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Employee Resource Groups at TVA* ACTion – the Asian Collaboration Team focuses on helping TVA become an employer of choice in the Asian-American community, and to collaboratively build greater inclusion and diversity across the organization and within our communities.* African American Voices – provides a forum for black employees and others at TVA to exchange ideas and to network within TVA and in the communities in the seven states served by TVA.* IGNITE employee resource group is open to entrepreneurial thinkers who make continuous improvement a part of their everyday lives.* New Employee Network engages new TVA employees with networking, learning and career development opportunities while enabling organizational leaders to better understand emerging employee trends and needs.* SPECTRUM seeks to engage, empower and educate TVA’s workforce on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues relevant to our communities in the Tennessee Valley.* TVA & Amigos facilitates the growth of the Hispanic/Latino employee population in numbers, professional development and engagement within the company and community.* TVA Veterans Association supports a commitment to military veterans who have served — or continue to serve in the Armed Services.Other professional associations at TVA* Women in Nuclear (WIN), the premier network of more than 8,000 women and men who work in nuclear- and radiation-related fields around the country.* American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE), a national group that works to involve ensure African Americans in governmental energy policy making.* Veterans in Energy, a newly formed group created to promote veterans in the energy industry.
Joining America’s biggest government utility may be a bit daunting, especially if you are not among the more than 70 percent of the workers at the Tennessee Valley Authority who are white males.
TVA played a vital role in its early history in the 1930s and 1940s in aiding minorities and disadvantaged persons in the historically economically depressed Appalachian region to gain jobs while harnessing the power of the Tennessee River.
But TVA’s long dependence upon coal, nuclear power and other electrical engineering and maintenance jobs has tended to attract primarily white men. As TVA and the demographics of its 7-state region change, however, TVA is working to diversify its workforce, culture and business.
A key element of that strategy is evolving from the ground floor up at TVA through employee resource groups, or affinity associations that employees create and run to help advocate, connect and develop those in each group. TVA employees have created seven such employee resource groups, or ERGs, many of which are aligned around race, gender or sexual orientation, to allow employees to align with others of similar background and to advocate for their perspectives.