We are pleased to announce that the 8th edition of our Global Benchmark Survey is officially open for registrations from February 1st until April 22nd.
Are you looking for a way to measure, manage and report on your LGBTIQ+ policies and practices?
Created in 2014, the Workplace Pride Global Benchmark was designed to measure the LGBTIQ+ inclusion practices of internationally active employers. It also addresses the needs of organisations faced with implementing global D&I and LGBTIQ+ policies in countries where obstacles, such as legal frameworks or cultural norms make it hard to do so.
So what does the Global Benchmark actually do?
Gives participants a custom-made overview of their organisations’ LGBTIQ+ policies and practices
Suggests practical improvements to policies and practices
It highlights how organisations rank among their peers through an online and print publication.
Awards a “Workplace Pride Global Benchmark Endorsement” for top-scoring organisations
Is the go-to measurement tool of LGBTIQ+ policies and practices for internationally-active employers
To view a Sample Global Benchmark Result report click below:
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Registration is free of charge to all Workplace Pride members. If your organisation is a member of Workplace Pride, you will receive the link to the Global Benchmark and a personalized code when you register at the link below.
Non-members participants pay an administrative fee of €1000 and will receive further instructions upon registration. This fee includes a detailed report of your LGBTIQ+ policies and practices in relation to your peers, along with suggestions for improvements. It also includes assistance in filling out the Global Benchmark if required.
First of all, let me wish you all a great start to the new year.
2021 was a huge challenge for most of us with uncertainty surrounding the pandemic impacting every element of our lives and work. Despite this, Workplace Pride was able to make significant progress that has benefited our members and the LGBTIQ+ community. Milestones for the Foundation have included:
David Pollard, Executive Director
Our conference in Hungary brought together business, diplomatic, and local civil society organisations on the difficult topic of how to create inclusive workplaces for LGBTIQ+ people in a hostile political environment.
The Academic conference organised by Workplace Pride’s special professor for LGBT inclusion at Leiden University, Dr. Jojanneke van der Toorn, was held in May of last year. This seminal event brought together scholars from around the world on the topics of LGBT workplace inclusion and was the culmination of the first 5 years of the Chair, which I am happy to say will be extended for another 5 years.
Summer saw our first truly Hybrid International Conference held in June which pushed the boundaries of what is possible with the difficult backdrop of the pandemic. The event brought together many prominent speakers such as Jim Flittering, CEO of our member DOW Chemicals, and Lisa van Ginneken, the first transgender member of the Netherlands Parliament.
In August the Foundation was invited by the organizers of Copenhagen World Pride to coordinate their Workplace Inclusion Day which created a forum for businesses and other LGBTIQ+ civil society organisations from across Europe and the world to take a deep dive into workplace issues from many new perspectives.
And last but certainly not least, was our memorable Leadership Awards Gala which brought many of our stakeholders together to highlight their contribution to our movement. It was truly an unforgettable evening!
All of this was done within the context of a significant increase of more than 25% in the number of Foundation members and everything that this entails from an organizational standpoint.
For 2022 we will certainly continue to push the boundaries for LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion around the world.
In the first quarter of the year, we will be launching our white paper on LGBT corporate advocacy, we will be organising a conference for our members in Dubai and will plan webinars on various topics that support more inclusive workplaces.
The foundation’s “jewel in the crown”, the 2022 Global Benchmark survey, opens for submissions on February 1st. and we will be making this valuable tool even easier to access for those employers wishing to make progress on LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion.
We will also continue our work on the important Free to be me project, which is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and which supports progress for our community in 14 countries in the global south.
Looking further ahead, our international conference is planned for June of this year while a groundbreaking conference in Japan tackling the issues of LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion and beyond in a unique environment is planned for the 2nd half of 2022
Workplace Pride’s special programs for women, Young people, technically focused LGBTIQ+ people and Academia will be ‘re-imagined’ as “Workplace Pride Communities” with the goal of providing them more structure and, realise greater impact for the specific groups that they represent.
And of course, our major focus of working together with our members via dedicated relationship managers and through our supportive Learning and Development program will continue and even be expanded in the coming year…. always taking into account the priorities of the LGBTIQ+ community and the many stakeholders that we work with.
In closing, I’d like to add that, while the pandemic is far from over, a new workplace reality is on the horizon. And while LGBTIQ+ communities and individuals continue to be threatened around the world, we also continue to make tangible progress and we should not forget that.
