Engaging the LGBT Employees at Workplace in India
According to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, sexual
activities which are against the order of nature fall under criminal offence
including homosexual acts too. In December 2013, the Supreme Court of India declared
that this matter of section 377 out of judiciary system and therefore should be
under the discretion of any decision passed in Indian Parliament. Recently
towards the end of 2015, the Minister of State for Human Resources Development,
Mr.Shashi Tharoor promoted the bill in Lok Sabha for gay sex, but was
unsuccessful in getting it passed and de-criminalizing the act of homosexuality.
In spite of the current status of section 377 i.e Lesbians,
Gays, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT), there are major corporate giants in
India who has been openly promoting LGBT rights at workplace and have been
positively included it in their diversity policy. Some of these eminent players
are Godrej, Google, Genpact, Goldman Sachs, Coca Cola, Intuit, ThoughtWorks,
Microsoft, Accenture, IBM etc.
Godrej – Runs a series of workshops with an
agenda of sensitizing the on LGBTs for their employees across functions and
teams. Various plays, film screenings, talks are hosted to encourage more
openness towards the LGBT employees. In fact actively Godrej sponsored KASHISH - the Mumbai International LGBT
Film Festival in 2014. Not only this, the organisation proudly hosted the “MINGLE” – the Indian LGBT Youth
Leadership Summit at March 2015. All official forms of Godrej have “Others” for
selecting the gender as an option for LGBT employees. Not only this, the
organisation offers equal medical, hospitalization expense, Leave travel and
transfer allowance towards LGBT employees as provided to any employee. Employee
benefits such as maternity/paternity or adoption leave etc are provided to the
employee and their dependents irrespective of gender.
Infosys – An employee resource group has been
created called “Infosys Gays Lesbians
and You” (IGLU) which brings together LGBT staffs from various functions
and have discussions on the various policy changes which can support the LGBT
employees at workplace. Moreover, various theatre workshops, online chat
sessions are conducted for awareness and sensitizing fostering and encouraging
the overall LGBT issue at workplace.
Genpact – The LGBT community has a safe and
hostile environment at Genpact which aggressively promotes and supports in
their working policy. In fact it has been seen that Genpact usually
participates in LGBT fairs such as
the recent one LGBT career fair in London. This is primarily to build a diverse
pool of talent in the organsiation.
ThoughtWorks:
Continuous drives among the employees are done at workplace to create
and spread the awareness through short film screenings to drive awareness about
the issues and the significance of accepting the perspective around LGBT
rights.
Intuit – The Bangalore based IT
organisation which has been voted as one of the best places to work in India is
leading diversity agenda with inclusion of LGBT at workplace.
Google – In India, Google runs a voluntary
employee group called Gayglers who promotes, creates awareness about LGBT
employees at workplace
Goldman Sachs encourages LGBT employees to meet
the organization’s senior members and discuss about setting up the best
practices leading to career development, retention of LGBT employees.
Accenture - It has a Meritocracy Policy which
has reference to various sexual orientations which is being communicated to
employee’s right from the time of Induction, training on diversity etc.
Accenture has a Global LGBT network which brings all LGBT employee together for
networking, information sharing and mentoring.
In fact recently The NHRD Chapter of Mumbai had a dedicated
session on LGBT diversity at workplace in its HR leadership conference at the
Mahindra Management Development Centre in Nashik because today’s workforce
prefers to work in companies which supports and celebrates with all employees
despite of their sexual orientation
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