You Don't Have To Be A Lesbian To Work Here, But It Helps

Has your company hired enough lesbians? Or gay men, or bisexuals? Or people who have moved, or are moving, from one gender classification to another? I am not asking this to test your morals, but rather from the perspective of making your business the best it can be. The chances are that, if your company is anywhere close to typical, the answer is No, we have not hired enough LGBT people, and that your business is under-performing as a result.

There is a mountain of evidence that those companies that figure out how to include fully in their workforce people who are different, such as LGBTs (or those of a different skin colour, gender, or religious belief from the majority, or with a physical disability), on average tend to deliver better results. There are plenty of reasons for this. You are likelier to find the best people if you recruit from the entire population, rather than excluding maybe a tenth of it. LGBT employees are more likely to understand the potential to sell your firm's products or services to the increasingly well-off LGBT consumer. (One recent report estimated the value of this market globally as $3.7 trillion.) And more broadly, workplaces where people feel accepted as themselves, rather than having to expend energy on constantly hiding themselves in the closet, are more likely to get the best out of people.

Tomorrow, March 3rd, The Economist is convening "Pride and Prejudice", a global conference to address the economic and business case for LGBT inclusion. You can see the program here, and watch a free livestream of the event here. It starts in Hong Kong, continues in London, and finishes in New York, where I will be among the editors moderating panel discussions. Speakers range from Jim Kim, the president of the World Bank, BBC journalist Evan Davis and John Brennan, the head of the CIA, to Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive of Arsenal football club, Inga Beale, the bisexual chief executive of Lloyd's of London and Victoria Kolakowski, America's first transgender judge.  

The Economist has long been an advocate for the rights of LGBT people. In 1996, before it was on any country's agenda, the magazine ran a cover story advocating giving gay people the right to marry. But this is an issue on which economic and business logic reinforces the moral case. Zanny Minton Beddoes, the newish editor-in-chief of The Economist, feels strongly that this is an issue where the magazine can use its ability to convene influencers and decision makers to focus their attention on the economic benefits of LGBT inclusion, in the hope that this will mean faster progress more broadly.

There remains much to be done. As a more recent cover of The Economist made clear, a global divide is opening up over the rights of LGBT people, with gay marriage catching on in the West whilst hostility to gays increases in large parts of Africa as well as Indonesia, Russia and so on. One of the meatiest topics on the Pride and Prejudice agenda will be how multinationals that are good at including LGBT people in LGBT-friendly countries can be more inclusive in countries where attitudes and even laws are hostile. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Joe Biden, America's vice president, urged business leaders to make the case for LGBT inclusion in those hostile countries. (You can read my article about it here.) He argued that companies, because they create jobs, are more likely to get a serious hearing from governments than lecturing foreign politicians such as himself. It is a good point.  

Yet even in America, where the world's most valuable company, Apple, has an openly gay CEO, Tim Cook, in much of the country gay people can marry yet still be fired simply for being LGBT. A recent survey of LGBT millennials in America found that, even if they were "out" about their sexuality with their friends and family, the vast majority choose to be in the closet at work.

A new survey of senior executives in over 100 countries by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which you can read here, found widespread agreement that LGBT inclusion is a good thing, but not much understanding of how it could benefit their company's bottom line. Relatively few executives felt that greater inclusion should be a priority for spending by their firm. This may be evidence of what has been called "diversity fatigue", though it is striking that the executives surveyed also felt that LGBT inclusion was a lower priority for spending than other areas needing more inclusion, such as disability, gender and race. 

Yet the evidence is clear. Inclusive companies - and that means LGBT inclusive, just as much as other kinds - perform better on average. Make your company one of them.

What do you think?

PS. In response to a few of the early comments:

1. I don't suggest that anyone should be asked about their sexuality/gender in a job interview, or that companies should post "lesbians wanted" job ads. Rightly asking is illegal in many places which are LGBT friendly. But there are other established ways of monitoring the degree of diversity and inclusivity in a workplace. And advertising that your firm has a culture that includes and celebrates diversity, and welcomes LGBT people, is likely to ensure that the pool of people who apply includes a good number of LGBT people, which increases the chance that you will hire the very best person for the job.

2. There is a debate about what percentage of the population is LGBT. I will leave that to others. There is evidence that many LGBT people have chosen to remain in the closet at work. So colleagues may think there are fewer than is actually the case. According to one study, to pass or cover their identity at work, at least one quarter of LGBT people say they sacrifice their authenticity; over a quarter say they feel sad or nervous at work; and over one third say they avoid or engage less with colleagues.