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Love is love, but do businesses agree?
The world has gradually evolved to welcome the vast array of gender identities, and their complexities to the mainstream. However, the predominance of heteronormativity in the corporate world has, for the longest time, disregarded gender preference and identities.
However, with the increasing awareness about the rights of lesbian, gay, bi(sexual), transgender, queer, and the many other (LGBTQ+) sexual identities, corporates have been stepping up to be more progressive and welcome gender diversity.
This understanding has recently hit the modern world and only a handful organizations have adapted parameters to see how gender inclusive and queer friendly internal policies are.
This Pride Month, let’s look at indices that rate companies based on their gender inclusivity policies, and the practices they have adopted to welcome individuals from a wide array of gender identities.
These indices include the Corporate Equality Index, LGBTQ 100 index, and Hong Kong’s LGBT+ Inclusion Index. Let’s now have a close look at these indices and their parameters for rating gender inclusivity:
- Corporate Equality Index
The Corporate Equality Index is run by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which publishes an annual an eponymous report based on thorough surveys of corporate policies.
The Human Rights Campaign foundation surveyed over 1,100 US-based companies for its 2021 report. with about 767 entities fulfilling all the required criteria for being qualified as LGBTQ+ friendly.
Its assessment criteria can be broadly classified into four pillars:
- Policies of non-discrimination across business verticals
- Benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families
- Fostering a culture of inclusiveness
- Corporate Social Responsibility
Starting with barely 13 top-rated companies in its first report published in 2002, Corporate Equality Index 2021, saw about 80 new entries from across 20 industries.
Currently, about 94 per cent of the Fortune 500 have policies related to gender identity enumerated in their nondiscrimination policies. Some of the companies receiving a 100 per cent rating based on the metrics include Walmart Inc.(NYSE:WMT, WMT.US), Exxon Mobil, Apple Inc., Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN, AMZN.US), CVS Health Corp., among others.
About 99 percent of these companies extend their inclusive nondiscrimination policies to their abroad operations, while only 26 per cent extend their transgender inclusive benefits to their global operations.
Image: Pixabay
- LGBTQ100 – ESG Index
The LGBTQ100 – ESG Index, managed by the LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings Inc., is an annual index that picks 100 US-based large-cap companies based on their gender inclusiveness policies. These broadly include non-discrimination policies across entities, benefits for LGBTQ+ workers and their families, among others.
The companies are also rated based on their environmental, social and governance responsibilities.
The index was first constituted in October 2019 and has been reconstituted annually since then to form a bouquet of companies grouped into their industry categories, with each sector representing 25 percent of the total.
According to an official release, the index, in March, welcomed 11 new companies including Autodesk Inc., Best Buy Co., Inc., CME Group Inc., Etsy, Inc., Fiserv Inc., Newmont Corporation, Omnicom Group Inc, ServiceNow Inc., Tesla Inc., Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Walt Disney Company.
The rating is based on an annual Harris Poll cross-country LGBTQ community survey and a screening by Institutional Shareholder Services’ ESG.
One of the key parameters is the exclusion of companies engaged in guns, tobacco, weapons of mass destruction, and those which generate over 66 percent of their revenues from gambling.
Other parameters include that the company must be listed on the exchanges for over six months, must have an average monthly turnover of at least US$ 1.5 billion, and a free float market value of at least US$ 7.5 billion.
- Hong Kong LGBT+ Inclusion Index
The 2021 Hong Kong LGBT+ Inclusion Index is one of Asia’s largest indices to assess gender inclusivity trends in corporates. The index is reconstituted by Community Business every two years since 2015.
The parameters for assessment are contained in “Creating Inclusive Workplaces for LGBT Employees”, a document with indicators and recommendations for corporates to support LGBTQ community workers to fight challenges in professional and public lives.
Some of the key pointers for assessment are the policies and guidelines, and training for promoting gender inclusion. Diversity structure, benefits given to workers, and the companies’ community and advocacy measures are also assessed in the index.
The index offers five award categories—the LGBT+ Network Award, LGBT+ Executive Sponsor Award, LGBT+ Inclusion Champion Award, LGBT+ Ally Award, and the LGBT+ Community Impact Award.
The 2021 Hong Kong LGBT+ Inclusion Index’s winners included JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Thomson Reuters, and Goldman Sachs.
Community Business also manages the India LGBT+ Pre-Index and Inclusion Index as a measure to raise awareness towards LGBT+ communities across companies in Asia.
