All About ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) with Sarah Johal and Lori Mihalich-Levin

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi.

00:00:03
Speaker 2: This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: And this is Sarah hart Hunger.

00:00:10
Speaker 3: I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:17
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds.

00:00:19
Speaker 2: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds.

00:00:34
Speaker 4: This is Laura.

00:00:35
Speaker 5: In this episode, which is airing in mid August of twenty twenty three, we're going to be talking ergs.

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Now, some of you might be saying, what is an ERG?

00:00:44
Speaker 5: Well, we are going to get to that with our experts, Sarah Johaal and Laurie mahalick Levin, who has been on the program before, talking about her company, Mindful Return.

00:00:54
Speaker 1: But yes, an.

00:00:55
Speaker 5: ERG employee resource group. Sarah, did you know what an ERG was before?

00:01:00
Speaker 1: For this episode?

00:01:01
Speaker 3: I absolutely had never heard the acronym before. However, when I read the context, I thought like, oh, maybe this is kind of like we have like a physician well, inness group and a physician parenting group at my institution, So maybe theirs are like quasi ergs.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: Quasi ergs, yeah, something like that.

00:01:22
Speaker 5: Well, you know, they point out that they're sort of an evolution like in some companies, it starts as just like an affinity group, like all the people who are this category what I've decided to start doing brown bag lunches together for something. And then in other places it becomes, especially as you get in sort of Fortune five hundred territory, more formalize that these are employee research groups or employee business resource groups or you know, different names that they give to them. I had known about them mostly because it's often the groups who are hiring me to come speak. In many companies, I will be brought in by let's say, the women's employee resource group or whatever, which I'm willing to speak to men as well. I'll put that out there, like, you know, I don't have to only speak to women. I'm happy to come and do productivity in general. But I would say that that is often a group that is at least co sponsoring my talk. These are just extra support for employees who fall in various categories various minority groups or LGBT or women or caregivers or whatever else it happens to be. You know, people who are working in a different country than they happen to be born, and you know they're just You can think of all sorts of different groups where people might want a little bit of extra support or to find people who are like them. Within a larger company, you know it can be done, but poorly, it can be done well. As of anything in a giant corporation, there's probably some where it's just extra work for people and there's no reward for it. There are some where it really like there's a great business case for us because you've gone from say x percent of your people who've gone on maternity leave not coming back to a lower percent because they feel that they're well supported. And of course that's a much more something. It would make a lot more sense for a business to then invest resources in when they see a return like that or return on investment. People hear the phrase ROI being used to this interview as well. There's some corporate jargon that's return on investment ERG is employee resource group. DEI is diversity, equity and inclusion. So we'll put those all out there right at the beginning in case everyone's like, wait, what is this.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: I work for a small company where we don't do.

00:03:31
Speaker 3: This, So I think this will be useful both for those who work at institutions or big corporations that have these groups in place and are totally familiar with them, but also those who don't, because maybe some of the ideas, even if not formal ergs, but some of the ideas from this conversation can be applied in ways that would be helpful for people or might inspire people to start some groups of their own.

00:03:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, and both Laurie and Sarah have started these ergs at place where they have worked, and they will talk a little bit about in some cases it's been quite a battle to start it, and then others they've been compensated for their time. I mean, Laurie talks about at a law firm getting a certain billable hour credit for her work with this employee resource group, which of course is a way to show that it is being honored as work and it's not just like oh great, now we had our high ranking women work extra without compensating them for it. So yeah, there's ways that can be done. Badly, ways it can be done well. Laurie and Sarah are going to be talking about ways that ergs can be done well, so let's go ahead and hear from them well. Sarah, Hurt Hunger and I are delighted to welcome a different Sarah and Laurie to the programs. So Laurie and then Sarah, can you guys introduce yourselves?

00:04:49
Speaker 6: Absolutely? Thanks so much for having us on, Laura. I'm Laurie Mahulic Lovin. I live in Washington, DC with my wonderful husband and two wonderful redheaded boys who are ages ten and twelve. I run a program called Mindful Return that helps new parents transition back to work after parental leave and help employers retain their working parent talents. I wrote a book called Back to Work After Baby. I am a lawyer by training and practice, and I now practice law as my side gig Laura. I'm also happy to talk a little bit more during the podcast about the work that I've done in the employee resource group space around working parenthood, and.

