The world is slowly moving towards being a more inclusive environment for LGBTQIA people, but things certainly aren't perfect. So, while this imbalance exists, it's important for businesses to promote inclusiveness and create a safe, supportive workspaces for their LGBTQIA employees.
According to an extensive 2014 report from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, more than 53 per cent of LGBTQIA employees in the US hide their sexual or gender identity at work.
The report also states that 35 per cent have felt compelled to lie about their personal lives while at work (likely due to fear of outing themselves, or making a colleague feel uncomfortable), and close to 10 per cent of LGBTQIA people have had to leave a job because they were made to feel unwelcome due to their sexuality or gender identity. Another recent report, from the Wall Street Journal, states that only 7 per cent of LGBTQIA college graduates in the US come out to their colleagues at their first job.
Some of the biggest tech companies in Australia are very aware of these confronting stats, and are determined to provide an inclusive workplace for their LGBTQIA employees.
The Aussie offices of Twitter, Google, Facebook, Atlassian, Microsoft and LinkedIn have joined their enormously powerful rings together to create the tech industry version of Captain Planet. It's called InterTech Australia, an initiative that focuses on supporting and raising up LGBTQIA people in the tech industry.
The plan is for the major industry players to collaborate for the good of the tech sector as a whole, and learn from one another in order to create individual workplaces that are wholly inclusive of the queer community.
The idea comes from the UK - similar companies launched InterTech UK in 2014, with enormous success. Jan Hofmann worked at Facebook in Ireland, and watched the initiative grow from strength to strength - particularly during Ireland's constitutional referendum on same-sex marriage.
After moving to Sydney for work, Hofmann noticed that Aussie tech giants had no such initiative, and realised that it would likely be just as helpful for LGBTQIA Aussies, especially if the postal survey goes ahead (pending this week's decision by the High Court). So, InterTech Australia was born.
Kara Hinesley, the Head of Public Policy at Twitter AU/NZ, says InterTech Australia is planning intermittent drinks and networking events, panels, and speakers, as well as working with non-for-profit LGBTQIA organisations.
"All of our offices have such great resources and people and programs, so we want to try to help funnel it through, and have it as a non-compete area. We think this is important from all of our companies' perspectives, and we want to help promote that as an industry."
Hinesley explains that while the Australian branch of InterTech is in the beginning stages, Twitter currently offers support for LGBTQIA employees in the form of an employee resource group (ERG) called Twitter Open.
"It really creates a strong internal community within Twitter, to raise awareness of all the issues that the LGBTQIA community are facing globally. We've also worked with Minus 18... and Project Rockit. We've done a lot of work as Twitter, so that's why we wanted to amplify that by joining InterTech."
She explains that supporting and providing a safe and inclusive space for LGBTQIA employees is not just an ethical decision - it's actually incredibly good for business.
"You can't get the best out of your staff if they're wasting their energy hiding who they are and hiding their relationships and who they love," Hinesley told SBS.
"Even statistically, whenever people are in the closet, typically 70 per cent of them will leave a business within 3 years of being hired. If they're not feeling like they can show who they really are at work - and I don't know about you, but I spend probably more time with my coworkers than my family - it really starts to affect you! And we really want to make sure we're fostering a safe community for our employees, and also for our LGBTQIA+ users."
You can't get the best out of your staff if they're wasting their energy hiding who they are and hiding their relationships and who they love...
InterTech Australia held its launch event on Thursday last week:
