How PagerDuty Transformed ERG Operations and Enhanced Employee Experience with Chezie

At a Glance

"This new wealth of data has allowed us to identify gaps in employee experiences and to enhance our internal programs, such as mentorship and employee engagement initiatives." - Carmel Ulbrick, Head of Internal ID&E Programs at PagerDuty.

In 2022, PagerDuty sought a way to reduce the administrative burden for its Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders while effectively measuring their impact on business priorities, such as attracting and retaining top talent. Recognizing the immense potential of its ERGs to impact hiring, retention, and employer branding, the company's Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) team sought a more efficient approach to reinvigorate PagerDuty’s ERG program and maximize employee participation.

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Pain Points:

• Managing the day-to-day operations of their ERGs was manual and scattered across different systems.
• Data collection and reporting were inaccurate due to unreliable sources.
• Not having a clear communication process resulted in PagerDuty employees having low visibility of ERG programming.

Since implementing Chezie more than a year ago, PagerDuty has seen exceptional results. The ID&E team centralized all of their ERG programming and processes to enhance efficiency, as well as use the data collected from the platform to identify gaps in the employee experience and drive meaningful engagement.

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Results:

• ERG membership at PagerDuty jumped to 27.3% of the company.
• The introduction of the Chezie platform helped to increase visibility and engagement within our ERG community, cementing ERGs as a strategic driver of the company's culture.
• Reduced administrative workload by introducing automated tasks and integrations with internal systems to save an ERG lead an average of 6 hrs per week.
• Pager duty’s increased access to data enables informed decision-making around further investments in employee experience.

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About PagerDuty

Founded: 2009

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Revenue: $420.7M for FY24

Company Size: 1100+

Number of ERGs: 8

Company Description: PagerDuty is transforming critical work for modern enterprises. The PagerDuty Operations Cloud combines AIOps, Automation, Incident Management, Customer Service Operations and PagerDuty Copilot into a flexible, resilient and scalable platform to increase innovation velocity, grow revenue, reduce cost, and mitigate the risk of operational failure.

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Introduction

All data and quotes are extracted from an interview with Carmel Ulbrick, Head of Internal ID&E Programs at PagerDuty.*

As PagerDuty evolves, its ERG program plays a pivotal role in advancing broader organizational goals, particularly in recruitment, retention, and enhancing the company's global brand. In line with directives from executive leadership, this shift aimed to closely align ERG activities with corporate objectives, ensuring that budget allocations yield tangible returns and further company-wide priorities.

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What are PagerDuty's goals for its ERG program, and which organizational objectives do these goals support?

Our ERGs strategically address three main objectives. Firstly, by prioritizing retention strategies, we significantly cut costs for the company, eliminating the necessity of seeking external leadership candidates and creating a robust internal mobility pipeline of leaders with diverse perspectives. Secondly, we focus on recruiting top global talent to drive faster innovation. Thirdly, we aim to expand our brand and exposure, such as boosting employee brand recognition. When employees post on LinkedIn or speak positively at conferences about their experiences as underrepresented minorities (including veterans and employees with disabilities) at PagerDuty, they help us attract diverse candidates.

Before using Chezie, how were you managing your ERGs?

Our processes were fragmented and manual, with each ERG responsible for managing its initiatives across different systems. We heavily relied on various documents , which made tracking cumbersome and inaccurate. Often, our membership numbers were based on unreliable data sources.

What prompted your exploration of ERG software? What were the top three pain points you faced?

Our main driver was the need for data—I really wanted to quantify the impact of our ID&E Programs and ERG community. Company leadership was also calling for increased operational efficiency, so we really needed to streamline our ERG processes. Additionally, our ERG leaders were starting to get burnt out, so we aimed to standardize and streamline workflows across the board, from budget tracking to event management. We needed a centralized hub; some information lived in a spreadsheet, some on someone's desktop, some in other productsTrello, and we needed everything in one accessible place.

Why did you choose to work with us?

We narrowed down our options to the top two vendors and conducted an RFP via Zoom. Prior to this, we established a set of evaluation criteria focusing on user experience, accuracy of system records, event management, and budget tracking, with each criterion weighted differently. We engaged ERG leads, guiding them on scoring and what to look for from a user's perspective. After the bake-off, we reconvened to discuss and score the presentations, and Chezie was the clear choice.

