Posted by Charlotte Dunkerton
There are several reasons to celebrate Pride Month in your workplace. From increasing inclusivity to retaining talented LGBTQ+ employees, progressive companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets due to the benefits of diversity, found in research by Harvard Business Review.
As an employer and recruitment service, we are committed to ensuring representation of people from all backgrounds regardless of their gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, disability status, or any other aspect which makes them unique. As we celebrate Pride month, here are 3 things to ensure your business is involved, not just for the month, but to forge it into your operations and workplace ethos going forward.
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Evaluate Your Discrimination & Diversity Policies
A diverse workplace is an eclectic mix of people with different experiences and identities.
To reduce the impact of implicit bias on your hiring process, evaluate the success of your diversity initiative and improve where necessary, this may involve internal HR reviews, including the question in exit interviews.
At Pro, we have a strict and efficient discrimination policy in place as part of our internal recruitment policy as well as ensuring that clients and candidates we work with also share the same ethos.
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Provide Continuous Training
A point that’s often missed in diversity initiatives in the workplace is that it’s not about the act of celebrating or acknowledging various groups – it’s about understanding why.
Involve guest events, host webinars and create lunch and learn sessions. From a work perspective, we want our colleagues to understand each other – and this is where companies have part of the responsibility in emphasising inclusion, this is why it is ingrained in training throughout the careers of our teams, from understanding the use of language to highlighting improvements for our clients.
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Understand
As the graphic below illustrates, sexual orientation, biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression are separate and distinct parts of your identity. Understanding these concepts is key to understanding LGBTQ issues and priorities.
In a workplace, it’s important to foster care, unity and understanding. Providing a supportive culture that is free from judgement is essential in ensuring a harmonious and efficient team.
As recruiters, it is our responsibility to help forge a fairer working environment for all. Creating an environment that allows people to be their full, unadulterated selves! It’s great to see a group of people who have historically been marginalised (and often still are today) just take a moment to celebrate their culture and community, and to be able to join in and support this month, but our initiative is to educate and ensure the clients, candidates and colleagues we work with understand the “why?”.
For more information about this article or ideas on how you could be supporting Pride and diversity in the workplace, speak to Pro-HR's Charlotte Dunkerton on 07920 515 759 or email charlotte.dunkerton@pro-recruitment.co.uk
