What Workplaces Can Do To Create Trans Inclusion

By Nikolaos Koutrakis, VP Reward at Colt

This transgender awareness week, Colt has collaborated with customers and suppliers to improve transgender and non-binary inclusion in the industry, producing a set of practical recommendations.

Nikolaos has put together best practices that workplaces can implement to stand by the trans community

We teamed up with Pride at ServiceNow, Oracle Pride Employee Network (OPEN) from Oracle, Rainbow Network from euNetworks, Pride Network from BT, Equal! from Nokia, and PRIDE@CSG from CSG to gain a better understanding of the experience of transgender and non-binary employees within the sector in a bid to drive a more supportive, inclusive environment.

The recommendations produced were informed by feedback from transgender and non-binary people within the industry following a listening session for those with lived experience. Here are some of these, and you can read more in the full report.

• Provide communications and guidance on the importance of correct pronouns, including examples in other languages
• Publish guidance on how to support team members and colleagues who are transitioning
• Build in requirements within systems to support name changes and non-binary identities, ensuring this is consistent across the organisation
• Review policies to ensure they are gender-neutral, including parental leave policies
• Ensure that LGBTQ+ awareness or allyship training includes transgender and non-binary inclusion and examples of how to be an ally to these communities
• Consider introducing transition leave to allow people to take time to focus on their needs
• Publish a Transition at Work policy
• Introduce ID cards with multiple sides so that both gender identities can be reflected for a gender-fluid person

An increasing number of transgender and non-binary people come out and make the decision to navigate the workplace authentically. However, across the industry, tech companies remain at very different maturity levels regarding LGBTQ+ inclusion, and therefore the ability to support employees differs.

According to our findings, LGBTQ+ employees themselves often shoulder the burden of educating their employees, and this is even more difficult in smaller organisations or where their employee networks are less supportive. However, at Colt, we believe that collaborative action and learning from each other is the key to improving the experience of employees across the sector, forming an informal working group called Pride Matters in Tech in June 2023.

This a group of LGBTQ+ employee networks and allies in the technology sector dedicated to creating a safe space, supporting others, and sharing best practices and experiences.

These recommendations are Pride Matters in Tech’s first collaborative initiative, and we aim to do more.

If you would like to find out more about our cross-industry collaboration, Pride Matters in Tech, drop a note to [email protected]