Driving LGBT workplace equality across multiple locationsSome practical tips from EY

In association with

With offices of all different sizes, it’s important to do your best to ensure that LGBT people in different locations feel included in the work that is being done around LGBT workplace equality.

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Stonewall is here to let all lesbian, gay, bi and trans people know they’re not alone. Our work with employers is integral to this mission. Companies working across the UK — and the world — can have an enormous impact on the well-being of their LGBT employees, particularly in places where LGBT people face isolation or lack visibility.

EY has been a partner to Stonewall for many years and have a well-established commitment to LGBT equality. They have also been consistently recognised in our annual ranking of employers, the Stonewall Top 100.

As a large multinational, EY faces the challenge of engaging a dispersed workforce in equality initiatives, ensuring

every LGBT person is supported and has an equal chance to flourish. The innovative ways EY has reached out to staff and fostered a community within their Unity LGBT+ network is a valuable example to others.

We welcome this guide and hope that it inspires employers and network groups to do more for LGBT staff right across their organisation.

We invite you to join with us, and with EY, in working towards acceptance without exception for LGBT people everywhere.

Ruth HuntChief Executive, Stonewall

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In my role as Managing Partner for Talent for EY in the UK & Ireland, it is great to see how our Unity Network continues to raise the profile and importance of having a strong LGBT voice across our business. They have demonstrably raised awareness of the issues LGBT people face in the workplace, with a real focus recently on specific issues such as bisexual visibility and gender identity, expression and transgender issues. In addition, they have engaged with allies from across the business, worked closely with other employee networks and partner organisations, such as Stonewall, and really continued to push us as a business to understand the importance of diversity to our success.

One area that has been a focus for the network has been to try to improve the experience and connection with our LGBT people and allies who are based outside of large metropolitan centres such as London. It has been great to see how well our network hub in Ireland is doing — recently recognised through a number

of awards locally; and the newer hub in Scotland is also building its capacity and activities, with focus now moving towards England-outside-London.

There is still lots of work to be done and we don’t profess to have all the answers, but are delighted to share our experiences in the hope they help others on their own journeys.

I’m very proud of the firm’s longstanding support for the LGBT community, something all of our Leadership Team are committed to. We want all our people to feel they can be themselves at work. When a person works in an inclusive workplace they have the best opportunity to reach their full potential — and this means that we serve our clients even better as a consequence. Diversity should be celebrated as it’s our differences that make us great.

Maggie StilwellManaging Partner for Talent EY UK and Ireland

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As a business, EY has offices across the United Kingdom, Ireland and in over 150 other countries and territories around the world. As with many other national and global employers, many of our offices are in large cities/metropolitan centres, but many are not. In addition to offices of different sizes we also have the challenge of engaging with our people based at client sites. It’s vital that LGBT people in a variety of locations have a consistent experience and that they are included and aware of the work that is being done around LGBT workplace equality.

We always strive to ensure that we encourage greater levels of activity outside of London. This document provides some examples of what has made a positive impact for us, as well as ideas from other organisations we work with. We are on a journey, with work still to be done, but we are making good progress and wanted

to share some of our experiences so far. You may already be using some of the approaches, as many are common sense solutions to common problems. We hope many of you find some of our ideas helpful and some you could utilise in your own organisation.

Our journey so far

EY is globally structured into four geographic ‘Areas’ — Americas, EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa), Asia-Pacific and Japan — which are in turn comprised of 27 ‘Regions’ of which the United Kingdom and Ireland (UK&I) is one. Whilst we’ll make mention of other locations, the main focus of this document will be on the work we have done within our UK&I region.

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There are a number of challenges that organisations can face when looking to improve work across a spread of different locations. Some of these are as follows (you may be familiar with some):

Low ‘critical mass’ Often the ‘critical mass’ of LGBT people in some locations, particularly those in smaller urban and rural areas, can make it challenging to get local activity going.

Bias towards larger metropolitan centres

Linked to the first challenge, as larger cities and metropolitan centres often do have large critical masses of LGBT people, there is often an unintended bias towards events held in those locations.

