Prejudice robs companies of their most valuable asset: talent
As we head towards this year’s Pride Parade in London today, it is worth reflecting on where we are with the acceptance of LGBTQ. Others have been doing so. A UK government survey this week, the biggest of its kind, polled 100,000 people from the LGBTQ community.
Perhaps the most striking finding was that two thirds of people in non-heterosexual couples are still reluctant to hold hands in public.
The stigma has not gone. Though lots of progress has been made, we still have an awfully long way to go.
What’s true in the outside world is also true in our offices and workplaces.
One in 10 of us is non-heterosexual and yet too many people are afraid to come out at work for fear of being judged. This is bad for our well-being, but also bad for our economy.
Any prejudice is bad for the economy. Racial, gender, and some disability prejudice tend to be visible. A woman does not usually need to tell her colleagues that she is a woman.
Being LGBTQ is not visible. An LGBTQ employee has to decide to tell his or her colleagues that they are LGBTQ (to “come out”).
This creates a different economic pattern to LGBTQ prejudice.
It is time, therefore, that all of our business leaders, in the UK and beyond, realised some home truths.
Firstly, don’t ask don’t tell doesn’t work. A company that encourages staff to lie is not a great place to work.
A company with a culture of dishonesty is not a great company to do business with. An LGBTQ person who wastes time being careful what they say at work (using “my partner” not “my husband” or “my wife”) will be under stress. Stress makes people perform badly at work.
Just as important, an LGBTQ person who has not come out can still be the target of prejudice.
Being told (in general terms) that LGBTQ people are in some way “second class” will undermine LGBTQ employees who are not out. Secondly, prejudice puts the wrong person in the job. A prejudiced company may choose not to promote the bestqualified LGBTQ employees, for example. A company that deliberately does not use the best people is never going to make as much money as it otherwise might.
Being known for not having a strong enough policy on LGBTQ can shrink a business’s potential talent pool further. Survey evidence suggests that an overwhelming majority of LGBTQ people take a company’s LGBTQ policy into account when considering where to work.
A NON-LGBTQ person may be unwilling to work for a company that does not share their values. Potential employees who might be victims of other sorts of prejudice may worry “I might be next”.
Finally, prejudiced countries underperform. For example, a global company such as UBS wants to put its best people to work where they are most useful. Social prejudice against LGBTQ people makes that difficult. A global company will struggle to ask an employee to move to work in a country that pretends that they are second-class people or does not recognise their marriage.
Indeed, a global company would not be able to send an employee to a country where there is a risk that they seize their children, could imprison them, or, even, kill them.
The fact that people cannot move to the place where they will be most productive will hurt the economy. Companies may choose not to invest in that country if prejudice prevents them from employing the best staff possible. Reports suggest that being able to use the right workers with the right skills for the job is extremely important in getting foreign investment into a country.
The world economy is about to go through a period of dramatic structural change – what economists call “the fourth industrial revolution”.
Flexibility and making the most of what you have is vital. Prejudice against LGBTQ people reduces flexibility and throws away the most valuable thing any company or country can have: human potential.
Those companies and countries that exhibit this prejudice are, however, setting themselves up to fail in a time of economic change.
‘A company that deliberately does not use the best people is never going to make as much money as it might’