Faith-Based Employee Resource Groups. This term may be new to you, or it may be something you’re already participating in. Either way, this episode is for you. Christeen Rico is leading the conversation around ERGs, and what she shared in our conversation was both informative and insightful.
If you don’t know, ERGs are groups within companies that foster community and conversation among like-minded people. Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Toyota, and many more are creating these types of groups, so we’re grateful that Christeen dropped by to give us the inside scoop.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking for ways to foster faith-based conversations within your business, Christeen will tell you exactly what it takes to form these groups. Or, if you’re an investor looking to get involved with companies that already have ERGs, Christeen will help you understand why these groups are important and how they add value.
Apart from that, Christeen was also a fun person to spend time with, and we think you’ll find this episode one worth listening to. Enjoy!
Useful Links:
Christeen Rico LinkedIn
Companies with Employee Resource Groups
Work and Faith Workshop
Faith and Work Movement
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry [00:03:04] Here’s a story that I like to share on the road when I go to places like Atlanta and Dallas and Indianapolis. I offer up a rhetorical question of sorts, which is where do you think is the center for the Faith and work movement in the United States right now? And invariably the answer comes back. What’s you know, I don’t know. Dallas, Atlanta. All right. Some places they are. And I say I would humbly submit to you that actually the Center for the Faith and Work Movement in the United States is in Silicon Valley. And it surely has not always been that way. But over the course, the last 12 months, there are new or emerging or resurgent, as in the case of Apple Christian Fellowship, faith based employee resource groups where Christ followers are getting together in community, praying for each other, trained for the companies they work at, and that there is an incredible movement of God going on and some of the most popular technology companies in the world. And that’s something that’s super powerful. And when we look at it a little bit over the last 12 to 18 months and we hear about Apple, Christian Fellowship and what’s going on, a Google on Facebook and Uber and Salesforce and gosh, did we hear that they’re doing praise and worship music and Dropbox. It’s amazing stuff. We look into it. We come back and there are no different players in this space because I’m about to say something is going to make you uncomfortable. But as a means of introducing our guests today, when you come back, you look at the center of it, there is this really humble woman who is in the Apple Store division at Apple that is encouraging a lot of this, not only in her company at Apple, but looking to encourage it in other companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. And that woman, as you might imagine, is Christine Ricoh, today’s guest on the Faith Driven Investor podcast.
Christeen [00:04:44] Hi, Henry. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Henry [00:04:47] We’re honored to have you here. This has been something, again that we’ve been looking forward to for a while. We were talking about this event that you put on just very recently, and I’m eager to hear about it because, you know, as investors, we put our money into different companies and we’re supporting what their product is and what their services. And there’s some companies they’re actually getting really serious about loving on their employees in a more holistic way as some of the companies that maybe you wouldn’t expect. And there’s a movement afoot. And you’re right in the movement, you had this event. Walk us through that. Give us a little bit of context, some framework. What was this event you did? Why’d you do it? What do you see going on here?
Christeen [00:05:29] Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I’d like to tell you more about this event, which was on June 1st. It was called the Work and Faith Workshop. And it was put on by a group of friends who work in different companies here in Silicon Valley who love Jesus and are intentional and living out their faith in all areas of their life, including at work. And we are a part of the formal faith based and play resource groups in our companies. And we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from other employees that work at other companies that don’t have a formal faith based employer resource group yet. And there’s a lot of interest from other employees around, you know what these are? How do they work? How do you get them to form? So on and so forth. And while it’s been great having these one on one conversations with different employees at other companies, God had just put on my heart to put on an event. And let’s share the story, share these best practices and encourage intentional community for folks who are passionate about launching a. More faith based ERG in their company. One thing that really blew my mind actually was for many of the experience faith based employer resource groups. This had leaders that were there. This was the first time that they had publicly shared their story for the intimate Christian Action Network.
[00:06:54] The V.P., who was the strong advocate for establishing in 2009, was one of the speakers and the head of inclusion and diversity who is responsible for establishing all of the IRGC into it at that time was also one of the speakers, and they were thrilled when I invited them because they had not had a chance to publicly share their story in a forum like that before.
