How a Disability & Mental Health ERG normalized wellbeing at work
An ad-industry ERG made mental health part of the everyday by booking biweekly chair yoga, breath workshops, and a mindfulness series — and built energy through cross-ERG collaboration.
The spark
Varza, the ERG's chair, was newly diagnosed with ADHD and looking for a place to talk about it. When ERGs were forming at her agency, she asked if there was space for disability and mental health — and ended up as a founding member.
The bet: in the ad industry, where wellbeing often takes a back seat to deadlines, normalizing mental health conversations had to start with everyday rituals, not big once-a-year events.
What they did
The ERG brought regular wellbeing programming directly into the workday:
- Breath workshop to give members a shared vocabulary and a simple tool they could use anytime.
- Mindfulness series spread across several sessions so people could build a habit, not just attend one event.
- Chair yoga, which became the runaway favorite — so popular the ERG partnered with an outside studio to run 30-minute sessions every other week, all year long.
The cadence is the point. Instead of "Mental Health Awareness Month" being one calendar block, it became a steady drumbeat employees could plan around.
Collaboration as the unlock
Because ERG leadership is volunteer work on top of a full day job, Varza's biggest focus has been collaboration across ERGs.
"The more we collaborate and the more we work together, it takes more of the burden off of the leaders. Where's the intersectionality between the different ERGs?"
Shared programming spreads the load, doubles the audience, and surfaces members who sit at the intersection of multiple identities.
Takeaways for other ERG leaders
- Recurring beats episodic. A 30-minute chair yoga every other week does more than one big wellness day.
- Partner out for delivery. Booking an outside studio for the full year removes ongoing planning lift from volunteer leaders.
- Look for ERG overlaps first. Co-hosted events double reach without doubling work.
- Make it easy to show up as yourself. "Be your authentic self — you'll find your people."