A person’s sex, sexual orientation and gender reassignment are all ‘protected characteristics’, which means it is unlawful to discriminate against someone on that basis.
However, as the HR body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has shown in its report Inclusion at work, LGBTQ+ employees are still more likely to experience workplace conflict and harassment than their ‘straight’, heterosexual or cisgender counterparts.
The campaigning charity Stonewall has also highlighted that LGBTQ+ employees still commonly report negative comments and slurs, bullying and discrimination in the workplace.
In fact, almost one in five LGBT people (18%) who were looking for work said they were discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity while trying to get a job.
The negative impact of bias
Tackling bias, whether overt or unconscious, remains very much a ‘live’ workplace issue. As this report points out, internal or implicit bias can be something we carry with us through our lives, built from our lived or learned experiences over the years, often barely without noticing. In fact, even people who identify as a sexual minority can internalise bias against their own group, it has argued.
Yet bias, especially if it extends to causing conflict and harassment, can be deeply damaging. It can result in heightened workplace conflict, cause job dissatisfaction, make people feel less psychologically safe, and have a negative impact on health.
It may also mean the best candidates do not get hired or promoted into roles, don’t stay with or even apply to your organisation, and that critical business activities such as decision-making, idea generation and collaboration are less effective.
Steps to help tackle LGBTQ+ bias in the workplace
The first point to note here is that tackling bias is never ‘job done’. As highlighted above, all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, bring inherent biases to how we perceive things in life. Working out how to understand, work through and mitigate these will normally be an ongoing process. Below are four practical interventions employers can put in place to help address LGBTQ+ bias in the workplace.
Have clear policies in place
Your diversity and inclusion policy should set clear expectations of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, ideally with practical examples. The key is to be providing robust and clear-cut guidance to managers on how to report and deal with incidences of conflict, bias or discrimination.
Employees, in turn, should feel able – and know how – to report concerns. Critically, when they do, they should be confident these will be taken seriously and investigated.
Encourage peer support networks
Active peer support groups that LGBTQ+ employees can approach, use, and become involved within (and in turn support others) are an invaluable way of giving LGBTQ+ employees a first point of contact, voice and agency within your organisation. This may need to include safe physical or virtual spaces that LGBTQ+ employees can either use or go to for help, advice or support.
They can also be a great touchpoint for managers and leaders to use when it comes to formulating diversity and inclusion policies or approaches, especially to ‘sense check’ that initiatives are not inadvertently sending out a wrong message.
Foster positive and inclusive work relationships
Fostering positive and inclusive relationships should of course go without saying in any organisation – and is something that should be spelled out within any diversity and inclusion policy.
Nevertheless, encouraging managers to articulate the value of inclusion and difference within teams, and why this is important, is a key part of creating a tolerant, inclusive organisational culture.
Prioritise training and support
Training on diversity and inclusion is a great starting point to help line managers understand these issues and build their confidence. It is also a good way to help explain and mitigate bias within decision making and management approaches.
As the CIPD makes clear within its Inclusion at work report, training should explain the nuances across the different gender identity spectrums, particularly with regard to non-binary identities, “as these identities may be the least well understood”.
Alongside this, it may be a good idea to review HR policies through an LGBTQ+ lens. This is to ensure, for example, that the language being used is gender neutral. As the CIPD adds: “Examples include making sure family policies are inclusive of different gender identities as well as different sexual orientations, that dress codes (if required) are gender-neutral, and that you have a policy in place that details the support you provide for an employee who would like to transition.”
Take this opportunity to pause and reflect on how your organisation is doing in terms of tackling LGBTQ+ bias, and consider more widely how your organisation can work towards becoming more diverse and inclusive for all.
This information was published June 2022.
