We are actively working to foster an inclusive culture where employees acknowledge diversity dimensions such as race, gender and sexuality.

To further support Freddie Mac’s emphasis on inclusion, we are leveraging our business resource groups (BRGs) to build a supportive culture while also driving business outcomes. Our 10 BRGs have long been centers of community for affinity groups at the company to further advance our workplace inclusion and diversity goals and support the business.

Creating Allyship and Recognizing Intersectionality

We leverage our BRGs to build a culture of allyship by asking our senior leaders to serve as the executive sponsor for a BRG outside of their specific affinity. Today, a man leads the BRG for women and their allies and a White man leads the BRG for our Black employees and their allies. This approach helps cultivate inclusion as a leadership principle both for the executive sponsor and the BRG members. As a result, BRGs are organically co-sponsoring events that acknowledge intersectionality, the interconnections of various diversity dimensions. These partnerships expand ways in which BRG members engage with not only their affinity, but with others.

Driving Business Outcomes

Since recently evolving from an employee resource group to a business resource group model, Freddie Mac’s BRGs have been at the forefront of solving some of our business and industry challenges. For example, our PRIDE BRG partnered with different Freddie Mac business areas to commission a first-of-its-kind LGBT Housing Study to better understand the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender housing experience in the U.S.  In another example, our Abilities BRG supports our neurodiversity at work efforts by partnering with Human Resources to help onboard and mentor new employees with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they share their talents with the organization and support our housing mission.

Today, nearly half of the company is a member of at least one BRG, and they are making concrete contributions that support the success of their colleagues and the business. This large and committed community has also taken a leadership role in providing allyship to their colleagues while addressing inequalities in the workplace and society at large.