing real signals about employee morale, team health, and internal trust. You’re not just running programming—you’re running diagnostics.

In performative environments, perception is everything.

So get very clear:

What is the minimum viable month or quarter (MVM/MVQ) that your execs expect in order to say this program is “working”?

It might be:

Whatever it is—hit the minimums flawlessly. That’s your survival layer. Then, build quietly in the background for what comes next.

Most people try to “fix” the program from within the performative system. That’s a trap.

Instead, run two parallel strategies:

This one is critical. Don’t let your volunteers take on the weight of culture change alone. In performative programs, leaders often feel like they’re failing—when really, they’re just unsupported.

Your job is to set the bar clearly:

Let them build connection, not carry correction. That’s not their job.

You don’t have to fake belief. You just need to understand where you are.A performative program doesn’t mean failure. It means your success ceiling is capped—for now. So act accordingly:

Hope this helps ✌🏿

Maceo