The 7th annual national Out & Equal Workplace Survey has just been released. And surprisingly, most Americans are feeling more comfortable with their work cube mates sexual orientation. A huge 79% of heterosexual adults strongly or somewhat agree that how an employee does their job should be the basis for how they are judged as an employee, not their sexual orientation. Nice to see we are being viewed as more mainstream. Certainly our job performance should stand on its own and have nothing to do with our sexual orientation. Some interesting questions to ponder:
- How well is your sexual orientation supported in your workplace?
- Would you agree that a majority of your co-workers don’t care about your sexual orientation?
- Are you fairly judged on your performance and nothing else?
Good results, but still some need for improvement? “It’s encouraging that heterosexuals appear more and more committed to ending these forms of employment discrimination and to extending equal benefits to all employees,” said Out & Equal executive director Selisse Berry. “Despite these recent strides, however, there remain far too few companies and jurisdictions that provide meaningful protections to all employees, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. There is still much progress to be made in today’s workplace and in society itself.” A few things to consider:
- Am I helping support my GLBT co-workers?
- Is our communications open and welcoming where I work?
- Is sexual discrimination not tolerated where you work?
The LGBT audience shares their views on discrimination. Almost half of LGBT adults hear anti-gay comments on the job. Two out of three feel they have faced discrimination at work. And one-third remains closeted at work. So, there’s still some work to do. Where to start?
- How about more public education on protection rights? Most of us have no idea
if we can be fired from work for simply being who we are. Do you know?
- Do state or federal laws protect us from being fired?
- What can we do while in our jobs to make the environment safer and more
comfortable for everyone?
-How can we work with our HR and Internal Communications groups to create this environment.
Some businesses have figured it out. They take their workforce and its diversity seriously. They have invested in employee education, partner benefits, even FMLA for GLBT family members. Some of those speaking at the 18th annual Out & Equal Workforce Summit to be held September 10-13 in Austin are from organizations we all recognize: AT&T, Clorox, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and others. Let’s celebrate these businesses and the model they have demonstrated for many others to follow.
And be sure to check out Ben Finzel’s post from yesterday on the just released HRC Corporate Equality Index report. Ben shares important insights into this annual report that tries to measure corporations employment policies and community activities as HRC defines them. You’ll find some nice improvements in the number of corporations reaching the perfect “100” score this year. Other similar research results are also in on the LGBT consumer habits, posted by Steve and Echelon’s Equality Forum that Ben wrote about a few days ago.
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