Opinions

By Jemima Jefferson, co-chair, LGB Business Forum ​ It’s June, so LinkedIn is chock-a-block with articles about Pride. Amid the rainbows and sparkles, one particular post caught my eye, from a gay CEO sharing how surprised his younger self would have been if he knew he’d grow up to become a business leader. He’s right to be proud – and to be thankful. The world today is far better for gay men than it was 30 years ago. For lesbians, though, the picture is more clouded. Especially when it comes...

​The union movement was founded on a principle of powerful simplicity: fairness. So why has Britain’s biggest trade union come out in opposition to the Equality Act?  This week, Unison published its response to the EHRC guidance which followed the Supreme Court’s definitive ruling on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010. Credit where it’s due – the statement is a small masterpiece of (deliberate?) misinformation and misdirection. And it speaks volumes about who the union really...

The problem with today’s workplaces isn’t “Generation Snowflake.” It’s a management culture that demands conformity, punishes dissent, and mistakes groupthink for psychological safety.

By Charlotte Cadden, LGB Business Forum ​ “Dear homosexual and bisexual employees. This email is to inform you there’s been a strategic re-think on diversity, and it’s been decided that same-sex attraction no longer complies with our inclusive values. Henceforth, we are updating our Pride policy, which will be re-named ‘Gay Shame’ going forward. Thank you for your compliance.” Yeah, right. Businesses aren’t shaming employees for being same-sex attracted…are they? Well, consider this recent...

By Simon White, LGB Business Forum ​ What’s the smallest ‘big number’? By that, I mean a figure that looks impressive on paper, but shrivels into insignificance when one applies the most cursory statistical analysis. I’d like to suggest 100,000. Sure, it seems big — look at all those zeroes! And in some contexts, it can be consequential. You wouldn’t want to share a hotel room with a hundred thousand mosquitoes, for example. But just as often, it’s a deceptively unimpressive number. Take the...

GUEST POST Robert Laverick is a chemist and senior lecturer, and founder of the Leeds branch of Academics for Academic Freedom. He tweets from @RobLaverick92 Having studied and worked within the higher education sector since 2010,  I’ve watched ideas develop in the academy before escaping into the wider world, including the corporate workplace. Often these are very considered developments with a clear purpose such as flexible working or environmental responsibility. Sometimes, unintended and...

By Jemima Jefferson, LGB Business Forum   Employee burnout is reaching epidemic proportions, with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recording nearly a million workers as suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety — the highest rates on record. Many more are teetering on the edge, with research from Reed suggesting that an astonishing 85 per cent of workers have experienced symptoms of burnout. And one in six employees are struggling with stress, anxiety or depression at...

By Jemima Jefferson, LGB Business Forum What’s gone wrong with DEI? With Meta, Deloitte and other well-known companies backpedalling on DEI initiatives, is corporate commitment to inclusion beginning to sour? If so, should other businesses begin following suit? In a word, No. Representing, welcoming and rewarding everyone on their merits and ability isn’t just a moral choice; it’s sound business sense — when done sensitively and well. To understand why DEI has become so divisive, we need to...

By Dee McCullough, Lesbian Labour & LabourLGB   A fabulous new initiative is under way to create a Welsh Women’s Health website, and when they asked stakeholders for feedback I was first in the queue. I couldn’t fault the website — but the consultation itself had a fatal flaw. As always, we stakeholders were asked to give demographic details, one of which was “tick the box if you’re LGBTQIA+” Data collection is an important part of a modern, diverse nation, because any efforts to...

How difficult can it be not to break the law? This question at Wednesday’s We Mean Business event at the Scottish Parliament summed up the frustration of LGB employees who are ignored and sometimes silenced by Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives. As the audience member so forcefully (and correctly) pointed out, the Supreme Court ruling has made equalities law unambiguous. Implementation should therefore be child’s play. All it takes is a bit of backbone, a little leadership, to...