ERGs are entering a new era of impact

On 11 June 2026, over 1,200 ERG leaders, executive sponsors, HR practitioners, and inclusion professionals from across the Catalyst Supporter community gathered virtually for ENERGIZE 2026.  

This year's theme, "Activate: ERGs as a Strategic Edge," reflected a shift many organizations are navigating right now: ERGs are no longer being viewed only as community-building spaces. Increasingly, they are being asked to help organizations strengthen trust, support talent outcomes, navigate change, and connect inclusion work to business priorities. 

Across sessions on leadership, governance, measurement, AI, sponsorship, and communication, a clear picture emerged of how ERGs are evolving—and what leaders are wrestling with right now. While every organization is operating in its own context, several themes surfaced again and again throughout ENERGIZE: ERGs are becoming more strategic, more measurable, more accountable, and more essential to how organizations understand employee experience. 

For many organizations, ERGs have long played a critical role in building community, connection, and belonging. That work still matters. But the conversation at ENERGIZE made clear that ERGs are increasingly being asked to do more than create engagement. They are being positioned as strategic partners that can support talent development, leadership pipelines, retention, sponsorship, culture change, and employee listening. 

That shift showed up throughout the program—from sessions focused on ERG credibility and maturity to conversations about executive sponsorship and enterprise impact. The question is no longer simply, How do we keep people engaged? It is, How do ERGs help the organization solve the problems leaders are already trying to solve? 

This is what it means for ERGs to become business infrastructure. They are not replacing formal talent, culture, or business strategies. But when they are aligned, supported, and resourced, they can strengthen those strategies by bringing leaders closer to employee experience and helping organizations understand what is actually happening inside the workforce. 

As expectations rise, ERG leaders and sponsors are being asked to demonstrate value in ways executives can understand and act on. Participation, enthusiasm, and programming volume are no longer enough on their own. Increasingly, leaders want to understand how ERG work contributes to outcomes such as retention, engagement, leadership development, innovation, and organizational trust. 

That does not mean ERGs lack impact. In many cases, the challenge is that impact is happening without a shared language or measurement framework to make it visible. ENERGIZE sessions focused on measurement and value made this distinction clear: the issue is often not the absence of meaningful work, but the absence of clarity around how that work is defined, tracked, and communicated. 

For ERG leaders, this creates both pressure and opportunity. The pressure is obvious —ERGs are being asked to justify their work in increasingly concrete terms. But the opportunity is just as important. When ERGs can articulate their value clearly, they can move from being seen as volunteer-led communities to being recognized as strategic contributors to talent and culture outcomes.

One of the clearest themes at ENERGIZE was not that organizations are abandoning inclusion work. It was that many are rethinking how that work is structured, governed, communicated, and defended. ERGs are now operating in an environment shaped by shifting legal conditions, reputational considerations, cultural scrutiny, and increased pressure to show business relevance. 

That reality connects directly to Catalyst and the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging’s A New Path to Inclusion research, which frames today's environment as one where leaders need clearer, more defensible approaches to advancing fairness and inclusion. The central challenge is not choosing between safety and progress. It is building strategies that can hold up under scrutiny while continuing to support employee trust, workforce performance, and long-term business resilience. 

This is where ERG strategy and inclusion strategy increasingly overlap. ERGs need enough structure to be credible, enough flexibility to respond to employee needs, and enough executive alignment to connect their work to organizational priorities. They also need clear communication so employees understand that shifts in language, governance, or positioning are not necessarily retreats from inclusion. 

For leaders, the message is clear: good intentions are not enough. ERGs need operating models that are clear, consistent, and defensible. They need sponsorship that moves beyond visibility. And they need governance that helps organizations advance inclusion thoughtfully without losing sight of the people the work is meant to support. 

As organizations accelerate AI adoption, navigate culture shifts, and respond to increased scrutiny, trust is becoming one of the most important measures of whether change will succeed. At ENERGIZE, this theme came through especially clearly in the research spotlight on Bridging the Trust Gap: ERGs in the Age of AI, which positioned trust—not technology—as a limiting factor in AI adoption. 

Drawing on Catalyst and Coqual's Convergent Leader model, the session explored how ERGs can play a critical role during moments of transformation. ERGs often serve as trusted communication channels, sources of employee voice, and early indicators of how change is landing across different parts of the workforce. 

This may be one of the most important strategic advantages ERGs offer. They can help organizations see what formal systems often miss: where employees feel heard, where they feel disconnected, where change is creating confusion, and where leaders have an opportunity to respond before trust erodes. 

In that sense, ERGs are not just responding to change. They are becoming part of how organizations manage it.