Gay-friendly employers - Workplace Equality Index 2007

Stonewall last week published its 2007 Workplace Equality Index (WEI) of the UK's 100 most lesbian and gay-friendly employers (Stonewall press release).

"These are the organisations that scored highest on a 20-question survey covering nine policy and practice areas. the overall winner in 2007 is IBM, with Staffordshire Police, the 2006 overall winner, in second place and Manchester City Council and the Greater London Authority sharing third place."

Lloyds TSB was Most Improved Employer and Manchester City Council won an award for Network Group of the Year.

Investment banks and other banks, consulting firms and government/police employers were the sectors with the highest average score. (And look how profitable investment banks and consultants are - perhaps there's a connection with LGB-friendly policies, perhaps not, but it must show at least that actively promoting diversity doesn't hurt your business.)
But it's disheartening to note that there is still a "pink plateau", as Ben Summerskill the Stonewall Chief Executive said.

Even though The 2003 Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations made workplace discrimination against gay people unlawful, "Stonewall still deals regularly with people facing workplace discrimination" and research in 2004 by the University of Cardiff for Stonewall found that as many as one in four lesbian, gay or bisexual people in Wales had been dismissed or forced to leave a job at some point in their working lives because of their sexuality, while nearly half of gay employees still feel unable to reveal their sexual orientation at work.