The Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at LaunchDarkly are a crucial component to creating supportive, inclusive, community connections for employees with marginalized identities. In addition, they directly align with our company values.
Led voluntarily by employees, ERGs are company-supported & sponsored social groups that gather based on shared characteristics or life experiences that aren’t typically centered in corporate spaces. We currently have groups connecting employees with a range of identities and experiences such as Black and African Diaspora employees, people who are Caregivers, and Queer and Gender Expansive employees among others.
Our commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion is of the utmost importance to us as we strive to do our part in dismantling organizational inequities. We believe that the employees who dedicate extra time on top of their defined roles to become leaders of an ERG group should be rewarded for their additional contributions to creating our inclusive culture.
That's why, as of August 2022, LaunchDarkly has instituted a reward program for all our ERG Leaders in the form of additional equity grants.
Deciding to reward our ERG Leaders was easy. The more complex decision was how to do so. According to a report published by The Rise Journey, only 28% of organizations surveyed were rewarding ERG Leads in 2021 and there was no singular approach to reward types or quantities.
After internally surveying our ERG Leaders at LaunchDarkly, the overwhelming majority noted their preference would be additional company equity, which is how we came to our decision. While we cannot get into the value of these grants, they do not have a vesting cliff and our leaders will be able to see the reward for their extra work at the end of each quarter.
LaunchDarkly could not be the company it is today without the work of our ERG Leads. Rewarding employees for the extra value they contribute should be a minimum expectation for any organization at this point.
