June is Pride Month – marking the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, and the first U.S. Gay Pride Week, and March a year later. Today, it’s an opportunity to celebrate everything LGBTQ+, pay attention to past and present inequalities, and find ways to make the world more inclusive.
For people leaders, that means taking the time to assess your organisation’s inclusivity – and work towards a workplace culture that celebrates, encourages, and lifts up all identities.
You’ll have seen a lot of business marking Pride Month – maybe with a logo change, new product, or temporary website redesign. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: a proud, public statement of support is a good start. But it’s not enough by itself.
Promoting inclusion is one part of creating an inclusive culture, but managers, HR teams, and business leaders need to back it up with their actions:
In our research with Robert Walters and other D&I specialists, we saw that 28% of LGBTQ+ and 50% of transgender employees don’t think their workplace offers any initiatives to make them feel included. That means missing out on financial benefits (one study found that organisations that introduced such initiatives “outperformed their respective sectors within 5 to 10 years”) but also on the best talent.
Ideas for your organisation:
*Use “Parent/carer” instead of “mother/father”, and “they/them” instead of “him/her” etc.
**Consider the identity implications behind “committed and dependable” versus “confident and determined”
Another concerning stat this research uncovered was that compared to 19% of cisgender employees, 30% of transgender professionals disagreed that everyone in their workplace could easily access resources and facilities. It’s a good example of why being vocal isn’t enough – people need practical support too.
Ideas for your organisation:
Unsurprisingly, our research for the Diversity & Inclusion Strategy Report showed that managers play a big part in making people feel included – with over a third of LGBTQ+ employees feeling like their manager hasn’t made an effort to understand them:
Ideas for your organisation:
An unsupportive line manager limits your progression and pay too – and we saw that compared to straight men, three times as many LGBTQ+ women didn’t feel confident negotiating their salary – even though just 38% felt it accurately reflected their work:
That’s reflected in national averages of pay too. LGBTQ+ employees are paid £6700 less than straight workers yearly, on average, and only half of the females in this group earn above the average UK salary – compared to 70% of straight males.
Ideas for your organisation:
From our work with Robert Walters, it was clear that representation is an issue. Just a third of the whole LGBTQ+ community are at managerial levels or above – and a quarter of women in this group don’t recognise their organisation as taking steps to be representative.
Another issue is that 40% of LGBTQ+ employees aren’t out at work – a telltale sign that inclusivity has a long way to go (which is why Safety & Access is a key part of our D&I survey).
Ideas for your organisation:
Diversity is the goal, inclusion is the method. If you really want to support the LGBTQ+ community in your workplace, it’s crucial to get a sense-check of how it’s going so far.
We can help you measure inclusion in a way no-one else can, with our Diversity & Inclusion survey. Get in touch today to find out more:
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