Henry [00:07:20] So what is the ERG?
Christeen [00:07:22] Great question. So an employer resource group is a formal employee led affinity group within a company that’s typically housed within the HHR organization of a company and that’s intended to build community and support talent development, talent retention and ultimately positively impact the business. And these employee resource groups can span in supporting different areas of identity. There are a lot of Fortune 500 companies have typically a women employee resource group to support kind of the progression of women in leadership and community building in that area. There are cultural based employee resource groups. A lot of companies have a veterans employee resource group, etc. And increasingly there are more faith based employee resource groups that are forming as well.
Henry [00:08:18] Rowsey that’s a background. You’ve been on a number of these feature of an investor podcast. In addition, of course the work that we’ve been doing for a long time. If you’ve got some background, some experience with the argies.
Rusty [00:08:31] Yeah. It’s not as unusual as maybe some people would think. As Christine just said, they’ve been around for a long time. What is unusual, I think, is companies that have looked as broadly as faith to create an employee resource group and to be open to that and know what my experience has been. That happens in most of those E-R GS actually start because someone is passionate about someone who says, hey, you know, we think we should have a group, a voice, an opportunity to meet and they go forward and they get supported by the company and without someone who is passionate about it. And I’m interested to see, Christine, what you think of this is that we have somebody whose passion for it’s just not going to naturally happen right now. The our first is going to go out one day and go, OK, let’s have a faith based employee resource group who wants to do it? Yeah, it takes someone stepping forward. And, you know, might be interesting, Christine, for you to take us through the history of apples. I know it existed long before you got there, but take us through that history and then talk about how you and others have taken it and pushed it forward.
Christeen [00:09:40] Yeah, absolutely. I would add as well. Just looking at public facing Web sites, for example, there are over 100 Fortune 500 companies based in California. I just took a look at public facing inclusion diversity sites recently as part of this event that we’re hosting and could only find seven out of those one hundred and eighteen or so Fortune 500 companies based in California that mention a faith based employer resource group within their company just to kind of share how may set this trend seems to be.
Henry [00:10:18] And you’re not bright because Apple’s been going on for a while. Talk to see that. But there’s some new ones, right? There’s some momentum.
Christeen [00:10:24] Yes, there is. So from an Apple perspective, Apple’s had employer research groups for about 30 years where one of the older companies here and you’ll see on our Web site even today, we briefly mentioned we had groups such as the accessibility at Apple Group, Amigos at Apple Group, Private Apple, Women at Apple, and then a range of faith based groups.
[00:10:45] And twenty five thousand employees worldwide are involved in one of these diversity groups in one way, shape or form from an Apple Christian Fellowship perspective. There had been an iteration of the formal Apple Christian and Play Resource Group as early as the 90s.
[00:11:03] However, in the later 90s, when the bubble burst here in Silicon Valley, there’s just a lot of change within the company and a lot of the leaders of the Apple Christian Fellowship organization at that time transition to different places. And so there was an effort in the early 2000s, actually after 9/11, when some passionate Christians who were at Apple at that time got this aha moment again and became interested in restarting the Apple Christian Fellowship. And so the current. A has been in existence as early as in the early 2000s and has continued to grow since then.
Rusty [00:11:45] What do you think it works because of its fearless leader? No doubt.
Christeen [00:11:53] I think that like with all employee resource groups, they are employee led.
[00:12:00] So it takes passionate people to continue to drive the programs and be proactive in building community and in creating opportunities for connection. And ultimately, it works because of the company leadership support as well.
[00:12:19] I will say I feel very, very grateful and privileged to work for a company like Apple that supports faith based employee resource groups.
[00:12:29] Again, knowing how few there are that are known and visible today for a company of our size and scale is just it’s a true blessing to work for a company that supports me and bringing my full self to work. And that starts from the very top. And so I think it requires, again, true leadership commitment to the values of creating an inclusive culture and then at the same time, passionate employees who are going to be intentional and living that out.
