LGBTQ+ Awareness (within the workplace)

Making sure every single employee can be their authentic self at work is essential to a fully functioning workplace. This is, unfortunately, still not the case for many workplaces where LGBTQ+ staff don’t feel comfortable doing so.

A recent survey by the CMI¹ shows that the vast majority of workers in the UK perceive their workplace to be inclusive to LGBTQ+ employees. Still, as many as 23% of workers who do not identify as heterosexual do not feel comfortable being open about their sexual orientation in the workplace. This clearly illustrates the need for internal teams to recognise their responsibility for promoting equality and diversity, encouraging a zero-tolerance environment, and reducing the likelihood of discrimination, harassment, and victimisation in the workplace for LGBTQ staff.

6 tips for making your workplace more LGBTQ+ inclusive

This CPD article will aim to give you an insight into LGBTQ issues and offer some tips for creating a more inclusive workspace not only for LGBTQ+ staff but all team members.

Review policies to ensure they are inclusive

The CMI survey referenced above also found that LGBTQ+ workplace policies are still uncommon. Only 56% of all respondents reported that they had a workplace policy or guide specifically relating to sexual orientation, equality and inclusion at their place of work. This should be the first port of call to ensure awareness and inclusivity of LGBTQ+ staff.

Many established company policies are also based on an outdated understanding of gender binaries and heteronormative relationship standards. Reviewing all policies to ensure they explicitly mention LGTBQ+ people is imperative for building an inclusive workplace.

This exercise includes pension policies, health insurance, family policies, and leave policies. If outdated and unchecked, these are all likely to negatively impact LGBTQ+ staff members. Equally, inclusive and gender-neutral considerations for policies that are likely to be gendered (like dress codes) are a must to make sure that everyone in the workplace is given the freedom to be their authentic self in the workplace.

Provide LGTBQ+ training

The CMI report highlighted that this kind of training for staff is very rare. It showed that just 26% of respondents had LGBTQ+ awareness training provided by their organisation. This is a staggeringly low percentage given that most modern workers consider their workplace inclusive. Providing an LGBTQ+ awareness course offers staff an opportunity to truly understand the perspectives and issues facing LGBTQ+ people in the UK. For senior staff and HR teams, this kind of training is imperative in helping staff have a deep understanding of how to accommodate LGBT people in the workplace and create a positive and inclusive environment.

If you’re looking for valuable and trusted courses in this space, we host numerous excellent LGBTQ+ awareness courses on behalf of our members. All the courses shown on our website have been reviewed and recognised as meeting any required industry standards and benchmarks.

Provide a support network for LGBTQ+ staff

A support network group for LGBTQ+ staff is an excellent way to ensure that inclusive best practices are consistent and effective at every level of your business. These groups are best led by employees and supported by the organisation. If your business doesn’t have one, encouraging staff to participate is the first step. Make sure to remember that the primary objective is to allow all LGBTQ staff a space to support one another - it’s not a diversity tick-box exercise.

One of the best ways you as an organisation can help is to offer all the support an LGTBQ+ network needs. This could be a dedicated space to privately meet or infrastructure to openly allow members who may be geographically disparate to communicate on their terms. Offering time to employees to manage a group or network is essential. An initiative like this takes time, and piling that on top of a full workload will be unmanageable for staff and shows it isn’t a priority. Offering team members time to organise and attend meetings is a key way to support this type of network.

Use gender-neutral language

The language we use at work is essential to ensuring everyone feels included and accepted in the workplace. Using gendered terms and pronouns unnecessarily sends a message to any non-binary employees or staff members who prefer they/them pronouns that they are not being considered or included and are outside of the norm. In contrast, using gender-neutral language ensures all staff members are included and sets an important standard throughout the business to be conscious and inclusive of all other team members.

Review all internal documentation and remove all unnecessarily gendered terms. Swapping ‘mother/father’ to ‘parent,’ ‘husband/wife’ to partner or Mr/Ms/Mrs to Mx may seem like a small change, but to someone who will never identify themselves as such, it’s an enormous distinction between being seen and being excluded.

Develop an LGBTQ+ inclusivity strategy

Just like any workplace initiative, it’s essential to first identify where you’re at, define the areas that need addressing, set goals and plan how to achieve them. It may be that the first port of call is to write an LGBTQ+ policy. You may already have this in place but don’t have any formal internal committee or support network. It may be that your organisation doesn’t have a representative number of LGBTQ+, so addressing why that is and outlining a more inclusive recruitment strategy is your main goal. Whatever it may be, a strategic approach and regular reviews of this strategy are essential.

Engage your whole team

LGBTQ+ awareness isn’t just for LGBTQ+ staff; it involves everyone in the business. Make sure to engage the whole business in training and awareness and communicate the progress in your inclusivity strategies. Speak to your employees about what inclusivity means to them and get their input and feedback on inclusivity policies to ensure they work for everyone.

Explore LGBTQ+ awareness CPD courses

With over 25 years of experience, The CPD Certification Service is the world’s leading and largest CPD accreditation organisation working across all industry sectors. If you’re interested in exploring LGBTQ+ awareness and policy-making in more depth, there are a number of courses that you can find in our Course Catalogue. Our catalogue has thousands of training courses, conferences and events, workshops and seminars available from a variety of CPD providers.

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Sources

¹https://www.managers.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/sexual-orientation-gender-identity-discussion-paper.pdf