Database seeks to track LGBT-friendly workplaces

NEARLY 80 foreign companies with offices in the Philippines have been tagged as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender- (LGBT) friendly in a database managed by a human resource development expert and gender rights advocate.

The Inclusive Workplace Project (IWP), led by LGBT advocate Sass Rogando Sasot, put together a list of 79 American and European corporations in an effort to localize the global trend of competitive human resource (HR) management.

“The [IWP] website will make available … a list of LGBT-friendly companies, which I put together using the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index … and the International Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce list,” Ms. Sasot said last week.
The Corporate Equality Index is based on an HRC-designed survey that evaluates equal opportunity policies and practices. The initial roster, while not yet exhaustive, is expected to expand via research and also through firms volunteering information.

The project will also track local companies that welcome top talent regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity expression (SOGIE). The IWP online portal will also have an employee feedback and whistleblowing system that will be available to job hunters.

“The typical problem with HR here [in the Philippines] is they are not strategic, proactive, or opportunity-driven, because they would rather wait for the law to force them to comply with the principles of equality and non-discrimination,” Ms. Sasot said.

“One of the campaign’s objectives is really to have more companies, especially the local ones, adopt a similar SOGIE diversity and equal employment opportunity (D&EEO) policy and also to encourage people to post reviews of whether or not these employers are implementing them,” she continued.
The project already features individual corporate profiles containing references to a firm’s business code of ethics or employment policies that explicitly declare non-discrimination of applicants and workers on the basis of gender.

Corporations in the database include information technology (IT) firm IBM (International Business Machines) Corp., software developer Microsoft Corp., business process outsourcing firm Accenture Ltd., telecommunications equipment firms Nokia Corp. and Motorola, Inc., and computer manufacturer Dell, Inc.

The list also features banks such as BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, pharmaceutical firms Abbot Laboratories Corp., Pfizer, Inc. and Merck & Co., Inc., and even information provider Thomson Reuters Corp.

The United Kingdom’s international cultural relations body the British Council also made it to the list of non-discriminatory employers.

“Diversity and equal employment opportunity policies are implemented in all offices of the British Council in 110 countries,” Ana A. Tan, British Council Manila program and public relations manager, said in a telephone interview.

“We even have a dedicated officer whose job is to monitor our diversity guidelines,” she added.

While confirmation of policies and practices from local offices themselves is not available for all listed employers, a number have publicly participated in LGBT events.

IBM and Accenture, for instance, frequent LGBT gatherings and even appeared in the 29 Steps for LGBT Human Rights Festival sponsored by the Netherlands Embassy in Quezon City in early July, while Thomson Reuters hosted a Diversity Run around the Bonifacio Global City, Taguig in May. –ELIZA J. DIAZ, Businessworld