00:05:27
Speaker 7: Thank you, Laura. I'm Sarah Joe Hall, my pronouncer she her. I am the co founder and executive director of Parents and Tech Alliance. We are a national nonprofit that works to create equitable workplaces in tech industry for all working families. We've been around for six and a half years or so and are one of the largest forces in our industry of shaping change.

00:05:49
Speaker 4: For working parents and caregivers. Great to be here with you all.

00:05:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome.

00:05:53
Speaker 5: Well, we wanted to have a little discussion about this whole ERG thing which you first see it and I'm like urging and that what you do with the rowan and so it's obviously an acronym. So maybe for our listeners who aren't in the corporate world necessarily can talk a little bit about what ergs are and how they came to be.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: Laura, do you want to kick off? And I'll go after.

00:06:18
Speaker 6: Absolutely sure, I'll start, and then you can fill in with some specifics around history. So sometimes you'll hear the word affinity group, or sometimes you'll hear ERG Employee resource group. Sometimes you'll hear RG Business resource group. And these groups started off by having groups of employees who all work for the same employer and identified around a single identity or issue, getting together to talk about things that they were facing that were common to everyone in the group, so it would be common to have like black lawyer affinity group at a law firm, for example. Over the past seven years, I've seen a huge increase the number of parent and caregiver related groups, and there are some important distinctions I think between the different types of groups. If you talk about an affinity group, which is where many groups often have gotten their start. Our friend Mary Beth Frante likes to say that they were wine and wine groups. Right, you drink wine and you wine about life. They have progressed over the years into groups that are there designed to support employee retention, to provide resources to them, to give them an opportunity to collaborate with HR for example, and have an avenue to express concerns. And then more recently they've evolved into business resource groups where the goal is to actually advance part of the mission of the employer through the group itself. Sarah over to you to fill in some details.

00:07:46
Speaker 4: That's exactly it.

00:07:47
Speaker 7: And I would even say we started seeing the trend, particularly around parents and caregivers even a little earlier about ten twelve years ago, when we started getting word through the grapevine in our industry, particularly here in Silicon Valley where big tech companies were starting to formalize parents groups, other type of ERG groups as well that were beyond that affinity stage that laur just described. And I have a huge place in my heart for its history of ergs because they started in our tech industry. They came out of the civil rights movement in the late sixties what was then the tech capital of the US, which was Rochester, New York, and Xerox gets claim for creating one of the first ergs for their black tech workers who were trying to advance employment opportunities at that time. So a very long timeline history, but I always loved to give them credit because ergs were here first, not a diversity department or diversity role, it was ergs themselves.

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Speaker 5: And how common are these now that I mean, would most sort of big companies have a handful of ergs or similar type groups.

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Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, I'd say all of the large organizations that I'm aware of have at least some version of these, and even more and more smaller organizations, even down to say ifty or one hundred people are starting to have some groups form depending on the interest level of the people who are engaged.

00:09:19
Speaker 5: Because what's the purpose of I mean, why does the company want to have these or employees want to have them too?

00:09:26
Speaker 7: Absolutely, companies have absolutely seen the roi of having ergs. They know today's job seekers are looking at their career sites, for example, to see are they showing up in how they're telling their story of who they are as a company, how are they recruiting and attracting talent, and what are they doing most importantly when they're through the doors through onboarding, and are they creating that culture of.

00:09:53
Speaker 4: Diversity, inclusion and equity.

00:09:55
Speaker 7: And they're already seeing the benefits of having energies within their organization. I see the increase in retention, They're seeing the increase in wellness and belonging and having their talent be a spokesperson for their company as a great place to work within our organization.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: Because what does like an ERG do?

00:10:17
Speaker 6: Right?

00:10:17
Speaker 5: So if I'm you know, I'm going to work nine o'clock, I'm at my desk and my company happens to have an ERG for let's say working parents, Like, what does that change about my experience?