Lack of access to information/resources

If information (for example, regarding your LGBT network group) or resources are not made readily available to people in different locations, this can make it harder for them to get activity off the ground. For example, resources can sometimes be buried in an organisation’s intranet and not be easily searchable; or remote workers with no online access may not know who to contact to access resources. Allies may also find it challenging if they do not have easy access to resources to enable them to be more effective in their support of their LGBT colleagues.

Budgetary constraints

An ever-present challenge, often budgetary restrictions can be a potential blocker to activity, though as you’ll see that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.

Challenging locations

Some locations, for example those remote from metropolitan centres, could be more resistant to LGBT events or activities due to lack of visibility or experience.

Challenges

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These are just some of the challenges that people can face. Hopefully this document will give you some ideas for possible ways to overcome them.

EY’s LGBT+ Network

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We see one of the key resources for any organisation is a strong LGBT employee network — one that not only connects with the LGBT community but also actively includes and engages with allies from broader communities.

Our own network — Unity — was founded in the UK in 1995 and now has over 4,500 members around the world.

It operates globally on a ‘network-of-networks’ basis, with Unity in each of EY’s geographic regions being run autonomously by our people locally, whilst at the same time being part of something consistent and much larger that can draw together to leverage its collective strength (for example to mark IDAHOT).

We take this approach as we believe it is people in each location who fully understand the needs of their location and can most effectively support their local members. It is also important, however, to provide a wider community that they can tap into.

In the UK and Ireland we operate that same system, with a UK and Ireland-wide network that is made-up of semi-autonomous ‘hubs’ in different part of the geography with local leaders and local committees. Outside London, the two main hubs we have are in Ireland and Scotland.

This model can be a useful one when looking to strengthen the activity and reach of your employee network across multiple locations. It also provides people in each location with more of a feeling of ‘ownership’ of their activities.

It is also important for any network to ensure it has knowledge of where its members are based and to survey them regularly to understand both the different issues that may exist for them across multiple locations and also to help highlight areas of best practice that could be replicated in other locations.

A strong employee network

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The Ireland ‘hub’ of our Unity network was launched in 2008 by six colleagues, led by a Director. Since launch, the hub has made a significant impact both internally and externally. Most recently nearly 200 EY people marched together in the Dublin Pride parade.

Our hub, in Scotland and Newcastle, was formed in 2014 and has seen growth in the network since, making good use of technology to connect people across our Scottish offices and leveraging local support from Stonewall Scotland to move the agenda forward.

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Stronger togetherAt EY, we have a number of different employee networks. If you also have multiple networks, there will be opportunities for collaboration — pooling local resources to create initiatives and events together. This will be particularly helpful if areas where you do not have critical mass.

Our Unity Network often partners with others. An example of collaboration is Unity’s partnering with the EY Family Network on several different events looking at different aspects of being LGBT parents.

Unity has also worked with the EY Mental Health Network to hold events that explore mental health issues.

EY Turkic Network

EY Far East Network

EY Black Network

EY Russian Speaking Business Network

EY ANZAC Network

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All inclusive and open

to all

Ability EY

Autism Network

Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Network

Dyslexia Network

Mental Health

Network

Stammering and Speech

Network

Wellbeing and Mobility

Network

Christian Network

Jewish Network

Muslim Network

Sikh Network

Hindu Network

EY Latin Network

EY Military Network

EY Interfaith Working Group

Unity EY’s LGBT+

Network

EY Family Network

EY South Asian

Network

EY Mindfulness

Network

EY Women’s Network

EY ANZAC Network

Special Needs Forum

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Look for opportunities for individuals to dial-in remotely or even provide video conferencing for certain events. This can at least enable individuals to feel more connected (particularly with video conferencing) and more able to participate in real-time.If real-time teleconferencing or video conferencing isn’t available, explore whether it’s possible to video speaker events and then make the video available on your intranet, or share it by e-mail, for people to access at a later date.

Both these options not only benefit people in different locations, but also people in the host location who may not be able to attend in person.

Effectively leverage technology...

Leverage internal social media platforms to provide a way for people in different locations to easily connect with the wider community and provide a hub for communication.It’s also important to have a good intranet site for your network group where people can find information, contact details, upcoming events and a place for other resources. Make sure it is easy to locate on your intranet.

