Comment:
It’s not the role of Pfizer to promote LGBT propaganda. All employees are equal and I have not to know about colleagues’ sexual orientation.

Response:
Note to readers: This is why diversity training must be mandatory. We know the orientation of most of our coworkers; we learn about their spouses, their children and their families. A workplace would be a very cold and sterile one if you didn’t have that kind of interaction. However, if the workplace isn’t LGBT-friendly, your LGBT coworkers don’t have the freedom the heterosexual folks have. Aside from the punishment of hiding yourself for the majority of your waking hours, it is almost impossible for a person to be promoted very far without having a comfort level with their superiors. Promotions, especially to senior management, require a great deal of mutual trust—something that is impossible to develop if you’re forced to hide such a fundamental part of who you are. (Read more about diversity training on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.)

Please think about this e-mail. Can you imagine the workplace atmosphere surrounding this person? If you’re tempted to agree, put a group that’s near and dear to you in place of LGBT. For example, try this on for size: “It’s not the role of Pfizer to promote Black propaganda. All employees are equal and I have not to know about a colleagues’ cultural background.” Or “It’s not the role of Pfizer to promote woman propaganda. All employees are equal and I have not to know about colleagues’ gender.” (Attend DiversityInc Learning, DiversityInc’s diversity-training program.)

Also, let’s not make an issue of the company at hand in this article and response. I recently got a death threat from a guy using the e-mail from the bank he works at. There are creeps working at every company. Training helps them tuck in their creepiness while at work.

The post Ask the White Guy: Do You Need to Know the Orientation of Your Coworkers? appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question:

As a frequent reader to DiversityInc, and as someone who works in the field of diversity management, I have to respectfully disagree with many of your points in your reply comments to one of your readers. I think this argument between LGBT rights and religious rights in the workplace are two different points.

Companies should not try to force feed their employees an adoptive acceptance practice with either position. Why does it matter if someone is LGBT to the average patron of any business? Why does it matter what religion a person is for any patron catering a business?

For most of this, people have to agree to disagree and leave it at that without the hostility of calling one an enemy. 

Answer:

I disagree. Your orientation is a fundamental part of who you are. Many people consider their religion in the same light.

Workplaces are social environments where people have relationships. You can’t divorce those basic things about yourself from the workplace–and it would be an inhumanly sterile environment if you could. Because these things are such a part of who we are, you cannot hide them without damaging productivity and engagement.

Further, positive relationships are necessary for promotion–and they are significantly based on a concurrence of values. Being a team player is certainly core to demonstrating a concurrence of values. How could you possibly do that well while hiding something so important to who you are?

Especially for management, promotions are personal. Before someone e-mails me to say that promotions should be based on “merit,” I’ll tell you that “merit” is a perception in the eye of the person GIVING the promotion–a person who has already proven to be a team player. Their perception of your ability to do the job is relative to their perception of you as a “complete person.” This encompasses orientation and religion in most cases.

I’ve been in corporate meetings that begin with prayers (“in Christ’s name we pray”). How does that make the Muslim or Jewish person feel? Included? Part of the team? Hardly.

Here’s an example that’s more subtle but just as impactful: Most people have a picture of their spouse (if they have one) in their work area. Receiving lines at formal events usually include spouses. So most people display their orientation as a matter of fact. If an LGBT person is working at a company where partner medical benefits are not offered, how do they feel? What picture do they have on their workstation? Who stands next to them in the receiving line? How much do they feel valued as a part of “the team?”

I’ve also been in meetings where it’s clear that the leadership actively and personally embraces difference in religion and orientation and that those differences are valued in the company’s ability not to just look like their customers but THINK like them, too.

This leads to the last part of your e-mail. Companies have the obligation to clearly state their values. For inclusive companies, those values will not include those of people who will exclude for reasons of THEIR religion or THEIR orientation. People who have views limiting human rights or civil rights are protected under our Constitution; companies are under no obligation to retain people who harbor views that are antithetical to the corporate values.

And there’s no such thing as “leaving it at the door.” A bigot on Saturday and Sunday is just as damaging as an accountant who only embezzles on the weekend. You don’t want to work with either.

“Enemy” is a strong word, but there is a place for it. A person who would deny another person’s human or civil rights based on orientation or religion–and makes a living promoting that oppression, like Mr. LaBarbera–is my enemy. How could it be any other way?

In my opinion, “diversity” doesn’t force an equivalency between haters’ opinions and those who promote and defend human and civil rights. Wiggling away from that moral standard promotes a migration of language–like when people start talking about “culture” and “inclusion” in order to avoid a word that might connote a definite stand on issues.

The post Ask the White Guy: Your Orientation Is Fundamental to Who You Are appeared first on DiversityInc.