The Workplace Pride Staff, Board, and member organisations will continue to work hard in 2022 to improve LGBTIQ+ inclusion, transforming workplaces worldwide and we invite you to join us on this very important journey.
We wish you a Happy New Year from Workplace Pride!”
DIFFER(ent) Kinds of Energy Re-cap (including NWO’s signing of the Declaration of Amsterdam)
Every year, the Tech@WorkplacePride programme organises an event from a different city in the Netherlands. This year’s Tech@Workplace Pride online (formerly hybrid) event was streamed from Brainport Eindhoven, on the campus of the Eindhoven University of Technology on the 18th of November.
The guiding theme of this 2021 edition was sustainability and energy transition, and the importance of diversity for this mission. We had talks by leading scientists and industry staff about developments on sustainability and energy, suited for a lay audience, mixed with stories/reflections on diversity. There were both LGBTIQ+ and non-LGBTIQ+ speakers.
To ensure a sustainable energy transition in the coming years, it is necessary for organisations to be more innovative, build better strategies, and make courageous choices. Having employees representing diverse communities helps to better understand the environmental impact of the company’s operations, building more trust among the public, increasing cultural intelligence, and developing better strategies. Diverse companies are more innovative and more likely to outperform homogenous teams.
Leon Ouwerkerk, the LGBTIQ+ coordinator for the Dutch Research Council (NWO in Dutch) opened the event with Bianca Nijhof, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride giving an opening welcome speech.
The first presenter of the day was Richard van de Sanden, group leader and former director of DIFFER (Dutch Institute For Fundamental Energy Research). Richard’s presentation went into the details behind fusion energy and renewable energy-driven chemical conversion.
To change up the pace, the next presentation was by given Ari Sibiescu and Ave Ottens, two students from Eindhoven University. Their presentation dug into LGBTIQ+ diversity and how it’s unfolded in recent times and how different generations share values that differ as times change around language for example.
Next, Alfred Nijenhuis, a senior consultant at Arcadis gave an informative presentation on the need for the world and the Netherlands in particular to diversify energy systems that sustain our modern lifestyle and technological needs.
The next presentation came from Annelies Boerman, a lecturer/researcher at Saxion University of Applied Sciences whose presentation delved into Systems Integration.
Camille Burrer, Organizational Change Manager and Chair of Green ASML gave a presentation from ASML’s perspective on environmental sustainability and the impact individual employees can here therein.
Jeff Welser, Vice President, Exploratory Science and University Partnerships for IBM gave a presentation about five ways technology will change our lives within five years.
Finally, to close out a fascinating set of presentations, Margot Weijnen, Member of the Executive Board of the NWO (Dutch Research Council) gave an inspiring speech about the importance of diversity and the NWO’s commitment to LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion by signing the Declaration of Amsterdam with Bianca Nijhof co-signing.
To see the videos of the presentations, please subscribe to our Youtube channel to be notified when they’re online.
2021 Workplace Pride Leadership Awards Gala Winners
Inspiration through solid leadership and acknowledging true LGBTIQ+ leaders
2021 has seen a pandemic-weary world slowly re-open and it’s clear that things have changed.
Last year saw cultures and societies straining under the pressure. Yet, despite all the obstacles, people soldiered on while leading the way for broader inclusion for LGBTIQ+ people in the workplace. In spite of adversity, our community and their employers made the stark realisation that we have to work together, even more, to push LGBTIQ+ progression in such tumultuous times as these.
With no opportunity to have a Leadership Awards Gala last year, this year’s Gala had record-breaking attendance and was held at Het Scheepvaart Museum (The Dutch National Maritime Museum) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The Winners and Categoriesare:
Award for Outstanding Role Model : Winner Floris Dorgelo – Adyen
“Floris has driven the initiative the create and organise the first educational global Pride week at Adyen. He collaborated with the company’s regional Pride Champions from North America, Latin America, EU/UK/ME, and APAC to organise a week-filled program of education, inspiration, and fun including an LGBTQ+ oriented exhibition in four regional headquarters around the world. As if that wasn’t enough, Floris created a children’s book with two of his Adyen design colleagues about LGBTQ+ in the animal kingdom, which was shipped to all two thousand Adyen colleagues in 19 different countries around the world. The message was that this book given by Adyen was there to read and then give to others to educate people outside the company, starting with the youngest generation.”
