Employee-Resource Groups: The Hidden Assets

How do you effectively reach a market? Ask your own workers. How do you recruit and retain the best employees from a specific group? Get help from your own workers. Verizon Communications tapped a gold mine when it sought help from its 3,800-member black employee-resource group in developing the "Realize" campaign. The 27-year-old Consortium of Information and Telecommunications Executives (CITE) represents 35,000 black employees nationwide and is open to all employees. That large number provides Verizon with a cost-effective way to learn what services its customers want. Jeff McFarland, director of business-marketing communications for Verizon and executive adviser for CITE, notes that employees usually learn about a new campaign after it is developed. The results of such an approach may mean "sometimes seeing folks in ad campaigns who really don't represent your market." For the "Realize" campaign, his group sat at the table in deciding the best way to reach customers. . . . (To continue reading articles or access digital editions of DiversityInc magazine, please login below.)