Pride Month at Work

June is Pride Month, and organisations are encouraged to explore ways to reassure employees from the LGBT community that their voices will be heard.

As an employer, you are prohibited from discriminating against individuals based on their gender or sexual orientation through the Equality Act 2010. Despite this, the LGBT charity Stonewall has found that more than a third of LGBT people hide their sexual orientation at work for fear of possible negativity or scrutiny. This can lead to LGBT employees feeling dissatisfied, uncomfortable or unmotivated at work.

One way to ensure that your LGBT employees feel comfortable enough to be open at work is to ensure that your staff are aware of your equality and diversity policy. Ensure that they are informed of action that will be taken against anti-LGBT discrimination and take a proactive approach to preventing it in your workplace.

Awareness can also be built through equality, diversity and inclusion training. This can be given to staff as part of their induction, or introduced to the whole workforce at regular intervals. You may also introduce open forums that can be used to gather any concerns or suggestions from members of staff. Through training and feedback from employees, managers can gather the views of their employees and highlight areas that could use improvement to boost the open-mindedness and inclusivity of their staff.

For further HR advice or guidance in relation to the topic above, get in touch with the Lansbury HR Consultants. We are here to support businesses nationally and locally in Burton-on-Trent, Swadlincote, and Derby.