Award for Best Media Representation: Winner Maersk
Maersk’s rainbow containers have served as a symbol of inclusion and diversity, boldly sharing with the world, the company’s stand on creating a culture where all employees, partners, and customers feel welcomed and can be themselves without judgment.”
Award for Most Active Volunteer: Bianca Hermansen – ISS
Bianca has done tremendous work to advance D&I at ISS and to support the LGBTQ+ community internally and externally. Bianca is Co-chair in ISS’ global Pride ERG, has developed the global pride program in 2021, engaging all regions, including high-risk countries such as China and Poland; Wrote an article on (gender) inclusive design and architecture; Designed and deployed a number of D&I action plans amongst senior leaders and leadership teams across the global accounts, and has created a groundbreaking presentation called “Beyond the Binary.”
Bianca Hermansen – ISS
Award for Most Effective Ally: Captain Lars den Hartigh – KLM
Lars is a captain at KLM. Next to this position, Lars works in working groups to truly push and engage management and staff, especially at the very conservative flight department, on all-inclusivity topics. Lars participates in the Flight Inclusion working group, where he regularly speaks out on behalf of the LGBTIQ+ community, and not mildly. He consistently pushes KLM one step further every time and is a true treasure for the company.
Captain Lars den Hartigh
Award for Most Engaged Network: Proud Heroes – Delivery Hero
“Although they only started in Nov. of 2019, Proud Heroes already have LGBTIQ+ participants from all 70 entities…Activities run or initiated by Proud Heroes include:
• Internally: Virtual Christopher Street Day 2020, LGBT Mentoring program, onboarding/new hires, Diversity, and Inclusion Survey, Rainbow Email signature, Targeted internal articles on Coming out, International Transgender Day of Visibility, encouraging the use of pronouns in email signatures, Pride merchandise, learning nuggets on HIV organised for employees and LGBT allyship.
• Externally: Delivery Hero increased their score from 50% to 67% on the DAX30 LGBT audit and achieved a top score of a ProutVoice on ProutPerformer 2021.
All Job posts in 2021 for Delivery Hero have the LGBT+ Diversity Seal and soon the Workplace Pride Logo as well as holding virtual panels and multiple blog posts for LGBT+ inclusion externally. A long list!”
Workplace Pride Global Benchmark 2021 Ambassadors:
Distinguished achievement scoring (70%-90%) for the 2021 results include:
Results of the 2021 Global Benchmark were celebrated at the Leadership Awards Gala on October 29. Read more about the 2021 top-scoring organizations, score trending, overall highlights and areas of focus in the official report here.
Download our 2021 Global Benchmark Results here:
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To see the press release for the Global Benchmark 2021 click below:
Workplace Inclusion Day August 18th was kicked off with an empowering speech by the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Petra de Sutter, herself a member of the LGBTIQ+ community. With a keynote entitled “LGBTIQ Workplace Inclusion from the State level”, it really was a passionate call to action.
From Left to Right: Aron Le Fèvre, Director of Human Rights, Sara Louise Muhr, Professor at the Copenhagen School of Business, Moderator, Petra de Sutter, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and David Pollard, Executive Director of Workplace Pride
“We cannot be complacent, we must act!”
Petra de Sutter, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium
Michiel Kolman, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride felt that Workplace Inclusion day really shed light upon the fact that the “Workplace” is really at a tipping point as things are changing with younger generations coming in with fresh ideas about gender, gender identity, and sexual identity, etc.
“There was a very upbeat story today but at the same time, we do live in a world where it can be far more difficult for the LGBTIQ+ community”
Michiel Kolman, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride
Michiel went on to note the interesting contrast and “tension” between the inner world of companies and organisations and the outer world with its political developments which aren’t always positive. All in all a great day with a highly engaged audience!
Ulf Hahnemam, CHRO of Maersk spoke about the journey his company has been on and how taking into account their LGBTIQ+ employees has totally changed their approach. Ulf gave a heartfelt speech touching on Maersk’s radical shift in philosophy and that Maersk has seen tangible improvements in employee efficiency and happiness as a direct result of this approach of embracing LGBTIQ+ inclusion in their workplaces around the globe.
Ulf Hahnemam, CHRO of Maersk
Bianca Nijhof, Co-Chair hosted a session about the ASEAN region and the difficulties faced there. Hanim Hamzah, based in Singapore, spoke about the state of legislation in 10 Asian countries and expressed how much work there is still left to do. The international panel looked at ways to collaborate, convince and work with governments in these countries to enable deeper progress towards inclusion of the LGBTIQ+ community there.