00:10:31
Speaker 6: Right? So it depends on the organization, Laura, Right, So if I show up at a company where the affinity group or ERG has a once a month brown bag lunch for me to join. That's one thing, and that might be sort of an entree into the world. But then there are other groups that, for example, will convene people. There are others who will bring it outside speakers and facilitate things. There are other groups that will do data collection on areas that intersects with their interests. There will be groups that have advocacy plans with hr with the outside world to advance whatever cause they are working on. There has been I think an increase in cross collaboration between and among ergs lately, so that they can pool resources and connect on ideas that they share. For example, in the post George Floyd area, you saw a lot of collaboration between the black bipod ergs and the parent ergs on how to educate our children to be anti racist, for example. And so there are any number of ways that an ERG can enter your life as an employee, and I think it's really up to the ERG itself to define the mission of the ERG and then to work towards specific goals and to have leadership within the group and to have a succession plan. And these are all things that take time to build up, but ideally you have a really concrete goal for the group.

00:12:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I mean one thing, when I hear this, I'm also like, well, I could see this going not.

00:12:06
Speaker 1: So well in that it's work to run one of these things. And you might have a.

00:12:13
Speaker 5: Situation where people just get tapped to do the leadership for one of these because they fit whatever identity group is.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: But there's no real upside to it for you.

00:12:25
Speaker 5: You know, it's just more work that you are than needing to do because you are that identity. So how do you kind of avoid that being the end result of having one of these?

00:12:39
Speaker 7: That's a great question and one that many ergies and companies are really coming out of crossroads.

00:12:45
Speaker 4: I feel at this point of time.

00:12:47
Speaker 7: To that point, it's so important to outline the roles and responsibilities in a super crystal way, and that is self takes time as they're forging, potentially for the very first time, bringing this specific community together. Internally, that effort can look like how much time are they willing to dedicate outside their day to day role to doing this type of culture and community building, Particularly depending.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: On the size of the organization.

00:13:18
Speaker 7: It might be a global company, and that and of itself is going to take some coordination to do that mapping right. Who is going to be part of the day to day orchestration of this ERG, What does our structure look like, and can we look to other ergs that might exist for inspiration and a blueprint so they don't have to feel like they're starting from scratch necessarily, but really having those guidelines of who does what, how much time is involved. And we're seeing a trend too of having two co leads potentially lead an ERG because of that division of workload and often have a two year term limit so they're not getting burnt out from this work as well.

00:14:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'd love to shime in on that as well, Laura. So I'm a serial founder of these groups. I started one at the Association of American Medical Colleges when I worked there, and then I started one at Denton's, the law firm where I worked. And why did I do it? I did it because I wanted to find my people and because it meant a lot to me to be able to connect with similarly situated folks to advocate for things we needed. We helped to get the breastfeeding rooms set up or the lactation suite set up in the office correctly. Also, I found it personally helpful for business development. I have a mentor who likes to say that the playground is the new golf course, or is it the golf course? You know, the playground is the new golf course, and you know this isn't a playground, but it's a place where parents were convening. And I actually got work from other people. You know, there was a working dad who like just had a baby, and we joined the group when we started talking about our projects and cross pollinated that. I did it because there were things in the policies of the law firm that I was not okay with and wanted to change. But I knew I couldn't do that alone, and so I wanted to make it better for the future of the company. I also hear people say that some of the reasons that they join is that these rgs often give people who are not yet in a senior leadership position an opportunity to develop some leadership skills. And a lot of ergs have an executive sponsor or sponsors that allow the ERG members access to someone who is much higher up in leadership, and so there is absolutely a need to be compensating ERG leaders for the work that they're doing, and Sarah can talk more about that. At the law firm, I was given billable our credit for a certain number of hours I think it was fifty a year or something like that to take on the ERG responsibilities. So I did it because I needed that community.

00:15:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, we're going to talk more about you guys these experience founding these in just a minute when we're back after our break, So quick break here. Well, I am back with Sarah Johal and Laurie Mahallick Levin talking about employee resource groups and the function they can serve at big companies in terms of helping people find their people, maybe giving you access to some leaders who also have that same identity or affinity. So both of you have founded those, and Laurie, you were just talking a little bit about founding them at the various organizations where you've worked.

00:16:27
Speaker 1: Sarah, you also founded one, correct.

00:16:30
Speaker 7: That's right, and like Glorie, a serial founder, a co founder of them, I have started one at almost every single tech startup in my fifteen plus career here in Silicon Valley, primarily a women in business group or a parenting caregiving group.

00:16:44
Speaker 5: So why don't you tell me a little bit about how some of those startup experiences have gone.

