How to support your lesbian and gay employees and service users

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• How to support your lesbian and gay employees and
  service users
• Keith Kibirango
• Stonewall

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Before we begin Did you know that gay people

• Form 6 of the population
• May be of any ethnicity, gender, age or religion
• May live anywhere, including rural areas
• Have some legal protection (employment
  protections, civil partnerships, education
  (section 28), goods and services)
• Still experience discrimination
• May not know their rights or responsibilities
• Are not the only people affected by homophobia

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Overview

• What does Stonewall do?
• Legal Protections for gay staff and service
  users.
• How to make your workplace more gay-friendly
• How to make your services more gay-friendly
• How to monitor sexual orientation

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Stonewall.

• Stonewall are a lobbying group who work to
  prevent discrimination against lesbian, gay and
  bisexual people
• We do this in 4 key areas
• We promote new research and take legal test cases
• Mobilise individuals to lobby parliament for
  change
• We work with individuals and companies to improve
  lives of gay people in the U.K (workers, parents,
  citizens, employers)
• We have offices in Scotland and Wales to ensure
  effective regional work

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Stonewall

• UKs leading LGB lobbying organisation

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Current legal protections.

• For staff
• Employment Equality (sexual orientation)
  Regulations 2003
• Unlawful to discriminate in employment on grounds
  of sexual orientation.
• For service-users.
• The Equality Act (sexual orientation) regulations
  2007.
• Unlawful to discriminate on grounds of sexual
  orientation in the provision of goods, facilities
  and services.

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Current policy framework

• Equality standard for local government.
• Set up to combat processes that lead to
  discrimination.
• Addresses all six equality strands.
• Makes the mainstreaming of equality into service
  delivery and employment an issue for all L.G s
  work.
• Common approach for dealing with all strands.
• Not all strands are dealt with as a uniform
  issue.
• How? - through sound performance practices,
  external assessment.

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How to make your workplace more gay-friendly

• Understand the law
• Make sure policies comply with the law
• Communicate changes
• Make a business case
• Build a culture of respect
• Set up network group
• Tackle harassment and bullying
• Review terms and conditions
• Manage performance fairly
• Monitor policies and practices

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How to make your service more gay-friendly

• Understand and recognise the needs of lesbian and
  gay people.
• Comply with the law.
• Communicate the changes (culture of respect).
• Work with lesbian and gay staff.
• Work with lesbian and gay service users.
• Respond to incidents.
• Address staff training needs.
• Assess polices.
• Work with others.
• Encourage reporting and monitoring

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Monitoring

• There are a number of initiatives that should be
  put in place before monitoring.

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Monitoring

• Why?
• Helps an organisation identify, tackle and
  prevent discrimination against gay staff and
  service users.
• Builds reputation
• Boosts recruitment and retention
• Facilitates communication
• Increases customer loyalty

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Monitoring.

• How
• Ensure inclusive culture
• Establish a business case
• Gain senior level buy-in
• Consult key stakeholders
• Develop systems to support collection of sexual
  orientation data
• Be clear as to the purpose of collecting the
  data.
• Communicate the purpose of monitoring
• Commit to repeating the exercise
• Take positive action and address issues raised
• Treat monitoring as an integrated part of and not
  replacement of policy.

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WORKPLACE GUIDES

• Network Groups
• Monitoring
• Bullying and Harassment
• Career Development
• www.stonewall.org.uk

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• Thank you!
• Stonewall
• T 020 7593 1850
• E info_at_stonewall.org.uk
• W www.stonewall.org.uk