Self-Identification of LGBT Employees: Current and Best Practices
Thousands of employers both in the U.S. and abroad have improved their employment policies, benefits and other practices to ensure more equitable treatment of their LGBT employees, despite inconsistent laws regarding gender identity and sexual orientation across the United States and internationally. But evaluating the success of these practices with regard to recruitment, retention and productivity is difficult because most employers don't know how many LGBT employees they have or what parts of the organization they work in.
Unlike other diversity categories, such as race and gender, employers are not required to collect statistics on the number of LGBT people they employ for reporting purposes with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employers have sought to determine the number of their employees who identify as LGBT while balancing privacy concerns -- some have used LGBT employee group membership numbers to generate estimates, but this method is limited by the scope of such voluntary groups over a highly dispersed workforce.
More recently, employers have gathered statistics through anonymous employee surveys on engagement or satisfaction and through confidential and secure employee records. In both cases, whether an employee discloses their gender identity or sexual orientation is optional and voluntary and any reporting or direct access to the data is designed to ensure the confidentiality of the employee.
Best Practices Report
The report, "Where are our LGBT employees?" provides recommendations for businesses seeking to implement self-identification programs, including specific examples from eight employers. In particular, the report focuses on optional demographic questions on gender identity and sexual orientation in anonymous engagement surveys and confidential employee records, where the information is treated with the same sensitivity as other demographic data such as race, ethnicity and gender.
- Report: Where are our LGBT Employees? May 2009 (pdf)
The HRC Foundation was pleased to work with a community of almost 80 professionals representing more than 35 U.S. and Canadian employers and nonprofit organizations, including Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, to help create this initial report.
- LGBT Self-ID Community of Practice [collectivex.com]
- Out & Equal Workplace Advocates [outandequal.org]
To prepare recommendations for businesses seeking to implement self-identification programs, including guidance to address common privacy concerns and drive employee participation over time, the group drew from its own expertise and ultimately interviewed eight major U.S. employers with LGBT self-identification programs:
- Bank of America Corp.,
- Corning Inc.,
- Ernst & Young LLP,
- Hewitt Associates Inc.,
- IBM Corp.,
- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.,
- Merrill Lynch & Co. (now a part of Bank of America Corp.), and
- Sun Microsystems Inc.
How Many Employers Do This
The HRC Corporate Equality Index measures asks which employers that allow employees to voluntarily disclose their gender identity or sexual orientation through engagement surveys or employee records:
- 2009: 210 of 584 employers (36 percent), compared with
- 2008: 141 of 519 employers (27 percent), and
- 2006: 17 percent.
Self-identification will become a required component of the Corporate Equality Index beginning in calendar year 2011.
Employee Comfort
In a 2008 survey, seven in 10 (72 percent) LGBT employees say they would self-disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity along with other demographic information in an anonymous human resources survey, while 18 percent say they would not self-disclose and 10 percent say they are not sure whether they would or not.
Of the combined 28 percent that would either not self-disclose or are unsure, 59 percent indicate they "don't trust that the survey is confidential" and 40 percent indicate they are "not sure how the information would be used." LGBT employees not open to anyone at work are least likely to answer a human resources survey honestly (49 percent would do so). See the report "Where are our LGBT employees" (above) for recommendations to address these concerns.
