It’s Pride month, time for corporates to show off their shiny LGBT+ inclusion policies. A lot of them cover well-trodden diversity ground (I simplify: make staff feel included; encourage employee resource groups for LGBT+ staff; stamp out inappropriate behaviour among colleagues).
But for leaders who want to go beyond obvious in-house inclusion steps, there’s a paucity of advice on — what’s next? How can companies advocate publicly for LGBT+ rights? Given the political climate in the US, that’s never been so timely (this FT analysis of Disney’s travails in Florida has excellent context).
As I was giving up hope, a note from EY alerted me to a new report: Opening Up the World: How Multinational Organizations Can Ascend The Maturity Curve on LGBT+ Rights. It’s a mouthful of a title, but this joint venture — which includes Microsoft, Dow and the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU School of Law — is trying to move the dial.
It’s intended as a discussion paper for multinationals, focused on how to effect positive change in countries that don’t have legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Fewer than a quarter of the world’s 193 nations uphold such safeguards.) Recognition and protection for transgender people is, as the report describes, “patchy, and laws often prescribe intrusive medical requirements”.
The paper urges companies to resist calling themselves “consistent global advocates on LGBT+ rights”. That’s just not realistic. Instead, it offers detailed pathways to progress. For example, start with promoting gender inclusion.
PS My favourite FT feature on LGBT+ experiences at work showcased personal stories from my colleagues worldwide.
Read on for Sophia’s investigation into what we mean when we talk about “engagement” and advice on how revisiting workplace regrets can lead you to a more positive future. (Isabel Berwick)
How do you measure employee engagement?
Only 21 per cent of people are engaged with their work, according to a recent report from Gallup that surveyed 230,000 workers around the world.
But what does that actually mean? Measuring employee engagement is a tricky science. Constance Hadley, an organisational psychologist and lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, says that there’s a lot of “murkiness” in how people understand and use the term. It usually refers to some combination of enthusiasm, a sense of belonging, the frequency with which you enter a “flow” state of deep focus, and finding your work meaningful and rewarding. It’s hard to pin down an exact definition, though. Indeed, many HR departments design internal surveys at their own discretion, which can be subjective.
Both Constance and Jim Harter, chief scientist at Gallup who studies the situational factors that highly engaged teams have in common, agreed that theUtrecht Work Engagement Scale,