Henry [00:13:00] So what does it look like? What are you going to do? Do you want speakers to get together and pray with you as a work?
Christeen [00:13:07] And I can speak kind of generally as well, because the other trend here in Silicon Valley is the fact that there’s been a growth of faith and work related events outside of work. So Faith and work movement, dawg. Is an organization that’s been in the Bay Area since 2014 2015 and during that timeframe started to host quarterly events at local churches or other local venues to bring together people of faith from these different companies just to get to know each other.
[00:13:40] And so I’ve been involved in that community as well since the early stages and through there have become friends with the leaders of the Christian Employee Resource Group leaders at the other companies, whether that’s Google or Facebook and Salesforce. And so I think a common trend that you’ll see across these different companies is again, the intentional ongoing recurring opportunities for community, whether that’s through weekly small groups that meet locally in person in different parts of campus or like a monthly virtual conference call that connects Christians from different sites worldwide that people host.
[00:14:19] Or for others, it could be like weekly devotionals that are written by members for members that are shared to global distribution, again, to allow people to feel connected and share stories of faith in the workplace.
[00:14:36] There are also events that are hosted.
[00:14:38] It could range from external speakers like Gary Helgen, for example, who’s the CEO of International Justice Mission, I know has spoken at a number of the different tech companies here in the past, sharing about the great work of the international justice mission does.
[00:14:53] We also would host larger internal events, perhaps, you know, featuring senior leaders or leaders from different levels of the company who will talk openly about what faith, work and leadership looks like for them and think for employees at different levels of the company. Hearing senior leaders talk about the importance of faith in their work and in their life is very inspiring and eye-opening in a culture that generally, you know, the idea of faith that work is not intuitive. There is this general sentiment that faith is a more personal kind of outside of work activity. So putting even those two words together for a lot of people is it’s striking. And so being able to have conversations openly about faith and work and what that looks like is a very unique opportunity. I know for me personally it’s a very unique opportunity because I grew up in a church, I grew up in a Christian context. And at church, you don’t really have a lot of those conversations either.
[00:15:58] So I do think faith based employee resource groups have this unique position to explore very practically what faith and work not just looks like in theory, but practically in your context, what that could look like.
Henry [00:16:14] So are there guidelines that the Human Resources Department gives you about what you can do and what you can’t do about it?
[00:16:20] I don’t know, mass baptism in the film or for campus? Or are there different things that they’ve given you, guidelines that are against the law or against temple policy? Or was it looked like because I think that there’s some amount of our listeners there still on some level. Shock that your Fortune 500 in technology in a place is not thought of as being very friendly to the gospel, is having the senior leaders coming and talking openly about faith, praying about the business and for each other and thinking, well, surely there’s got to be some sort of guardrails, are there?
Christeen [00:16:54] Every company will have its own set of inclusion and diversity goals and policies. So to be a formal employer resource group.
[00:17:04] Yes, there are certain policies and guidelines that you would adhere to. I think a great story which was shared at the working faith workshop that I hosted was that of into it. And they had formalized the Intuit Christian Action Network in the late 2000s, 2009. And so one of the best practices that they had shared as part of that workshop was when they were starting the conversation with H.R..
[00:17:30] They very clearly laid out what the Intuit Christian Action Network is and what it is not.
[00:17:39] And they shared this visual of what it is, is a voluntary open to all who have an interest in Christianity. And it would be open to all Christian employees of all denominations who want to explore how Christian behaviors and beliefs can effectively show up at work and what it is as a group of caring individuals who are available to provide support for fellow employees and what it is not in their approach. It’s not church at work. I think that’s an important idea to explore. So to your point, are we having axioms or what? Not? Not to my knowledge, but that’s also not the goal. Persay. We’re not a replacement for church.
[00:18:23] You know, faith based and fully resource groups ultimately are here, in my opinion, to positively impact the company and to positively impact the culture of the company. And for me, as a Christian, that’s important because I do believe that business matters to God. So I have, because of my Christian faith, a personal incentive to positively impact my company because I do believe it matters.
