Q: How can employers avoid 'pinkwashing/rainbowwashing'?
A: If employers are to avoid accusations of rainbowwashing, it’s not enough to talk the talk. They need to walk the walk too. By role-modelling inclusive behaviours employers can speak from a place of authority and experience while demonstrating their true allyship of the LGBTQ+ community.
Read more: 'Pinkwashing' companies barred from Pride parade
Senior leadership commitment is key to ensuring that diversity and inclusion is embedded within an organisation. It means that if an opportunity for change is identified, there can be open lines of communication that allow for plans to be put in place to deliver the necessary action.
Our ‘bePROUD’ employee network, which celebrates our LGBTQ+ community and supports the business to create an inclusive workplace, recognised the importance of pronouns in supporting people who may be misgendered. Subsequently, all employees are encouraged to put their pronouns in email signatures, and we’ve amended our systems to reflect our employees’ needs and identities better.
There needs to be active monitoring of the different steps any company is taking towards achieving diversity and inclusion goals. We use workforce data to measure our policies’ effects and, as Stonewall champions, Stonewall has reviewed these and supported us throughout. This support includes help with continually shaping and adapting our policies on transitioning in our workplace, embedding support for colleagues throughout the business before, during and after their transition journey.
One way we aim to achieve this is ensuring we collect the lived experiences of employees transitioning, with HR reaching out to ask for personal opinions on our policies. This helps us learn as a business, in a way that supports our trans colleagues today and tomorrow.
My key tips for companies looking to deliver real, inclusive change would be:
● Build a community at work, with representatives from across all areas of the business.
● Encourage everyone to engage, whether they’re from the LGBTQ+ community or an ally – that’s how real change can happen.
● Pride is a fantastic month, but make sure that your LGBTQ+ commitments are not just limited to June.
● Challenge yourself to go further and shake up legacy systems where necessary.
● Invite others to review your policies and recognise that feedback, from any entity, has merit.
There’s always work to be done, but it’s clear that what we’re doing is making an impact, and that’s reflected in our employee surveys and our excellent ‘Great Place to Work’ results. I am hugely proud to work with an organisation that encourages self-expression and offers genuine equal access to opportunities. Let’s hope that by this time next year, even more companies can say the same.
Liz Walker is chief operating officer of employee benefit provider Unum
This article was published in the July/August 2024 edition of HR magazine.
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