00:16:49
Speaker 4: Absolutely the one.

00:16:50
Speaker 7: That pops up in mind was at my time at LYFT at their headquarters in San Francisco and had the opportunity to found its Uplift Parents ERG, and that was right around the time where the company's own diversity, equity and inclusion policies were really starting to come into formation. They hired a very specific role to oversee that strategy and management internally, and I was a new employee. I was only there for maybe about six months when I as a new ish parent. I had a daughter that was maybe around two and a half years old at that time when I started and saw some real warning signs culturally, policy management practices that was not okay for working parents and caregivers, particularly in San Francisco. We are one of the biggest cities with the least amount of children in city footprint. That has an effect and impact on business culture there where many employees were coming to me saying, hey, how does it feel when our workers can bring in their pets, but I bring in my baby and I'm getting the side eye all day long, like, yeah, that's an issue. So quickly created its ERG with the support of its co founders, its HR leadership, and DEI leadership, because they were going to be my partners to actually implement and execute this fully across the company. Fast forward a few months later, we had support a handful of workers that wanted to help bring this mission to life, and one of the first policies we focused on was its paid family leaf and parental leave policy. At that time, there was a lawsuit by JP Morgan who had a father employee and saw in their policy language it was written as primary caregiver versus secondary caregiver, and a lot of that assumption means that that should go to the woman partner involved, and the father at JP Morgan was having issues taking his paternity leave time. That was a real signal to our own legal team, an HR team to say, hey, we should really revisit our own similar language in our policy, make it gender neutral, to remove those assumptions when it's involved, and hey, we can actually do something even better. We were in a very competitive market space for talent and retention against our competition at that time and said, hey.

00:19:14
Speaker 4: They're beating us.

00:19:15
Speaker 7: In the time that we're giving benefits, and to the support of our employees, can we expand that time just so we can be a little bit more competitive, And that's assuming what we were doing as a company. They approved the plan, and we expanded it to eighteen weeks fully paid parental leave, gender neutral leave, and that employees could take advantage that at the very first day of employment. Six months later that went into effect and all of a sudden lift became one of the best places for dads to work, a real, real magnet in attracting talent. And then a couple weeks later, their main competition matched the policy globally as well. To see that ripple set change just from a few of us raising our hands saying I think we can do better.

00:20:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, And Laurie, why don't you go a little bit more into that getting the like you said, the pumping rooms at your employer as a result of your working parent network.

00:20:15
Speaker 1: ERG. Sure.

00:20:17
Speaker 6: So, the first employer where I helped launch a working parent group was moving into a new building and they knew that they needed to create some lactation space and they wanted it to look right and to have the proper amenities, and so the place that the HR Department came when looking around to say who should we consult was was the ERG, and so we were able to review floor plans and space plans and help choose the couch shows and things like that. I was just sitting here smiling because when I got over to the law firm where I kicked off an ERG, the very first thing we tackled was getting rid of the secondary caregiver distinction in the parental lead policy. So I think that is a motivator for some of these groups to get started. The other thing I'll say just that I don't want to forget is one very important lesson I learned in starting the first group and then starting the second. Was the first group I founded alone and only mom showed up. The second group I intentionally founded with a new working dad who was also a partner at the firm, and working dads came to the conversations, And so I think having both mom and dad leadership is so important with these groups.

00:21:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, although then there are also women's affinity groups too that would be absolutely yeah, a separate sort.

00:21:31
Speaker 1: Of thing then as well.

00:21:32
Speaker 5: So I wonder, you know, if we have some listeners who are like well, I'm at a company and I think we might be big enough to support some sort of affinity group or something that maybe HR would want to get involved in and support as an employee resource group. How should they go about starting such a thing, like what would be the best practices there?

00:21:55
Speaker 6: Yeah, you want to kick it off there, and then I'll jump in happy too.

00:21:59
Speaker 7: I always recommend the first place to start is doing an audit and a listening tour of what does that space look like around diversity, equity and inclusion in your own organization today? Are there other ergs that already exist to see what's working what's not working with them? Or if there are zero ergs yet and you truly are starting from scratch, then start to look at how the company has already positioned itself in the space, in the language they're using on their website, even talking to folks in the HR department about how do they look at their vision and strategy and history of treating equity, inclusion diversity.

