A gay partner at
the top-rated firm Ernst & Young reports on how his
company and others are working with the Human Rights
Campaign to make U.S. employers more LGBT-friendly
Corporate America
is coming out to create an LGBT-inclusive workplace.
More and more companies are adopting diversity training,
sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies, and
same-sex domestic-partner benefits. This is perhaps
most evident in the September 19 announcement of
a record number of companies receiving 100% on the
2006 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. An
unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top
rating, a tenfold increase in the four years since the
index was introduced in 2002.
Companies that
support LGBT workplace equity recognize that an HRC 100
rating is a notable achievement, but it’s not the
finish line—it is a good beginning.
In that spirit,
Ernst & Young, the first of the Big Four professional
services firms to receive an HRC 100 rating, hosted the
first LGBT Inclusiveness Roundtable in July. Several
HRC 100 companies and nonprofit groups came together
with HRC to discuss how to promote and facilitate an
inclusive workplace, as well as to share thoughts and best
practices with other organizations.
Knowing that
knowledge and awareness create change, a report titled
"Making It Real" (to download a PDF of the report
click on this link) was created—based
on the roundtable discussion—to highlight
examples of how leading companies are moving beyond basic
nondiscrimination policies toward a more LGBT-inclusive
culture.
Key
recommendations from the report urge companies to shift from
a diversity culture of “them” to an
inclusive “us” culture, to use a team
approach to adopt and promote policies by partnering senior
leadership and human resources officials with
representatives from all employee ranks as well as
external nonprofit partners, and to document
accomplishments toward LGBT workplace inclusiveness goals.
The full
recommendations of “Making It Real” are
available online at www.ey.com/us, and businesses can
customize solutions to fit their industry, location, or
departmental function, rather than adopting a
one-size-fits-all plan toward inclusiveness.
One thing that is
applicable across the board: A commitment to equality
at work inevitably expands within employee ranks, beyond the
cubicle and the office walls. In today’s highly
competitive business environment, a company that not
only adopts but also projects a philosophy of respect
and fairness for all employees is critical to the
recruitment and retention of top-tier candidates.
In other words,
doing the right thing pays off for both employees and
companies.
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Syers is a partner at Ernst & Young and a founding
member of bEYond, the firm’s LGBTA network.