Guide the WIT group members to create their Vision, Mission, and Pillars for their team charter.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) were newly-introduced at CareRev by the PeopleOps team as “CareNetworks.” Several groups were formed, like Women in Tech (WIT). After their leadership members were elected, their next task was to create their team charter—a document describing their purpose, organization rules and objectives, and operating cadence.
The group enlisted my help to facilitate and help guide the creation of this charter. To begin, they needed to document their Vision, Mission and Pillars. Having previously facilitated workshops with exercises specializing in doing this, I repurposed their format to fit WIT’s needs.
The group consisted of remote employees from various departments and schedules. It was important to make optimal use of their time, and avoid causing any unnecessary meeting overload.
The workshop was scheduled in two 45-minute sessions, one week apart.
The first session consisted of three 15-minute exercises. The group started with clarifying their specific purpose, then moved to create their vision and mission statements.
Ultimately, their discussions focused them on tackling issues of pay gap and gender equity in the workplace for women.
The second session was formatted similarly, with three exercises at 15 minutes each. This time, all exercises were focused on creating the group’s Pillars, or Values. In order to do this, the group needed to pool their ideas, and then reject or adopt the highest-voted ideas.
The result was a set of six values that centered themes of safety, education, evolution, diversity, action, and the advancement of women in tech.
It was an honor to lead this workshop for this CareNetwork, given our shared passions.
Post-workshop, participants felt a new sense of clarity and ownership, highlighting how the workshop helped them make decisions in an agile and inclusive way—an ERG cornerstone.
Statements drafted during the workshop were refined and integrated into the charter by a dedicated volunteer. Despite a company-wide reduction-in-force, the impact of our discussions left a lasting impression on all involved.
