Originally published here.

The CIPD believes that social justice should be the primary driver for more inclusive workplaces, built on the principles of fairness, transparency and equality of opportunity. An individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity should not affect whether they get a job, benefit from development opportunities or receive a promotion. Everyone deserves the opportunity to develop their skills, be fairly rewarded and use their voice in a safe and inclusive working environment.

However, we know this is not always the case. It’s clear that organisations need to be more inclusive for LGBT+ employees and do more to eradicate discrimination and harassment, and create psychologically safe and inclusive workplaces. In our report, Inclusion at Work, we draw on four sources of data to better understand the workplace experiences of LGBT+ employees:

1 pooled data from our 2018, 2019 and 2020 Good Work Index to understand experiences of LGB+1 employees

2 one bespoke survey on trans working lives

3 an additional survey on trans allyship

4 insights from senior people professional roundtables on LGBT+ inclusion.

Our findings highlight three areas where organisations need to act:

• workplace conflict

• psychological safety and wellbeing

• LGBT+ inclusive policies and practices. In this executive summary, we highlight the key findings and recommendations in these areas, to support people professionals to create more LGBT+-inclusive workplaces. For detailed findings, methodology and implications for policy-makers, see the full report. Key findings LGBT+ employees experience heightened workplace conflict LGB+ and trans workers report higher levels of workplace conflict than heterosexual, cisgender workers, with 29% of heterosexual employees saying they had experienced workplace conflict in the last 12 months, compared with 40% of LGB+ employees. Fifty-five per cent of trans employees said they have experienced conflict in the past 12 months, notably higher than heterosexual and LGB+ employees, although it should be noted that trans worker data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have contributed to this difference. When conflicts occurred, many reported the issue hadn’t been fully resolved. Close to half (44%) of LGB+ workers who had experienced being undermined or humiliated said this had not been resolved, and almost four in ten said this had only been partly resolved (38%). Similarly, 23% of trans workers said they had experienced discrimination because of a protected characteristic, but over half (62%) said discrimination because of a protected characteristic had not been resolved, or only partly resolved (20%).

You can read the complete article here.