This post comes from Daryl Herrschaft, director of the Workplace Project at the HRC Foundation.
Today, we’re releasing the Corporate Equality Index 2010 — our eighth annual report that tracks policies and practices important to LGBT workers at major businesses across the U.S. I’m thrilled to say that, even after losing a handful of 100%-rated businesses to the economic downturn, we have a net gain of 45 businesses that have 100% over last year. That is, a total of 305 100% businesses. Even in a difficult economic climate, businesses continue to embrace LGBT inclusion, yet challenges remain in putting policy to practice.
You can read all about it in the report below and at www.hrc.org/cei. Additionally read HRC’s press release.
This release kicks off a two-week series of conversations and blog posts: “Policy to Practice.” Over the next two weeks, staff of the HRC Workplace Project and other experts in the field of LGBT workplace inclusion will blog about other findings of the report and what it means when an employer actually adds “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” to its non-discrimination policy.
For those of us at the Human Rights Campaign, this work is crucial. An employer adding non-discrimination policies is just the beginning of what we see as a journey to LGBT workers being able to work free of discrimination and harassment — in short, being treated the same as all other employees, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.
As I look back over my tenure as the head of HRC’s Workplace Project, I’m amazed at how far we’ve come. In 2004, the first employers started recognizing same-sex spouses married in Massachusetts. In 2006, a majority of Fortune 500 companies had extended partner benefits to all employees in the U.S. Today, we’re nearing that milestone for businesses that have added protections for transgender workers.
LGBT workplace inclusion is a competitive workplace practice. The Corporate Equality Index shows us that.
But, as we all know, LGBT workers still face many challenges in the workplace, and these policies alone do not mean that our daily work lives automatically become free from challenges for being LGBT. With that in mind, at the beginning of 2008 we embarked on an intensive project to understand and bridge the gap between policies and practice at workplaces throughout the U.S.
We’re nearly done putting the final touches on the first product of this work — our report “Degrees of Equality: A National Study Examining Workplace Climate for LGBT Employees” — which we’ll release next week. While this is just the beginning of this work, it absolutely underscores the need for employers to take the next steps and really put policy to practice.
Again, we’ll be posting regularly over the next two weeks, so please check back here at HRC Back Story. You can also sign up for our free HRC Workplace Project e-newsletter to stay on top of what we’re up to.
Thanks for joining us.
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