Bank, police force and council top gay workplace list
January 8th, 2009
Lloyds bank, Hampshire Constabulary and Brighton & Hove City Council are the most gay-friendly places to work in the UK, according to a new report by gay rights group Stonewall.
Stonewall’s Top 100 Employers 2009 surveyed 7,000 gay and lesbian employees. The report found that gay staff working at the top 25 workplaces reported a satisfaction level almost 10% higher than workplaces outside the top 100.
“In the credit crunch, shrewd employers know it makes good business sense not to cut back on robust diversity initiatives,” said David Shields, Stonewall’s Director of Workplace Programmes.
“Stonewall research proves that gay people perform much better at work when they can be themselves. This is a time when staff performance is crucial to employers weathering financial difficulties, which is no doubt why the Index was at its most competitive this year.”
“This was our most competitive index to date,” added Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive.
“We received more entries than ever before from employers who have taken heed of recent Stonewall research which found that gay people are far more likely to buy goods or services from companies they know are gay-friendly.
“The Index is a powerful tool used by Britain’s 1.7 million gay employees and 150,000 gay university students to decide where to take their talent and skills.”
I have a problem with this. The Stonewall Equality Index only ever can include companies that join their ‘Diversity Champions’ program - something that costs such companies several thousand pounds. Paid to Stonewall. It looks like Stonewall collecting cash and - in return - offering these companies the tantalising prospect that ‘you too could become one of our Top 100′ and garner loads of favourable PR for yourselves to boot. In the meantime who gets forgotten are the many hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians working in small to medium sized enterprises.In charging to join the program, Stonewall is cutting out the majority of workers from ever working in truly gay-friendly workplaces, because smaller employers could never afford to pay Stonewall the fee required. It looks and smells a lot like a money generating scheme for Stonewall and a great PR opportunity for large companies. Sorry to seem negative, but why is Diversity Champions not made free to any sized company to join. That would benefit many many many more lesbians and gay men at work. Oh. That’s right. Stonewall would lose all that lovely loot. Oh dear!
Gillian ∼ January 8th, 2009 5:51 pm