Employee resource groups (ERGs) can be integral to helping employees find a sense of community and belonging at an organization, but creating a successful ERG requires clear expectations, meaningful actions, measurable results (aka a change in a company’s benefits, culture, or policies), and feedback from members that they feel seen and heard. We asked our partner companies to share how one of their ERGs is moving the needle for equity at their organization. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the Amazon Women in Engineering (AWE) group at Amazon.com.
Amazon Women in Engineering
Amazon is a multinational technology company focused on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. With close to half of their employee base made up of women, the Amazon Women in Engineering group was one of the first affinity groups founded at the company, as a way for women in tech to network.
Expectation: Their goals
AWE has appointed Single Threaded Leaders (STLs) to keep track of the group's goals:
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For regional chapter support: Increase chapter coverage and calls, including increased communication through outlets like newsletters.
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For global communications: Raise visibility of AWE through onboarding new hire orientations and conducting annual surveys to keep a pulse on what members want and need.
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For external conferences: Create speaker development programs for the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) and the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC), support virtual GHCs around the globe, and improve output yield for GHC hiring.
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For internal conferences: Increase engagement with other internal conferences to ensure speakers are represented and do monthly speaker series on a global level.
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For data: Collaborate across other affinity groups at Amazon to share existing data sources with the intent of being able to share actionable data-driven insights to inform 2023 goals.
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For recruiting: Increase the number of underrepresented candidates and increase the number of outreach events conducted globally by collaborating with AWE chapter members in different regions.
Employee insight
“Amazon Women in Engineering (AWE) chapters organize social and networking events in their communities, and many also participate in K-12 outreach activities. The mission is to build a community that makes Amazon the best place to work for women and nonbinary people. This group plans a variety of events for us, such as tech talks, mentoring, learning circles, book clubs, and discussion panels.
AWE’s organizational tenets include providing the network and professional development for technical women to advance their careers and exposing and interrupting natural biases that affect recruitment, growth, and development. I’ve felt heard by AWE through their welcoming environment for women to connect, and to feel a sense of community, share ideas, and have a voice in our company's success.” —Ashwini Kadarmandalgi, Senior Product Manager
Action: Programming they offer
Recruitment, retention, career development, and mentorship are some of the main pillars of AWE’s programming.
To develop a gender diverse employee base, AWE focuses heavily on recruiting and hiring. To reach their diversity goals, the group coordinates opportunities for women to connect at external conferences, including the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) and Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conferences.
Amazon supports over 57 AWE chapters in their work to create content and build community at the local level. This year in 2022, Amazon will host an AWEsome conference, a three-day virtual event designed to facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, networking, and mentoring between their women and nonbinary employees.
In an effort to help AWE members reach more senior levels at Amazon, group leaders discuss topics such as the “Path to Principal” and “Path to Director,” offering career development guidance and opportunities. Other mentorship activities include a small group facilitated peer mentoring program with 16 cohorts (48 employees) with the purpose of building clear and achievable career paths.
For outreach activities, the group organizes webinars with various colleges and universities around the U.S., offering undergraduate and graduate students exposure to individuals within AWE who explain the different tech roles and elaborate on what it’s like to work at Amazon. Some of the topics that get covered in discussion include challenges in the workplace, what it’s like to be a woman or nonbinary individual in tech, work-life balance, switching technical roles, and more.
Employee insight
“I felt heard by my affinity group when I discovered there was a community associated with the group specifically dedicated to scheduling coffee chats. Women can show on their internal profiles if they are part of the group, and this indicates that they are open to you reaching out to them to find a time to talk. When I first joined Amazon, I really wanted to meet other women, especially to find a mentor. However, I was really nervous about ‘cold-calling.’ Finding out that women at Amazon had already identified this need and paved the way by creating the coffee chat group made me feel heard.” —Katie Joy Knister, Software Dev Engineer, Traffic Engineering
Results: Progress they’ve made
AWE group members all work toward tangible results. Amazon says the biggest achievement that’s come from AWE’s work was improving the company’s parental leave policies a few years ago (circa 2014) in partnership with the benefits team.
Previously, the parental leave policy was minimal (a couple of weeks of leave, stock vests canceled, etc.). AWE members researched what other tech companies were providing and realized that Amazon had been benchmarking their policies against non-tech companies and were subsequently losing women to other tech companies because of the policy.
Now, birthing parents get up to 20 weeks of paid leave, and non-birthing parents have access to six weeks of paid leave. This can be taken continuously or split up within 12 months of a child’s birth or adoption. They also offer “leave share,” which allows Amazon employees to share their parental leave with their partner or spouse.
Additionally, AWE members were able to influence the senior leadership team to include verbiage around “seeking out diverse perspectives” in their “Are Right A Lot” leadership principle, which now reads, “Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.”
Employee insight
“Listening to people is the best way to understand them. I am honored to be a member of the Amazon Women in Engineering affinity group. During one of the women cohort meetings, we were discussing gender bias, which I had never had the opportunity to openly discuss in my career. Amazon provided a forum for me to discuss a previous situation with coworkers. The team listened carefully to my situation and even offered feedback and suggestions on how to handle it in my personal and professional life. I followed the advice given to me and was able to get through the situation and apply it to my daily life. This open dialogue, as well as the sense of being heard, has boosted my confidence and motivated me to share my ideas and thoughts openly.” —Preeti Solanki, Business Intelligence Engineer, Tax Services
Loving how Amazon helps women in tech connect? Learn more about the company’s support for employees, their ratings, and open jobs here.