00:22:46
Speaker 4: Topics within the company.

00:22:48
Speaker 7: Because it's so important to really think about this is not going to be a journey that you're doing in a siloed space or practice. You're going to need those stakeholders to make this a six sets, and so having that input early on and really doing a listening tour first is a great place to start mapping out how you could approach this together.

00:23:12
Speaker 6: Awesome, that's such great advice, Sarah. I have a couple of things I would add. One is to have massive amounts of patience and recognize that you probably need to take some baby steps depending on the size and bureaucracy of the organization. When I first attempted to start one of these groups, I was told in no uncertain terms that the organization had done quote unquote too much for parents already and that they were going to have to wait to launch the group. They said, come back in about a year and maybe by then we'll be ready to do something else for working parents. And so I came back in a year and they said, okay, okay, you can start it now. The other thing that I created was something called the Working Parent Group Network, which is a group of leaders of working parent groups. And I started this because I was recreating the wheel all the time with my own group, and I wanted to connect with other people who are also running their parent and caregiver groups. And so with this working Parent Group network. We have our resource repository. I know Parents and Tech Alliance also has a resource repository, and we have recordings of all the different calls that we've done. One of those recordings is how to start a group and get some real advice from people who have gotten one off the grounds. So I would just say that, you know, I'd invite people to come and listen to those conversations. I also have a blog post that I can send to put with the post something about how to start a gender neutral parent group at your organization that I can share.

00:24:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting to think about what you were talking about. That you needed a man to show up at the beginning to be the sponsor, to show that it wasn't just a women's group, right, that this was something that was open to everyone. But part of being open to the people who meet this definition.

00:24:53
Speaker 7: Right.

00:24:53
Speaker 5: You talk a little bit about this finding your people. I mean, is that how it helps retention and things like that, the the social aspect of it, And I wonder if you could talk just a little bit more about how that mechanism tends to work.

00:25:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:25:07
Speaker 7: I can kick off by saying, many ergs are starting in a place of psychological safety.

00:25:14
Speaker 1: Right.

00:25:15
Speaker 7: We hear that phrase often, and it's true. They're showing up to work every day and likely not seeing folks like themselves in positions of management or leadership or maybe any and being often feeling like they are the other on their team. And that really does come from a grassroots place often with ergs, where they're forming them out of Cammagreie.

00:25:38
Speaker 6: Right.

00:25:39
Speaker 7: They want that feeling of belonging and simply connecting with what you and Laurie were saying is finding your people. It really does tend to start there for sheer support and representation as well.

00:25:55
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then as the groups evolve and become things like business resource groups their brgs. I think that when your identity can intersect with the business goals, then you're having people who are feelings fulfilled because who they are and the things that they're passionate about, even quote unquote on the side, are aligning with their day job. I'm thinking of I was a speaker on a day when UNI leave are kicked off its working parent group and Baby Dove was the sponsor of the event, and the people who are in the working parent group who also worked for Baby Dove were very aligned both in what they wanted to create for their own families, but also the product that they were working on. And so I think you drive retention when you have that camaraderie and when people can connect their own personal goals to the goals of the employer that they're working for.

00:26:45
Speaker 7: I think, just as a place of finding where, kind of going back to the question where do I start at a past company, we thought about storytelling. You know, the moments that we were inspired maybe by our own parents' careers growing up. Started with the memory of our parents taking us to their workplace during the national Take our Kids to Work Day and that was a catalyst for us to say, hey, we've never celebrated that national holiday at our company before. Many others in our space or industry are participating, what could that look like? And when we actually executed that for the first time at our headquarters, we had the co founder come up to us and say, I had no idea we had this many working parents at our company, right, It's just for that transparency and visibility of bringing us together in a real way.

00:27:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then if somebody's thinking about this, like you know personally, what you might get out of it, aside from finding your people or whatever.

00:27:45
Speaker 1: Maybe you could talk a little bit, Laura.

00:27:46
Speaker 5: You were saying that you did business development through it, that there might be exposure to people who are executives, or I mean, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the opportunities that might make this worthwhile for people.

