Indian workplaces are slowly becoming more inclusive, not just in theory but in practice too, since most of them – (67%) to be precise – don’t care about the LGBTQ status of their employees.
This finding came out from the TimesJobs Diversity & Inclusion Survey conducted recently among 860 professionals, working in different industry verticals. The aim of this survey was to understand the impact of diversity practices at the Indian firms. The survey was undertaken to gauge how friendly Indian workplaces are for the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) professionals.
These findings have come at a time when Dutee Chand, the first Indian sportswoman to qualify for the 100-metre sprint at the Olympics, publicly acknowledged her same–sex relationship. She has become India’s first athlete to open up about her sexuality.She asserted that it’s her work (as an athlete) that matters and not the other aspects of her personality. Indian workplaces are in fact already living up to this spirit, since 65% of survey respondents claimed that their company recruitedprofessionals who were open about their LGBTQ+ status.
In the survey about 70% professionals said that they were comfortable working with LGBTQ colleagues.
Answering another question, most respondents(67%) claimed that they are comfortable in opening about their sexual orientation/cultural values at their organisation.
However, all is not as rosy as it seems. There are some grey areas too. About 30% of employees have known about their colleagues being discriminated on the grounds of different sexual orientation/ religion/ ethnic background etc.
These findings are based on email responses received from 860 professionals in the age-group of 25-50 years. Most responses were received from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Surat, and Chandigarh, among other cities.The survey was conducted from May 1 – May 21, 2019.
Another finding from the survey pointed that Media and Entertainment could be the largest employer of diverse employee group. Other sectors – as mentioned by survey respondents were – BPOs and IT.