Before adopting Chezie, PagerDuty faced challenges in managing its ERGs with scattered and manual processes. The challenges were further complicated by having multiple streams of data, with each group working in silos. This lack of coordination and aggregated data made it hard to have visibility into the program-wide impact, hampering their ability to effectively measure and understand the full scope of their efforts. These inefficiencies made it difficult to understand member engagement and align ERG activities with the company’s broader business goals. With company leadership calling for operational efficiency organization-wide, PagerDuty recognized the need for ERG software that could enhance its ERGs and streamline their operational processes effectively.

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Operational Efficiency

PagerDuty realized the need to make their ERGs more efficient at scale. This initiative came from a broader company goal to make better use of their time across all departments. PagerDuty knows ERGs play a huge role in their company, so the ID&E team set on a mission to find a way to scale their ERGs without overwhelming their teams.

Why was increasing the operational efficiency of your ERGs important?

Our company leaders began sharing messages about optimization and efficiency. As a result, all teams within PagerDuty were empowered to focus on high-value tasks and streamline their processes to enhance productivity. The company acknowledged the importance of ERGs to its employees; they were a significant factor in why many people chose to join PagerDuty and why others stayed longer, however, they also aimed to reduce the time spent managing these programs. One of PagerDuty’s key assertions was that investing in a platform capable of handling manual tasks could reduce the time spent on ERGs by 25 to 50% by automating data collection, reporting, event and budget management, and communications.

How has Chezie helped improve your processes?

With everything centralized on Chezie, our teams can quickly find what they need, which reduces the back-and-forth communication and speeds up our operations. The platform's self-service features have empowered ERG leaders to get information without additional assistance, making its processes much more efficient. 

How much time did you and your ERG leaders spend on ERG activities before utilizing Chezie? How much time are you spending now?

Before using Chezie, I spent about 70% of my work week on ERG activities, which has since decreased to around 40%. Ideally, I’d love to get that down to about 25%, where I could spend 25% of my week focused more on strategy and the business use cases for my ERGs, rather than the administrative stuff. 

For our ERG leaders, I don’t have exact data, but from qualitative feedback, they all say that Chezie is making things faster and easier for them. They’ve also realized just how much they were doing on their own and have expanded their leadership teams to delegate tasks. This is creating a more effective leadership structure and helping them share the load more efficiently.

How has the reduced workload affected both you and your ERG leaders?

It has tremendously reduced the number of meetings on my calendar. When we do have meetings, we’re discussing better, more strategic topics. So instead of conversations about logistics and processes, we’re focusing on meaningful programming. We're having really cool conversations about the impact of our events rather than administrative tasks, such as “How do I submit this receipt?”

By adopting Chezie, PagerDuty was able to lighten the administrative burden for ERG leaders and the ID&E team. This allowed them to dedicate more time to strategic and impactful activities, resulting in richer discussions and more purposeful initiatives within their ERGs. By cutting down on manual tasks, PagerDuty's efforts made their ERGs more efficient and in tune with the company's larger goals, proving that focused, smarter workflows can lead to a bigger impact across the organization.

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Data and Reporting

Data has always been crucial to shaping PagerDuty’s company strategy. However, before integrating Chezie, their ERG reporting capabilities were limited mainly to tracking membership numbers. This was hardly enough to gauge the true impact of their ERGs or to make informed decisions on how to scale the program. Without detailed and aggregate data, measuring impact was mostly guesswork, leaving gaps in their understanding of the employee experience.

Why was having access to data crucial for you? What was the driving force behind wanting to measure impact?

Timely access to data enables me to quickly assess what is needed to future-proof our ERGs. In this instance, it was essential to ensure ongoing investment in our ERGs, including sufficient budget and resources, and access to data on our program's impact was the key to doing that. 

How did you collect reports before integrating Chezie, and what kind of data did you report on?

