Introducing our Global Inclusion Business Groups

Below is an article originally written by Ben Delk, and published on Life at Expedia blog. Go to Expedia Group's company page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.

Our work of driving inclusion at Expedia Group and designing a more equitable workforce would not be possible without our Inclusion Business Groups (IBGs), a subcategory of our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs—the commonly used industry term), who are specifically dedicated to systemic inclusion of historically excluded identities. These employee-led groups provide spaces for our employees to connect through lived experiences and cultivate a sense of belonging and, furthermore, their charters guide them to empower their members, collaborate across intersectional identities within their communities, and promote allyship to all employees across the company.

It's been an incredibly busy, challenging, and transformative year for nearly every area of our business and industry (understatement of the century). Much like the business, our Global Inclusion Business Group Program is also experiencing a huge transformation. And, given all our recent progress in partnership with our IBGs, we feel that now is an ideal time to reacquaint our customers and partners with our 8 Global Inclusion Business Groups by highlighting the impact they are making within our company.

At Expedia Group, there are eight Inclusion Business Groups: LEAD, ACE, AIM, PRIDE, WELL, BEAM, EVFF, and IDEA.

Global Unification

Together we've taken strides to clearly define the scope of our work with consistent, visionary mission statements and global goals sourced from input of our member chapters across the world. These efforts are driven by the elected Global Boards of each IBG who have recently been established across our global program through a process of unification across all cities, allyship across all IBGs, and partnership with an expanded Inclusion and Diversity team.

Employees celebrated International Women's Day with a sweet treat.

Membership Growth

As a result of organized, centralized, and focused leadership, IBGs have achieved nearly a 50% increase each year for the past 2 years in total global membership with nearly 4,000 employees currently active in 1 or more IBGs. By the end of 2021, we aim to have 1 in 4 employees as members of 1 or more of our IBGs. Allies are both welcome and critical in our effort to grow IBG membership and create equity within our workplace for our underrepresented identities. IBGs directly support Expedia Group's company commitment to creating a company where everyone is able to achieve their greatest potential.

Director of Technology, Emily Vignaux, moderated a panel of employee speakers as part of a Women at Expedia Learning and Leading (WELL) event in the Chicago office.

Leadership Development

Recently, we introduced a new company-wide policy that apportions 10% of our IBG Global Leaders existing allocated time toward leading their IBGs. We firmly believe that time dedicated to Inclusion should be embedded into the business and IBG leaders should not face a choice between their hired role and leading their community. Now, with the support of our Executive team and management, both of those responsibilities have been combined into an integrated contribution toward Expedia Group's success. Soon, we will expand this effort into how our IBG Global Leaders are formally evaluated and promoted through our annual performance review cycles.

We also launched a Leadership Development Series this year in partnership with Radius Networks that delivered a customized curriculum of leadership skills to 150 of our IBG Global and Local Leaders to help them effectively lead their IBGs and advance their careers.

We're committed to helping our employees advance their skills and careers through development learning series.

Lastly, we provide a special annual budget to IBG Global Leaders who seek to learn additional skills through courses or conferences. These leaders are encouraged to select opportunities that enhance their knowledge related to leading their IBG to help them better serve as leaders for their community and our company.

In fact, we are thrilled to share that 60% of our IBG Global Presidents have been promoted—to a more senior role in their respective departments at Expedia Group—within the past year. While we know there were several factors influencing this percentage—at the top of the list being their raw talent and dedication to results—these leaders confirmed that the professional skills gained through their IBG role directly contributed to advancing their careers.

• Global President of LEAD Daniela Veloz presented at a "Leadership Brand" workshop.

• Global Vice President of BEAM Kevin Brown has played a pivotal role in growing the Chicago BEAM community.

Executive Sponsorship

Executive engagement is one of the most critical components of impactful IBGs and an inclusive company. This year we onboarded every member of our Executive Leadership team to guide and support our each of our IBGs. They primarily partner with our IBG Global Leaders to provide strategic guidance, an expanded platform, and executive prioritization based on the global goals the IBGs create. We also designed a Regional Advisor role to support our local IBG chapters around the world.

Global Inclusive Observances

We now have 8 global, official company-wide annual campaigns planned that align to an IBG identity and corresponding cultural observance. These observances are designed to celebrate, empower, and spread awareness of our IBG identities across all of Expedia Group. Each observance aims to accelerate existing global conversations, grow our global IBG membership, and educate our employees about both the contributions of and barriers to underrepresented groups. In June, we celebrated Global Pride in correspondence with many international Pride parades and campaigns.

• Members of ACE celebrate Lunar New Year.

• EVFF member Tyler Jones (right) and his mother proudly served in the U.S. military.

• Members of AIM gather for an IBG meeting.

• Members of BEAM get together for happy hour

• Our Prague employees celebrated PRIDE over a Zoom call with festive backgrounds and filters.

IBG Town Hall

We held our first-ever IBG Town Hall to share details about the refreshed program and introduce our newest IBG, IDEA.

In May, we held our first-ever all-company IBG Town Hall where we brought all these program elements together and introduced the full scope of IBG contributions to all our employees. The event featured nearly all our Executive Leadership team, video clips and stories from IBG leaders around the world, and a panel of our IBG Global Presidents discussing progress and impact. From qualitative verbal feedback and quantitative survey results, the event was a tremendous success, and we are eager to feature the impact our IBGs are having on the company each year through this annual forum.

Ben shared the overview of Expedia Group's IBG Global Goals during the town hall. As a company, we've set these to guide and measure our community impact across the business.

Today and moving forward

Our efforts in engaging our employees and building the future of our company start and end with our IBGs as the heart and soul of our business. Their early contributions over the years have created the foundation and their recent progress has accelerated the efforts of our Inclusion & Diversity Team. They are the original source of our company's journey to full Inclusion and remain one of the most powerful components of the entire program. They will continue to inform how we drive innovative policies, key business decisions, develop the next generation of leadership, and more. IBGs are paramount to the future success of our company.

Meet our IBGs

Following this introduction, we'd like to provide you an expanded opportunity to get to know all our unique IBGs. Over the next year corresponding with our Global Inclusive Observances, we'll (re)introduce you to each of our eight Global Inclusion Business Groups as part of our "Meet our IBGs" Series, in which we'll dive deeper into the people and missions behind our driving force for Inclusion & Diversity. It is our great honor to share their work with you and we invite you to join them as an ally in their pursuits.

Timeline for our IBG Series

Dates	Inclusion Business Group
August 2021	Indigenous Diversity, Expedians & Allies (IDEA)
September 2021	Latinx at Expedia and Allies for Development (LEAD)
November 2021	Expedia Group Veterans Families & Friends (EVFF)
December 2021	Ability Inclusion Movement (AIM)
February 2022	Black Expedia Allied Movement (BEAM)
March 2022	Women at Expedia Group Learning & Leading (WELL)
May 2022	Asian Community at Expedia Group (ACE)
June 2022	Expedia Group LGBTQIA & Allies (PRIDE)

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