00:28:01
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean I absolutely wrote a lot in every review that I did at the law firm about my work with the ERG, because there were sections of the review that were designed around questions related to how you, as a partner at this firm, support inclusion and belonging and how do you help retain diverse communities, et cetera. I mean, some of the people I am closest to from that time at the firm are from that ERG. Absolutely, it wasn't just business development. I actually worked on client matters across practice groups with people who I never even would have met, let alone had practice groups from somebody from the ERG. When COVID struck, she was in Canada and she got her hands on all these N ninety five masks and she sent them melt with the people in the working Para group. I mean, it was even like the silly practical stuff. We shared baby clothing across the group, and I don't know, it was just sort of woven into the fabric of my day, my life and micro or.

00:29:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, adding to Laurie's comments was making me think of the effort we similarly did to really start tracking the time that ERG leaders were spending at one of our past orgs and kind of going back to that point, this takes real time, blood, sweat, and tears to execute this, and most of us are driven by the passion to help expedite the change in equity that we want to see, and doing that, we were able to negotiate adding ten to fifteen percent of the time that we were spending on ERG work, adding that to our own individual performance reviews as well, so there was a new category of time spent that was going back to the company's r andy out of this.

00:29:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's something that you know, if it's extra, it's going to be hard for people to get behind it. If it's something that is then compensated, as Laurie was talking about getting her fifty billable hours for her work related to it, or however other companies that aren't buildable based. But you know, whatever your internal tracking is of your time that you get credit for firm service hours or whatever. That that makes it a lot more appealing. And it's also a way that a company could show that they actually support it.

00:30:17
Speaker 6: And of course if they don't offer that, then it's like there's the whole uphill battle of having that be the first step of trying to get the organization to compensate and provide and support and whatever, which is what makes all of these things so challenging.

00:30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, check a nag there, but something that other places are doing.

00:30:32
Speaker 5: So if people are listening to this and like, well, I don't want to take on extra work, just know that there are other places that you could get, say twenty percent of your time to lead a company or I mean to lead a big organization or something.

00:30:43
Speaker 1: So you know worth considering.

00:30:45
Speaker 5: Well, Laurie and Sarah, this has been fascinating. Maybe you could just talk real quick about where people can find your organizations if they'd like to learn more.

00:30:55
Speaker 6: Sure, happy to kick off. You can find mindful return at mindforeturn dot com. But you can specifically if you are the leader of a working parent group or the aspiring leader of someone who wants to create a Working Parent Group. Go to mindforereturn dot com, forward slash WPGN which stands for Working Parent Group Network to join the group, and we have an email, userve and monthly calls that you can join. Over to you, Sarah, Yes.

00:31:23
Speaker 7: You can find Parents and Tech Alliance in a few different places. Our website is Parents in Techalliance dot org. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and our membership is free and open to everyone, regardless if you are a caregiver or in the tech industry. Similarly, we offer our members of monthly open distro List newsletter to encourage networking with each other and live virtual meetups together. And we also just released the very first open source ERG compensation tracker and you can find that at bitley it, dot l y, Forward, slash, e RG, fair Pay, and we are tracking all of the companies that have publicly stated that they are now compensating their ERG leadership excellent.

00:32:13
Speaker 5: Well, as you guys know, we always end with a love of the week to be something that you are enjoying. And I have to say we're recording this in summer. I'm really liking popsicles. This is a you know, it just hits the spot some days, you know you want something cold, you want something a little ferdy. This is not ERG related at all, but popsicles are my love of the week.

00:32:39
Speaker 1: Laurie, how about you?

00:32:40
Speaker 6: It's My love of the week is sleepaway summer campus. The very it is the very first time my children are gone for any extended period of time longer than a day or two. And I'm one day five of it, and I'm just really happy with the silence in my house right now.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: It is a great invention, invented exactly Sarah.

00:33:01
Speaker 7: How about you, Oh, Laurie, We're almost there. Sunday start sleep away camp for us as well. The countdown is on, and Laura, similar to you. My vibe is ice cream this summer. That is my happy place. Anytime we can grab ice cream together as a family.

00:33:18
Speaker 1: I think ice cream in the summer is good for you, So you know.

00:33:21
Speaker 6: Yes, it's.

00:33:24
Speaker 5: All right.

00:33:25
Speaker 1: Well, Lauria and Sarah, thanks so much for joining us, Thanks for having us, Thanks so much.