We primarily relied on our Slack channel’s membership counts and event RSVPs to track ERG engagement which often led to inaccurate or duplicative data. It's all we could do because no one was tracking attendance properly - we'd get a certain number of RSVPs, but the actual number of people who showed up was different. This absence of a solid event metrics system left us with an incomplete picture of ERG participation. Without accurate attendance data, we struggled to gauge event success, assess member engagement, or make informed decisions about future initiatives.

What does having the data from Chezie allow you to do?

Having access to accurate real-time ERG data has made a positive impact on how we assess  ERG engagement and employee experience at PagerDuty. Additionally, it has allowed us to justify our budget allocation for ERGs. When leaders request ad hoc tools to support their programs, we can now justify these requests based on member numbers and survey responses. This ability to access data easily is accelerating the progress of our overall strategy.

For the first time, we've merged our Impact, ESG, and diversity reports into one comprehensive document. Now that we have Chezie, we're able to highlight the outcomes that the ERGs are driving in those reports, giving them more visibility to our internal and external stakeholders.

Now, with Chezie’s reporting capabilities, PagerDuty is leveraging ERG insights beyond mere member tracking to influence decisions about employee experience. This new data source empowers them to identify gaps, develop additional internal programs that drive engagement, and incorporate comprehensive ERG data into is impact reporting, showcasing the full impact of their initiatives. Additionally, PagerDuty can quantify ERG program ROI, thus improving ERG management, ensuring fiscally responsible program investments, and future-proofing ERG impact on the company.

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Engagement

Despite strong external branding, ERGs lacked visibility and meaningful engagement internally, limiting their impact once an employee had settled into the company. Operating in silos and driven by a few individuals with limited member involvement, ERGs experienced low and inconsistent participation, significantly affecting their overall effectiveness in the workplace.

What specific challenges did you face with member engagement in ERGs before using Chezie?

ERGs operated independently, with varying levels of structure, and with direction identified by individuals instead of the collective membership base. On top of that, we lacked the capacity to market ERG programs effectively. Consequently, members were not interested, and engagement was low.

How has Chezie helped to improve the member experience?

Chezie has significantly boosted our ERG membership. Initially, we only had about 10% participation, roughly 200 members. With increased visibility, our membership has now jumped to 27.3% of our company engaged in at least one ERG. I had hoped for 15% engagement six months post-launch, but we've surpassed that with 27.3%, and we're still growing.

‍Chezie has also enabled more targeted and meaningful interactions. We now have visibility on where all our members are based. For example, if there’s a specific event relevant to an ERG demographic in Atlanta, we can target those Atlanta members and encourage them to meet up. Chezie enables intentional ways for ERG members to connect that we didn’t have before.

PagerDuty has done an incredible job of transforming its ERGs, using Chezie as a tool to boost membership to an impressive 27.3%. It turned ERGs from isolated groups into thriving, connected communities where members actively participate, share their insights, and align with the company's bigger strategic goals. With Chezie's help, PagerDuty reshaped its ERGs into collaborative spaces that reflect the inclusive culture they’ve been working to create.

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The wrap up

"What I love about Chezie is that the people that see the vision also have a hand in what the future of that vision looks like."

Before implementing Chezie, PagerDuty faced challenges managing ERGs due to fragmented manual processes and unreliable data. Recognizing ERGs' critical role in hiring, retention, and employer branding, the company's ID&E team urgently sought a platform to ensure sustainability and future-proof their program. They needed a solution to streamline processes, facilitate data-driven decisions, and meet evolving company needs.

Opting for Chezie as a strategic partner was a game-changer for the organization. The ID&E team used the platform to centralize ERG activities, streamline workflows, and enhance efficiency. Chezie’s reporting capabilities empowered PagerDuty to align ERG initiatives with broader business goals, elevating their impact and securing a sustainable future for ERGs within the company.

PagerDuty has been able to significantly increase ERG engagement and visibility, with membership surging to 27.3%. In collaboration with Chezie, PagerDuty now has the tools to facilitate meaningful and targeted engagement, streamline processes, and ensure ERGs continue to contribute to the company's objectives.

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If you’re ready to see how Chezie can transform your organization’s ERGs as it did for PagerDuty, book a demo with us today! Learn how our flexible platform can be the missing piece your ERGs have been looking for.