[00:18:45] And so, you know, I just share that as an example for the Intuit Christian Action Network. This approach of clearly laying out what it is and what it’s not was very important to them in their context.
Rusty [00:18:55] It’s very smart. It’s not lost on me that the Intuit Christian Action Network also stands for. I can reach which who agree. So what advice would you give? I mean, you got done with your workshop, but you only had so many people there. But we’ve got lots of listeners.
Christeen [00:19:13] We had about 70 people there. We have identified their leaders from at least 20 different organizations with potential to start Faith-Based and play resource groups. And we’re going to continue to follow up with them. And we’ve shared all of the resources and the toolkits, the faith and law considerations with everybody, and it’s available on our Web site as well. And so there are conversations about how to take this forward to other cities. This was very much Silicon Valley specific at this stage, and a lot of this was spread through word of mouth. But we are exploring the potential to bring this to other cities with interest in this topic. And I’m sharing a bit more about the workshop in a national Christian Employer Resource Group network that I’m a part of, as well as at the Global Workplace Forum in Manila that I’ll be participating in later this month. Advice that I would give to anybody listening with interest. Perhaps you are at a company and you feel like you’re alone.
[00:20:10] You know, the first part of the toolkit that we shared was prayer and the intentionally, you know, pray that God might connect you with another Christian in your workplace.
[00:20:22] And together you can begin to cast vision for what it might look like to build community in your workplace, because each company is going to have a different flavor. You know, I think it’s not a one size fits all answer. And so I think for anyone listening out there who is working in a company and doesn’t have a formal employer resource group structure yet, I would say, yeah, let’s start with prayer and also feel free to reach out to using the Working Faith Workshop dot com network or the faith and work movement. Dot org network. And through these networks, we’d be happy to help you see if there are any connections we can help you make within your company.
Henry [00:21:04] I want to go ahead. And before we close out, I want to ask you another question. And it’s your interest in entrepreneurship, in promoting it in your home country of the Philippines. I know you’re running a program there. Share with us about what that looks like. What are you doing?
Christeen [00:21:22] I am excited to be back in the Philippines. And God has really captivated me with a vision that’s found in Proverbs 11/10 and in that verse.
[00:21:35] As when the righteous prosper, the city rejoices and when the wicked perish. There are shouts of joy. And what excites me is that vision of what does it look like for the righteous, including those in business, to prosper in such a way that does not just make them selves rejoice, but makes the city and all of those around them rejoice. What does it look like to set right things that are broken in our community and allow for flourishing? And so it’s that vision that has inspired this idea for a dream bigger Manila pitch competition that will be targeted for students ages 12 to 22, so high school through college aged Filipino students.
[00:22:25] And they will be asked to imagine that they have access to the ultimate venture capitalist and they’re asked to dream big and pitch a for profit idea that would radically transform their city in their lifetime.
[00:22:47] The idea here is not yet that it would be entirely viable or feasible, but just to generate these dreams and these ideas and then give them an audience of business and tech leaders from the US and myself and to other colleagues of mine will be joining as the finalists judges at the event that’s going to be held on July 1st, where these students will be able to share their ideas and we will pick first, second and third place winners based on a set of criteria. And there will be scholarships that will be provided to these students in the first place. Teams will also receive ongoing intentional mentorship from myself and other leaders to help them continue to flesh out their idea. I’m hoping this will be the start of a conversation around entrepreneurship for these students. And I’m partnering with local non-profits that are already doing great work in the youth entrepreneurship space. And so I’m hoping this will be an opportunity that will bless them in their continued efforts as well.
Rusty [00:23:48] That’s very cool. We always like to wrap up our episode with pointing back to scripture. And you just talked about what is going on in proverbs there that is moved you, which is moves me to hear that any other scripture that is speaking to you at this point.
Christeen [00:24:02] Many. But I would say one that comes up a lot in the area of faith and work. And I’d like to point people to this is Ephesians 2 10. We are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And it’s this reminder of who God is, who he says I am, and why I do what I do. I think it’s important to keep that top of mind no matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing.
