Building a Workplace of Belonging

Employee-led resource and affinity groups bring colleagues together

A collage of employee group activities.
Events by group such as, from left to right, DICE, ¡DALHE!, the Special Events Planners Council and ME2, help Duke staff and faculty build connections.

When diagnosed as autistic at 27, Zachary Tumlin felt relief.

The news answered questions about the different ways he connected with others.

But he still felt uneasy about moving forward in a world that often misunderstands neurodivergent people.

“The diagnosis is typically thought of as the end of the journey, but it’s actually the beginning of another,” said Tumlin, a David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Project Archivist.

Arriving at Duke in 2022, Tumlin, 36, sought a community of people with similar perspectives.

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Encouraged by leaders at Duke, Tumlin helped launch the Disability Inclusion & Community Empowerment Affinity Group (DICE) in 2024.

The group gives disabled employees and their allies a space where they feel valued, supported and empowered.

DICE is one of 17 official Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) or Affinity Groups at Duke. Groups represent mothers, LGBTQ+ employees and allies, military veterans, remote workers, and others, promoting inclusion while fostering connections among colleagues and the wider community.

Zachary Tumlin, a leader of Duke’s Disability Inclusion & Community Empowerment (DICE) Affinity Group, speaks at DICE’s inaugural event in 2024. Photo by Travis Stanley.

To start a group, employees submit an application that includes a charter and identifies an executive sponsor to advocate for the group. A steering committee reviews the applications, and approved groups receive financial support for eligible activities.

Officially launched in 2024 with Tumlin’s support, DICE hosted its inaugural public event in October.

The event featured Dr. Margaret Price, an Associate Professor of English at Ohio State University and author of “Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life,” who discussed the challenges faced by disabled individuals and highlighted the importance of the new group.

“A lot of people told stories about what helped them survive,” Price said. “It was often one person, or a few people or a small community … like DICE, where people know they can go.”

Get to know a few ERGs taking root at Duke.

¡DALHE!

Dozens of Duke staff and faculty members gather in the Trent Semans Center in September for the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration organized by ¡DALHE! Photo by Eamon Queeney.

Several years ago, while working with medical interpreters assisting Duke’s Spanish-speaking patients, Angel Romero, originally from Spain, enjoyed an easy rapport with
co-workers from Colombia, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.

After becoming Program Coordinator for Community Partnerships with the Duke Population Health Management Office, meeting Hispanic colleagues became less common. When Romero learned about the launch in 2023 of ¡DALHE!, an ERG for Latino or Hispanic employees, joining the effort wasn’t a tough decision.

“Duke is very large with many departments and silos, so it can be hard to know who is out there,” Romero said. “These groups are great. They’re how we connect and stay connected.”

¡DALHE! – a Spanish phrase meaning “Let’s go!” and an acronym for Duke Advancing Latiné/Hispanic Excellence – was created by Raquel Ruiz, Co-Director of the Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute’s Equity, Learning Health Communities Pillar. After joining Duke in 2022, where 6.3% of the workforce identifies as Hispanic or Latino, Ruiz recognized the need for a community to connect and support Latino and Hispanic employees.

With more than 100 members, ¡DALHE! hosts volunteering events, networking opportunities, a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and regular cafecitos, which are informal virtual conversations over coffee with Duke leaders.

“Latinos like to get together with other Latinos to find connection and shared culture,” Ruiz said. “That’s what an ERG does. It allows us to build a community that can help us thrive.”

Special Events Planners Council

Among the regular activities of Duke’s Special Events Planners Council are group visits to potential vendors and events spaces. Photo courtesy: Special Events Planners Council.

When Erin Clark became Program Coordinator for the Office of Duke-NUS Affairs in 2023, she was tasked with organizing the office’s events, including Durham visits from the Singapore-based Duke-NUS Medical School’s faculty and leaders.

She knew tackling the challenges would require some backup.

“I immediately sought out resources to help me do my job,” Clark said. “That’s how I found the Special Events Planners Council.”

Originally formed in the 1990s, the Special Events Planners Council, which became an official ERG last year, is a network of roughly 300 staff members united by their need to make organizing complex Duke events look easy.

The council hosts occasional in-person events, where members meet potential vendors or visit venues. Periodic virtual gatherings explore topics such as making meetings more sustainable or accessible.

Through a busy Microsoft Teams channel or connections made through the group, members routinely help each other navigate the unique challenges of organizing everything from departmental meetings to large symposiums.

“It’s not just about tapping into the knowledge of the people who are doing similar work,” said Clark, now the council’s vice president. “It’s also about those connections
you make with the broader community of Duke.”

ME2 Black Employee Resource Group

Leaders of the ME2 Black Employees Resource Group gather at the 2024 Juneteenth celebration, which is one of the group's signature annual events. Photo courtesy of ME2.

During a 2020 Duke University School of Medicine virtual town hall on systemic racism, Coral May, then Director of the School of Medicine’s Human Resources Shared Services Center, noted that while there were groups for the school’s Black faculty and students, none existed for staff.

After hearing the comment, Annise Weaver, Co-Director of the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences’ North Carolina Psychiatry Access Line, sent an email to May about initiatives that could elevate staff. Their discussions evolved into a shared vision for a group supporting the school’s Black staff.

“When I saw Coral speak up, I saw hope,” Weaver said. “I thought, OK, there’s a space for us. I saw someone who was identifying that staff have unique needs during this time.”

For several months, Weaver, May and a circle of colleagues met weekly on Zoom, sharing experiences and planning an ERG for Black staff members in the School of Medicine. That became the ME2 Black Employee Resource Group, which drew around 80 people to its 2021 virtual kickoff.

“I remember, after our first meeting, getting comments like ‘This is the first time I’ve been in a Zoom room where everybody looked like me,’” said May, now Assistant Vice President for Human Resources in Duke University Health System.

Since then, ME2 has organized volunteer outings, Juneteenth celebrations and monthly virtual meetings with guest speakers, professional development presentations and opportunities for members from across the University and Health System to share concerns and successes.

“Groups like this are a place where, collectively, we can put our voices together and talk about the issues that affect us,” said Duke Clinical Research Institute Financial Management Analyst and ME2 leadership team member Antonio Jones. “We can address issues in a meaningful way and promote the kind of growth at Duke that will make people want to stay.”

ERGs and Affinity Groups

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