As an employee at a large global company, it can be challenging to find a more intimate cultural niche, and balance wide breadth of backgrounds with a sense of belonging.

We’re proud of our best-in-class employee networks, which are smaller communities within our big General Mills family where employees can find a foothold. Members of our six employee networks (Asian Leader, Black Champions, Hispanic, Women in Leadership, Veterans and Betty’s Family LGBT) support each other and reinforce our culture. We expect members of our management team to serve as leaders and/or executive sponsors of these networks. We also work hard to encourage these groups to build bridges from one group to another, becoming living examples of inclusiveness. In the past, affinity networks had their own leadership days for development and community building, but this year we embarked on our first cohesive Employee Network Summit, where more than 600 employees came to learn and share with each other, engage with leadership, and learn about the company’s new vision around inclusion.

Beyond the invaluable day-to-day benefits of the networks themselves—finding smaller communities of belonging within a large organization—our first Employee Network Summit was a resounding success. 93% of Employee Network Summit attendees left with a greater sense of empathy for colleagues in other employee networks, and 87% left with confirmed belief that senior leaders are committed to Diversity & Inclusion.

James Momon