Local Employers Feature As Stonewall Top Employers
Stonewall has published its Top 100 Employers list for 2015, showcasing Britain’s best employers for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff which again features local employers.
Lloyds Banking Group – who have major offices in the Harbourside area of Bristol, appear in 3rd place in this years poll, an increase from 15th last year.
The University of West of England’s commitment to supporting LGBT staff has been recognised with them being named number one University for the first time in the rankings – appearing in the list in 11th place, a climb of 24 places on last year’s list.
Bristol City Council – who were 15th last year, share equal 98th place with Somerset College.
With various military connections in the Southwest, The Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force secure positions at 46, 56 and 91 respectively this year.
The Workplace Equality Index, now in its 11th year, tracks employers performance against 10 criteria including employee policy, training, employee network group, all-staff engagement, career development, line managers, monitoring, procurement, community engagement and additional work.
Stonewall assesses a submission from the organisation as well as feedback from the company’s employees, hearing from a total of 50,070 staff members this year on questions of workplace attitude, access to information and number of visible gay and lesbian role models.
Pro Vice-Chancellor and UWE Bristol Diversity Champion, Professor Ron Ritchie said, “We are delighted to have made year-on-year progress in the prestigious Stonewall Workplace index and to now find ourselves so high up and the top university in the list. We were aware of the greater challenge of this year’s submission due to a revised set of criteria established by Stonewall, so are especially pleased. We celebrate the diversity of our workforce and know it helps make the University a creative, dynamic, inclusive and innovative institution. Supporting the LGBT agenda in a variety of ways is important to us. A lot of the credit must go to those at UWE Bristol that work hard to make it such a welcoming and inclusive place through initiatives like staff and student networks.”
Ruth Hunt, Stonewall Chief Executive said: “…every employer featured in the 2015 Top 100 have performed remarkably. Not only was this the most competitive year to date, we’re delighted to see that in just fifteen years our armed forces are making real progress in supporting and developing their lesbian, gay and bisexual staff.”
The full report can be downloaded from the Stonewall Website
