NEW DELHI: A significant percentage of MNC leaders are LGBTQ+ immersive in terms of inclusion goals in their leadership, but despite positive changes, a majority of respondents from the LGBTQ+ community felt a total lack of vision/ policies for themselves at their organizations, says a survey.
According to Randstad India's Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Study, 60 per cent of MNC leaders have LGBTQ+ inclusion goals.
However, close to 70 per cent of the respondents believe that there has been no significant effort in the direction of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or sometimes questioning), and others (LGBTQ+) inclusion. On Thursday, Randstad India, a leading organization in the HR services industry, in partnership with Randstad RiseSmart and Women's Web, launched the study titled 'Inclusion without Exception'.
As part of the quantitative survey, 201 business leaders across all levels and sectors were covered and the survey included 31 LGBTQ+ members, 10 HR/D&I leaders, five policy makers and five community leaders. Social media was also used to gather survey inputs.
"While diversity at work can be achieved by making changes in the hiring strategy, nurturing Inclusion is a wider concept that involves the inclusion of people at all levels, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and ability," said Viswanath PS, MD & CEO, Randstad India.
"Although the majority of India Inc. is in the 'reinforcement' stage of creating a truly inclusive workplace, I believe that by creating the right role models, leaders walking the talk, investing in the right infrastructure and by establishing legal frameworks and policies, we could fast track positive changes in this direction.
"And it's a win-win situation inclusive organizations have the talent edge, they enjoy increased employee engagement, improved customer delight scores and willingness of partnerships," Viswanath added.
Only 9.5 per cent of the surveyed organizations have made extremely significant efforts to be LGBTQ+ inclusive (of which majority were MNCs), while 21.4 per cent took only average efforts and a vast majority (69.2 per cent) took very limited efforts to be truly inclusive in their organizational approach, the survey said.
Reflecting similar sentiments, close to 70 per cent of the respondents felt there have been no significant efforts in the direction of LGBTQ+ inclusion in their respective organizations. Among those respondents who believe changes have been significant, 70 per cent work with MNCs.
When it comes to consciously hiring people from LGBTQ+ community, the survey showed that a very small fraction (23 per cent) are actually putting in such efforts, mostly from the MNCs (62 per cent). Moreover, most of these hiring take place at the junior and middle level.
According to the study, 53 per cent of the surveyed organizations stated that they do not have career development opportunities for people from the LGBTQ+ community.