Bianca Nijhof, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride
“With all the polarization, taking the younger generation onboard is key. Education between generations is important and certainly, educating allies is a vital part of raising awareness”
Bianca Nijhof, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride
With six concurrent breakout sessions in the morning, each “sphere” used an innovative system where speakers spoke via microphones using wireless technology. The audience, wearing wireless headphones, heard the presentation whilst following projector slides. This minimized distraction from neighboring sessions and kept each breakout audience focused on the content only they could hear. The conference hall was filled with silence and concentration!
Ali Buck, a member of the Young@Workplace Pride program presented a session on allyship within the LGBTIQ+ community from the youth perspective.
Ali Buck, a member of the Young@WorkplacePride
“56% of people within generation “Z” in the LGBTIQ+ community identify as trans or non-binary which is statistically a massive increase over previous generations”
Ali Buck A Member of the Young@WorkplacePride
For Ali’s employer in the USA, these findings have influenced the policies they create to recruit, attract and retain young talent. This is something that other employers should consider for their office spaces as employees return to office-based employment again. Despite all the upheaval that COVID has brought, we have phenomenal opportunities to examine current and future workplace policies around LGBTIQ+ inclusion and diversity and how were share our workspaces.
A key moment for Workplace Pride at the conference was the pre-launch of a white paper on corporate advocacy via a sphere session presented by David Pollard, Exec. Director of Workplace Pride, Dr. Felicity Daly and Marijn Pijnenburg of IBM. The paper examines how corporations can have a significant impact on governments when it comes to influencing LGBTIQ+ legislation around the world. The final launching of the paper will take place this fall.
With 12 interactive sphere sessions throughout the day, presentations and panel sessions plus live speakers dialing in from as far away as Asia, Africa and Latin America Workplace Inclusion Day at World Pride Copenhagen was as intense as it was inspiring!
In the wake of a tumultuous 2020 where countless social norms were deeply affected by the global pandemic, Workplace Pride made the difficult decision to hold a truly hybrid conference at the Amsterdam Theatre on the 25th of June, 2021.
With a global online audience of over 400 and a live in-house audience of close to 100 Workplace Pride members, the conference opened with a powerful montage of the struggles and solidarity of the LGBTIQ+ communities around the world where there is still so much work to be done. David Pollard, Exec. Director of Workplace Pride opened the conference by touching on the breadth of seismic societal changes that have occurred in recent times. The changes range from the Hungarian government banning any portrayal of homosexuality in education or on television to Poland creating “LGBT-free” zones where LGBTIQ+ people have no protection against hate crimes. In Brazil, legal attempts are even being made to remove “gender” and any talk of homosexuality or transgenderism from school curricula!
“We are truly at a crossroads in how societies react to these developments and the LGBTIQ+ community is part of this story as well”
David Pollard
Aldith Hunkar, journalist and TV presenter was the moderator for the event and the first keynote speaker was Carla Grant Pickens, Global Chief of D&I at IBM. IBM thus far has been a trailblazer when it comes to LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion. Aldith and Carla discussed the challenges she is facing as chief of D&I at IBM and how IBM itself is dealing with the changes to the workforce and what its core values are.
“Both physical and mental health is important. Workplace flexibility, putting yourself and yourfamily first. The concept of “whole self” is going to be key in going beyond themselves to their broader lives and ecosystem”.
Carla Grant Pickens Global Chief of D&I at IBM
Carla also spoke about the IBM Innovation Jam that was held recently which focused on the LGBTIQ+ community. With over 5000 participants worldwide it yielded insights and gave IBM actionable results around educating employees and regarding the LGBTIQ+ community.
“Companies need to ensure they pay attention to LGBTIQ+ employees’ career growth and velocity”
Carla Grant Pickens
The first panel of the day was hosted by Co-Chair of Workplace Pride, Bianca Nijhof. She spoke with Rodney Irwin, COO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. They were joined remotely by Marcia Balisciano, the Director of Corporate Responsibility atRELX. The discussion focused on the impact of LGBTIQ+ workplace inclusion on investors.
“There are three priorities businesses need to embrace. First the climate emergency, the biodiversity loss and its connections to COVID-19 and the third is inequality surrounding LGBTIQ+ people”.