Get online Connect up

Our Unity network also utilises internal social media, to provide a collaborative platform for people from across the business to connect both to the network and to each other. Our global Unity group on Yammer, for example, has over 1,000 members from over 40 countries.

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In places where individuals may not have ready access to computers, effective use of physical communications is important.Visible posters and noticeboard communications relating to LGBT issues and network activities not only provide information for your LGBT employees, but are visible demonstrations of support for the community and a way also to reach potential allies.

Be sure to provide clear contact details for people to follow-up for more information.

Don’t forget to recycle!

…and other communication routes

Utilise your employee network newsletter effectively so that members in all locations feel connected and in the know about network activities.If there are any organisation-wide communications or newsletters, see what opportunities there are to get LGBT-specific stories featured, which provide details of your employee network group.

Make headlines Display it

We employ a variety of communication channels to raise awareness of LGBT workplace equality and the activity of Unity, including all-staff newsletters, network newsletters, posters, office plasma displays, our intranet and internal social media, depending on the message and target audience.

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Engage allies

Effectively engaging with allies can be a key way to help increase support for LGBT people, particularly in places where there may not be a critical mass of LGBT people. As allies are individuals who are supportive advocates for the LGBT community and help create a safe and inclusive environment for LGBT employees through their words and behaviours, engaging them effectively helps support an open and inclusive workplace for everyone.

Our EMEIA area has an active allies initiative that has resulted in several locations becoming more confident and visible in their support of LGBT despite there currently not being an active Unity network present in their location.

Allies are asked to sign-up to be visible supporters of their LGBT colleagues to help effect the culture change needed to support them in being themselves at work. To help get them started they are provided with a pack of resources, including a rainbow EY lanyard and rainbow ‘I support inclusion’ stickers for them to use on their laptops to provide a visual cue to others. They are also encouraged to add a rainbow ‘I support inclusion’ tag to their e-mail signatures. There is then a page full of resources on our intranet to support them further, including access to podcasts on how to be an effective ally (co-produced with Stonewall).

Stonewall also has a number of really valuable guides on being an ally, available via their webside.

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Leverage LGBT-specific days to bring people together and build a sense of communityUse an LGBT-specific day, such as the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT) on 17 May each year, as an opportunity to raise awareness of LGBT issues.

It’s also an opportunity to explore ways to bring your LGBT people and allies together across dispersed locations to do coordinated activities on a particular day. IDAHOT is a particularly good one.

At EY, we mark IDAHOT each year with posters, internal news stories, plasma screen displays and rainbow sweets across all our offices in the UK and Ireland.

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Connect with external LGBT organisations

As you start to build support for your LGBT people in different regions, explore the external organisations that may exist to help support you on this journey. This map shows a number of organisations that operate across the UK and Ireland to give you some ideas, but is by no means exhaustive.

As well as community organisations, also consider engaging with networks of other organisations in your sector or beyond. Often different organisations will be facing very similar challenges when it comes to increasing activity regionally, so connecting with them to collaborate is often a good way to build relationships beyond your own organisation and also to collectively help solve a common problem.

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Resources

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Stonewall stonewall.org.uk

OUTstanding out-standing.org

trans*formation transformationuk.com

Stonewall Scotland stonewallscotland.org.uk

Scottish Transgender Alliance scottishtrans.org

Stonewall Cymru stonewallcymru.org.uk

Stonewall Diversity Champions Northern Ireland

stonewall.org.uk/northern-ireland-diversity-champions

TENI teni.ie

International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT)

dayagainsthomophobia.org

Making it real globallyEY strives to help drive LGBT workplace equality and to provide advice to other organisations aiming to do the same. One way we have done this is via our Making it Real Globally thought leadership, which aims to give a practical guide for advancing LGBT diversity and inclusion across global companies, highlighting nine key ways to advance LGBT policy to practice.

While the document was created for international practice, many of the concepts and recommendations are applicable for extending LGBT-inclusive practices in a company’s home territory, from the main hubs to local hubs, and so could be a useful resource.

If you’re interested, ‘Making it real globally’ can be found on the EY website.

www.ey.com/lgbt

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About EYEY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

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