Stonewall Reveals Top 100 Employers For LGBT Workers

LGBT rights charity Stonewall has released its annual Workplace Equality Index for 2018, which reveals the top 100 employers for LGBT workers for 2018. Organisations submit information to Stonewall by allowing staff across their organisation to complete anonymous surveys that detail their experiences of inclusion and diversity in their workplace.

Once submitted to Stonewall, the organisations then receive their scores which can allow them to see where they need to focus efforts to ensure a more inclusive workforce while also understanding what they are doing well on. The 100 organisations that do the best to ensure their LGBT employees are accepted and included are celebrated in the Top 100 Employers list.

430 organisations took part in this year’s Workplace Equality Index with 93,000 employees completing the surveys, making it one of the largest employment surveys in the United Kingdom.

 The Welsh Assembly Leads The Way For LGBT Workers

The top employer for 2018 for LGBT workers was revealed to be the National Assembly for Wales, who was acknowledged as a top performer for many years before finally achieving the top spot. In a special article outlining why the organisation took the number one position, it was explained that the board and senior management for the National Assembly were both active and visible in helping to promote LGBT equality throughout.

The LGBT network for the National Assembly, OUT-NAW, was also outlined as providing support including both coaching and mentoring opportunities for their members and allies. Along with this, the ability to select the Mx title and their own gender term, facilities such as gender-neutral facilities and a specific resource on non-binary identities as produced to help be inclusive of both transgender and non-binary staff.

For those interested in seeing who made the top 100, we would recommend reading the full list. The top 10 employers are listed below:

1. National Assembly for Wales
2. Pinsent Mason LLP
3. Gentoo
4. Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service
5. Lloyds Banking Group
6. Baker McKenzie
7. Berwin Leighton Paisner
8. Citi
9. Newcastle City Council
10. Victim Support

Stonewall Outlines Top Trans-Inclusive Employers

For trans employees, the workplace can provide challenges that are distinct and differ from those that lesbian, gay and bisexual workers can experience. This can include workplaces that do not consider transgender employees with physical spaces such as having gendered facilities that may not match an employee’s gender identity or even suffering from harassment and discrimination due to their gender identity.

Research from Stonewall found that one in eight trans employee (12%) had experienced a physical attack from a colleague or a customer in the previous year. The fear of discrimination leads to many trans people hiding their identity, with just over half (51%) hiding their gender identity out of fear.

As such, creating a work environment that is trans-inclusive is important to ensure that employees feel comfortable when in the workplace. This can include creating gender neutral facilities to trying to change the mindset of employees by providing training and knowledge for those who do not identify as trans to encourage and promote acceptance to achieve an inclusive and diverse community.

For two years, Stonewall has included trans-inclusion questions in the Workplace Equality Index to see which organisations take the needs of trans employees into consideration. This has also affected the ranking of the overall Top 100 Employers, which organisations having to prove their commitment to trans equality along with lesbian, gay and bisexual equality.

When taking purely into account trans-inclusion, the top employers for 2018 are:

• Baker McKenzie
• Berwin Leighton Paisner
• Cardiff University
• Gentoo
• Lloyds Banking Group
• National Assembly for Wales
• Pinsent Masons
• Swansea University
• The University of Manchester
• Victim Support
• Your Homes Newcastle