00:33:30
Speaker 5: All right, Well, we were back. We all learned a lot about erg's employee resource groups. So as we are coming up on back to school season here, we're getting our usual questions about it and one that we've been hearing a lot is if you are, you know, packing lunches for camp still or back to school coming up soon?

00:33:48
Speaker 1: What are your favorite lunch supplies for kids? So, Sarah, what are your favorites?

00:33:53
Speaker 3: I just have to share that, Like it's you know, there's certain questions I get asked a lot, and this one comes up weirdly lot and a lot of people. I must not have said it very clearly when we had a prior episode.

00:34:04
Speaker 1: That's what I think.

00:34:05
Speaker 3: It's my fault because they're all like, what was that lunch box you said? And I'm like, okay, I did, so let me be like, what mysterious lunchbox?

00:34:12
Speaker 7: There?

00:34:13
Speaker 1: I say it clearly this time we'll spell it too, Okay.

00:34:15
Speaker 3: So we have used these little metal containers called lunch bots, like a robot, lunch bots, I mean ats. Maybe it is hard to understand that because you're like box bot, what okay, lunchbot?

00:34:27
Speaker 1: Lunch bots? Ok.

00:34:29
Speaker 3: Yes, And we have had some of these boxes probably like a maybe not a decade, but like coming up on a decade now, because like Annabelle uses them in preschool and we put them in the dishwasher and they're pristine like they're metal. They just come out the only problem is that as my kids have grown, they need more food. But it actually works out fine because I put them in like neoprene bags that I just get on Amazon that actually last pretty well as well and go in the washing machine. Laura and I have different feelings on this, but my kids are like, their lunch just get to smell so bad if they can't go on the washing machine, and so it's like a pet peeve for me. I'm like, yep, can't buy it unless it's machine watchable. So neoprene bag, lunch bots thing inside ice packs, and then we can add additional snacks and other food items because at this point, the little metal boxes are enough to hold like most of a lunch, but my bigger kids need some supplements.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but you're going to be buying lunch too this year.

00:35:22
Speaker 6: Uh.

00:35:22
Speaker 3: Comedy, so Adaba makes her own lunch and has suggested that she does not wish to buy lunch next year, and I'm like, that's fine as long as you're making it, that works great. And then Cameron wants to kind of like do half and half, and I think genevieve half and half so I would be happy for them to buy frequently, if not all the time, but that's not what they necessarily want, so we're going to do a mix.

00:35:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, so my older three children by pretty much every day.

00:35:49
Speaker 1: Which turns out not to be all that cheap we have.

00:35:54
Speaker 5: There's obviously the reimburse lunch, which is a set price in the school, but they have ola carte options as well, and like in the high school, some of them are actually like pretty cool ali cart options. So I know that Jasper gets like a big fruit cup every day and it's like one of those deli like strawberry packed type things. But as you can imagine, that adds up. But anyway, this is not a hill I'm going to die on. I'm not putting the budget on the school lunch, so that gets gets refilled a lot. But anyway, the older three, by Alex, is charged with packing his own lunch now that he has eight. The one thing I would say with him is because he's a wee bit of a selective eater, a lot of the stuff that he does eat is more of the packaged variety of stuff. Anyway, Like he'll have a package cheese stick and a package of crackers and you know, a package of yogurt and package of apple sauce. And so given that that what it is, what it is, there's there's not a whole lot of opportunity for anything to smell anyway. So we're just using a regular insulated lunch box that you can put a freezer thing in and that will keep the yogurt and cheese cold until lunch.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: So probably don't have it.

00:37:05
Speaker 3: He's neater than my kids. My kids probably just spill it all on line.

00:37:08
Speaker 5: I be're happy for him to like eat a tuna fish and mustard sandwich, but that's not really happening. So as it is, the pretzels and cheese and you know, apple sauce do not, in fact create a huge smelly mess.

00:37:19
Speaker 1: So there you go.

00:37:22
Speaker 5: One upside of that particular eating variety.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: Your only real packing need then is a block bag. So love it, love it all.

00:37:30
Speaker 6: Right.

00:37:30
Speaker 5: Well, we've been talking ergs with Laura and Sarah in this episode. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:37:39
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram and You.

00:37:47
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

00:37:51
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.

00:37:54
Speaker 2: Please join us next.

00:37:55
Speaker 1: Time for more on making work and life work together

00:38:00
Speaker 2: Out of