OUR LATEST ISSUE
Being out hinders career
LGBT employees still believe that being out at work will negatively impact their career.
"Concealing your sexuality at work takes a lot of energy - energy that could be far more productively used in building better workplace relations - based on mutual trust and respect"
According to the 'Out Now 2008 Millivres Gay Market Study' which involved 1231 respondents across the UK a vast majority of gays and lesbians believe that being openly gay in their workplace will hurt their careers.
The survey which was conducted between September 2007 and January 2008 found that 82 per cent of lesbians and 75 per cent of gay men feel this way and one in eight said that coming out at work would ‘definitely’ hold them back and hinder promotion prospects.
Why would LGBT employees feel this way? According to the survey 14 per cent have been harassed at work in the last year because they were suspected to have been gay or lesbian and two out of three rated their employer as being ‘less than perfect’ in how they treated their gay and lesbian employees.
Ian Johnson, CEO of Out Now has said that despite the workplace gay and diversity policies which have been diligently fought for by LGBT organizations such as LGBT rights group Stonewall who created a Workplace Equality Index to monitor equality policies; the results are not filtering down to the day-to-day life at work. According to the Out Now survey, even companies that achieved a high index rating still had reports of harassment and discrimination.
"One of the particularly worrying results is that so many gays and lesbians are concerned that coming out as gay at work can harm their career prospects" Johnson said. "Concealing your sexuality at work takes a lot of energy - energy that could be far more productively used in building better workplace relations - based on mutual trust and respect - between everyone at work
"Widespread mainstream media reporting on the top 100 employers can make it seem like the problem of being openly gay at work is no longer an issue. These figures show that just is not the case."