Rodney Irwin
Marcia spoke to Rodney’s words about policies meaning nothing without action adding that RELX feels needs to have the right atmosphere across their organisation. This is accomplished through different training around topics such as psychological safety and allowing people to say what needs to be said.
Aldith was then joined by the CEO of Dow Inc., Jim Fitterling who spoke about the gains a company can have from being more diverse and inclusive.
“You can legislate numbers, representation, and diversity and try to get there fast but if it’s not sustainable and you don’t have an inclusive culture, people can end up unhappy and leave,” said Fitterling.
“There’s a lot of awareness in the world right now, but not enough action”.
Jim Fitterling CEO of Dow Inc.
To the question of the impact of the pandemic and if employees coming back to the office was an opportunity to re-launch diversity Fitterling noted that the motto at Dow throughout the pandemic has been “Inclusion is not cancelled “. Dow’s ERG’s have been heavily relied upon to keep people connected and move forward. The pandemic provided the company with insights into life and work habits and for example, child care issues or taking care of older relatives.
Lisa van Ginneken, Member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands joined Aldith on stage to dive straight into Lisa’s efforts around giving transgender and intersex people more say in their medical procedures. She also urged for transitional leave to cater in a similar way to maternity leave and giving attention to the process.
“Large companies have a large power to advocate and I urge them to use that power to enable low-threshold access to transgender healthcare worldwide” said van Ginneken, who added:
“Large companies have a large power to advocate and I urge them to use that power to enable low-threshold access to transgender healthcare worldwide” said van Ginneken, who added:
“When someone goes through the transition it isn’t only them, it’s their environment and their support system as well. Partners, kids, friends and family all go through the transition too”.
Lisa van Ginneken member of the house OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NETHERLANDS
Van Ginneken also explained that the Pandemic had affected levels of loneliness for transgender people as well. During the transition, your social circle can shrink and the Pandemic has only exacerbated those conditions along with depression. Also, since healthcare has been focused on COVID-19, transitional healthcare scope has shrunk meaning waiting lists have increased.
“I hope that in the future, formerly challenged minorities keep reminding others how it was and take on the responsibility not to treat others in a divisive way,”
Lisa van Ginneken
For the next panel featured Martine de Vries, Professor in Medical Ethics and Health law and LUMC, Gera Sneller, Coordinator for D&I at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Javier Leonor, Global Inclusion & Diversity at Accenture. With the topic of “Leaders’ Strategies at a Crossroads”, the panel gave their thoughts on healthcare and the challenges in particular for the LGBTIQ+ community.
“What we’ve learned is that we need to focus more on specific groups affected and that includes the LGBTIQ+ community,”said Professor de Vries.
For Accenture, the shift to working from home was around prior to Covid but mental health has become a key issue said, Javier Leonor. On a positive note, he also said that some employees had flourished in spite of the Pandemic. Also for transgender colleagues, some of the stress of being in transition in the office was alleviated by working from home.
Gera Sneller at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs gave a very global perspective, highlighting how some areas or parts of the world moved forward with LGBTIQ+ rights but conversely other places saw things worsen during the Pandemic.
“Unfortunately we’ve seen communities, driven at the highest political level channeling the uncertainty into hatred” said Sneller.
For the final panel, Michiel Kolman, Co-Chair of Workplace Pride and SVP, Research Networks ELSEVIER spoke with Justus Eisfeld from Hivos, Yuli Kim, L+D Development Manager at Workplace Pride and Jeroen Haver, International Business Manager, NLinBusiness.
With a topic entitled “Intersectionality – A Catalyst for Change”, the discussion centered around the challenges of data representation and what that means for the intersex community in particular, and are we acknowledging that community’s significant difficulties in finding and having employment for example.
The discussion delved deeper into the “framework” of intersectionality beyond the obvious visual characteristics.
“It’s time to apply a different lens when we look at intersectionality. Not just the LGBTIQ+ lens but also generation, race, culture and language, and many more invisible characteristics” concluded Kolman.
This first true ‘hybrid event’ by Workplace Pride highlighted the advantages of being able to gather again in person, but at the same time showcased the ongoing challenges that many LGBTIQ+ people and their employees face in the workplace as a result of the societal changes we are all experiencing. Going forward, Workplace Pride will continue to challenge our members and the community to strive for more inclusive workplaces around the world: together with can choose the right path at this monumental turning point in our history.
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