Rusty [00:24:36] That’s awesome. It’s interesting. You’re making a difference in a big way.
Henry [00:24:41] Great inspiration, encouragement and fearlessness with which you pursue the employee resource group at Apple. And then encouraging others out here to do the same leaves us all thinking, all the listeners of this, about what can we do in our workplace? And then also what can we do overseas? Where might we be called to be able to promote the concept of faith in the marketplace? Faith and entrepreneurship. In other countries, too. So thank you for encouraging, inspiring me and Rusty and our listeners. May God bless you in this big event you’ve got going on in Manila soon. Thank you so much.
Rusty [00:25:18] So that was fun, huh?
Henry [00:25:19] It was.
Rusty [00:25:20] You know, she’s an amazing leader who has unbelievable courage and she’s a real pioneer. I mean, she talked a little bit about how this is nice. And it is I mean, that’s sort of a staggering fact, right? When you look at Fortune thousand four hundred fifty that she looked at and see the small number that have employee resource groups. And then probably within that, there’s a smaller group that have faith based resource groups. So it is early days. But I love the reference that you made about what faith driven investors can do. I thought that was really great because I think we use our investment dollars as our voice in lots of other areas. Right. I mean, we have plenty of activist shareholders who are out there about sustainability, you know, social justice, diversity, all that. But why wouldn’t we use our voice for faith? So I thought that was a great thing to put out there. But I would also say that we have people who are listening in who might be entrepreneurs or people inside of other companies that, you know, you could make a difference, too. I mean, you can take what Christine is talking about. And the resources that she described is ones that will post up on the Web site and step forward, you know, and be a part of the movement. And it can be modest. Begin with. I mean, we know these things, we know that this is how things multiply. But I’m reminded that investors are always trying to evaluate the assets of a company. Yeah. Right. ALL Yeah. So we look at capital assets and we look at brand assets and we look at all these different assets and we try to do it. And then we look at human capital and we say, well, what does a human capital assets and how well are they managed and what’s the culture of the company? Well, if we peel back the onion one more layer and there’s a faith based employee resource group in there, know that should give us more confidence that that culture, that company, those human assets are valued or valued or valued in a way that’s brought and invested in the absolute asset. So I think there’s a lot of good lessons in this. And I hope we get to talk to Christine more because it’s people like her who are going to be leading this movement for a long time.
Henry [00:27:29] You know, I agree completely. I love the fact that she’s a young woman who she hasn’t gotten the memo that you shouldn’t be talking about faith and work and you shouldn’t be and taking what you’ve learned at Apple and then sharing it with other people, encouraging more. Yeah. And so there’s kind of a fearlessness about her and a courage that is born of why wouldn’t we do this? Why doesn’t it make sense? And every step along the way where you’d expect there’d be pushback, where human resources said, no, I’m sorry, it’s against policy. It’s not against policy or no, this is against the law. You can’t do this in a publicly traded company. Well, that’s not happening. And it’s takes a courageous young woman that hasn’t been indoctrinated with 30 years of corporate bureaucracy to make her think that she can’t imagine. And she does it and she executes on it. And she’ll tell you if you hear her in different areas, she’ll be the first person tell you she’s not in senior level management. She works in the store division and helps launch the store, I think Mexico City and other places like that. But she just is just out there just holding up her hands. And I’d love to do this. And nobody is saying you can’t do it because you can’t there.
Rusty [00:28:32] And let’s not make light of the fact that it doesn’t always work. Right. It comes with persecution whenever we stand up for our faith in any. There are other forces obviously working against that. And so we read examples of people when they do stand up for their fates. And they get either admonished or pushed down Canada’s pure joy. Yes. And that’s OK. That’s OK. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. But we also should be encouraged by the examples that we heard today that you can step forward and specifically when it’s a group.
[00:29:03] Right. We have a passionate leader like Christy and then a group of people who step forward and say, look, this is what I want to do. I want to participate in the forums that you’ve created for me. And this is just my expression of it. There’ll be a place for that. And so that is really great. Zerwas was.
