A brand-new year and a fresh chance to start it as you intend to finish it – with vigour, focus and purpose. This month’s Leadership Theme is all about laying the foundations for an impactful 2022 by reviewing, refreshing and confirming your purpose and priorities for the coming year.

Whether you are at the start of your ERG/Network journey or whether you’re leading a mature, well-established one, this is the perfect opportunity to:

• Undertake a holistic review of your ERG/Network – Invest time in clarifying your ERG/Network’s purpose; measuring its progress to date; identifying future priorities which are in alignment with the organisation’s diversity and inclusion strategy and sustainable development goals; and taking a fresh look at its governance structure and stakeholder engagement.
• Create ‘mission moments’ – Whether it’s at every meeting, once a month, once a quarter or sign-posted on your internal sharing sites, it’s important to remember why you are doing what you’re doing. Find a mantra that taps into your personal purpose to encourage you, and others, to continue putting in the time and effort to drive change.
• Celebrate progress and ‘small wins’ – Many ERG/Network leaders share with us their concern that they are not doing enough or making progress quickly enough. We encourage you to remember that an ERG/Network is not designed to be the sole, overall deliverer of change but, instead, the catalyst to change – it is a vehicle, not a service. Our members find reassurance and solidarity in connecting with other leaders in the same boat as them at our peer group learning sessions, do join us and see that you are not alone. #You’redoingitalready 
• Simplify it - Focus on sticking to a short list of well-defined objectives and doing them well rather than spreading yourself or your committee too thin. Take a look at the ways ERGs/Networks are focussing in order to drive cultural change by reading our Great Global Impact Report 2020-2021.
• Humble brag – Share your accomplishments, activities and progress as widely as possible within your organisation and externally. An active and visible ERG/Network will encourage more employees to join, highlight the support that it offers, demonstrate the investment that the organisation is placing on disability inclusion, and position the ERG/Network as an influential vehicle for driving change.

We have some wonderful resources and peer engagement opportunities this month (listed below) to help you get 2022 off to a great start, setting the tone for a purpose-filled, productive year ahead. We look forward to standing by your side. 

January learning & development opportunities

Connect with your peers at one of this month’s peer group learning sessions – these small, interactive one-hour sessions for ERG/Network leaders and those working towards disability inclusion are a great way to share good practice, swap ideas, share challenges and opportunities and build your leadership capabilities.

We have three sessions to choose from:

• Tuesday, 11th January at 09:30 – 10:30 (GMT)
• Wednesday, 19th January at 16:00 – 17:00 (GMT)
• Tuesday, 25th January at 11:00 – 12:00 (GMT)

Creating cultural change and empowering colleagues to build their inner confidence are among the core purposes of a high-performing ERG/Network and our Working Group meetings this month provide a unique platform for ERG/Network leaders to discuss and feed directly into our work in these areas. 

PurpleSpace’s #PurpleLightUp Reference Group, our strategic Working Group that explores how to maximise the impact of #PurpleLightUp to drive cultural change, will meet on Thursday, 20th January. This meeting is open to all and further information can be found here. 

PurpleSpace’s Purple Confidence Think Tank, our strategic Working Group supporting our mission to empower employees with disabilities to build their inner confidence, will meet on Thursday, 27th January. If you are interested in finding out more about our Working Groups, please do get in touch via hello@purplespace.org. 

Further reading & helpful resources

Our extensive Resource Library has a number of resources to support you in embedding this month’s theme, including:

• Ten Point Plan: Designed to help those who are in the process of setting up an ERG/Network (or those thinking about doing so) and serving as a useful reference for more mature ERGs/Networks looking to refresh their structure or activities.
• Annual Review Checklist: Helping you ask the right questions to measure your ERG/Network’s current performance and identify future strategic priorities.
• Working to Purpose: Explaining the role the ERG/Network can fulfil in enabling the business to deliver its disability confident business objectives and helping you to position the ERG/Network as a vehicle for change.
• Strategy on a Page (SOAP): Our tried and tested template to help you create an overarching strategy for your ERG/Network that can be easily communicated and understood.
• Creating purposeful, realistic objectives: Short webinar on how to create purposeful objectives that allow you to measure performance and progress over time.