On March 2, 2023 it came into force Law 4/2023, of February 28, for the real and effective equality of trans people and for the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people. In its article 15, this norm establishes that All companies with more than 50 workers must implement an LGTBI Plan within one year.
Aware of the need that organizations have to ensure equal opportunities and conditions in the professional environment, a need that has passed from an ethical and strategic level to a legal levelAt Mainjobs we offer our new LGTBI Plans consulting service, through an expert team that will help our clients not only comply with these new regulations, but also maximize the diversity and well-being of their workforce.
At this point, it is worth asking, what are LGTBI Plans and why were they born? Our expert, Marina López Baena, explains everything we need to know:
THE LGBTI PLANS. WHAT DOES IT CONSIST ON?
The LGTBI Plan “is an ordered set of measures and resources to achieve real and effective equality for LGTBI people” for which, as occurs with the Equality Plans, it must address the different dimensions of inequality and discrimination of people. LGTBI within companies.
The Plan will also have a “protocol for addressing harassment or violence against LGTBI people.” That is, a regulated procedure for prevention and intervention against this type of LGBTIphobic violence in the workplace.
As with the Equality Plans, the regulations establish that they must be “agreed upon through collective bargaining and agreed with the legal representation of the workers.” The terms of said negotiation, as well as the details of the contents of the Plans, will be developed according to regulations, although there is already experience such as that of the ADIM Project and REDI which include diagnoses, action plans and good practices.
In the case of Law 4/2023, it is expected that good practices carried out in companies will be compiled and disseminated through the Participation Council of LGTB,I people regarding the inclusion of LGBTI groups and the promotion and guarantee of equality and non-compliance. discrimination based on the causes contained in the law.
THE LGBTI PLANS. WHAT ARE THEY FOR?
LGTBI Plans have more possibilities than may be considered at first. The most obvious usefulness is comply with the regulatory obligation derived from Law 4/2023, this is especially relevant for those entities that work regularly with the Public Administration.
LGTBI Plans are also tools for Labor Risk Prevention, as CC.OO pointed out last March in its report “LGTBIphobia from the prevention of occupational risks” showing that LGTBIphobia is part of the psychosocial occupational risks since they involve working conditions that harm the health of workers and They clarify: “sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender expression or sexual characteristics are not a psychosocial risk in themselves, but rather It is the conditions of the work organization that allow LGTBIphobic behavior due to discrimination, conflict and harassment based on sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender expression and sexual characteristics and, therefore, generating a risk to the health of LGTBI+ people.”
Therefore, Equality Plans are part of the set of actions that companies must incorporate to ensure the health and safety of their staff in the development of their work functions.
In addition to the above, the LGTBI Plans allow the creation of a culture that is associated with LGBTI rights, so that situations of harassment and other types of violence against the staff that are part of the group are prevented and break with the culture of normalization of the insults and mockery towards these sexual and gender identities.
By creating a safer space, it is easier for workers to show themselves as they are in their work spaces, under the same conditions as the rest of the workforce. This also makes it possible to identify visible references within the company, a strategy that has proven to be very useful in improving the situation of LGTBI people and breaking the culture of invisibility and concealment of the diversity of sexual identities.
The LGTBI Plans allow intervention from the context, considering the particularities of each company, and at the same time recognize trends in terms of discrimination and violence, identifying good practices that have been generated in other companies. Thus, they facilitate the generation and sharing of knowledge around this subject while at the same time they represent an action plan that, combined with the diagnosis, social reality and other trends, allows intervention from an adjusted, comprehensive and measurable action plan.
The Plans, in addition to incorporating a protocol, provide tools to intervene in urgent situations, as well as incorporating a prevention approach that prevents these situations from occurring again in the future.
For all of this, it will be necessary to have expert personnel in the field and to have sensitized people within the company who undertake this task as an opportunity for the company.
And this last is what we are going to stop at now, what are the benefits of LGTBI Plans?
WHAT BENEFITS DO THE LGBTI PLANS HAVE?
The main benefits of LGTBI Plans have already been mentioned:
- Comply with current regulations, which not only avoids sanctions, but also makes public contracting possible.
- Improve the occupational health of the workforce, avoiding sick leave and leaves of absence caused by situations of stress and anxiety.
- Create an organizational culture aligned with the representation and defense of the rights of the LGTBI community.
- Promote a safe and inclusive space for non-normative sexual and gender identities.
Added to those already mentioned are the benefits of promoting sexual and gender diversity, a task that will also be undertaken in a more organized way and with better results through the LGTBI Plans. The ADIM Project points out several of these benefits:
The recognition of human rights and the effort to generate more egalitarian and inclusive societies is fair in addition to being economically sustainable.. Inclusive corporate reputation has a great impact on access to investors, suppliers and builds loyalty and expands clientele. 94% of the people surveyed in the study presented by REDI stated that they would stop buying products or brands contrary to LGTBI rights.
The commitment to diversity also has a positive impact within companies since It contributes to organizational innovation because it forces companies to leave their comfort zone. The IE Foundation and the Foundation for Diversity, Cepaim and companies such as Google or Telefónica have been demonstrating for years in different publications how diversity generates innovation, especially in response to crises and sectoral challenges, since diverse teams generate leadership and ways of working that foster more complex solutions. and innovative and with a greater capacity for adaptation and analysis of different problems.
And, most especially, this reputation allows attract and retain talent, an increasingly necessary issue in the changing labor market. The IE Foundation and the Diversity Foundation prepare the Innodiversity index and have been confirming in their different reports that large companies have become aware of the need to address diversity to retain talent, especially in the most specialized profiles. However, they affirm that it is still a pending task for the rest of the companies.
THE LGTBI EXPERIENCE IN THE WORKPLACE
We have one question left to answer, and that is why the LGTBI Plans were born. To do so, we must know the experience of LGTBI people in the work environment, which has been investigated by different organizations in recent years.
Although each person and organization is different and will have a unique experience, when investigating the LGTBI experience in the labor market, insibilization It is the word most repeated by studies, experts in the field and networks of inclusive companies. An invisibility that is double, on the one hand, because there is a lack of LGBTI references in companies and on the other hand because the people themselves hide their sexual identity.
The leading project to date in Spain on LGTBI diversity in the labor market is the ADIM project (2020) that was prepared by the governments of Spain and Portugal together with the UCM and which stated that 72% of LGBTI people do not show their sexual identity at work: 26% is not visible to any other person at work, another 26% is only visible to some people, and the remaining 20% is hidden from the majority.
The validity of this data is verified by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, which in the II Congress of Business and Human Rights organized by the LGTBIQ+ State Federation at the beginning of this year indicated that only 32% of LGTB people openly show their sexual identity in their work.
The main reasons for hiding their sexual identity is the fear that their professional perception will change, that they will be the subject of stereotypes or rumors, fearing that it will even affect their permanence in the company or their possibility of promotion, being a source of ridicule or even suffering insults. or other types of violence.
The report of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, “A long way to go for LGBTI equality” (2023), indicates that two out of ten people felt discriminated against at work during the year prior to the survey and according to a study this year prepared for the Business Network for LGBTI Diversity and Inclusion (REDI), a 20% of LGBTI people consider that there are no equal employment opportunities for them in their own companies.
Previous studies such as the one prepared by the General Subdirectorate for the Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination on LGBTI people in the field of employment in Spain (2017), pointed out that jokes about homosexuality and the use of homophobic language are very common in workplaces. In a report prepared by UGT in 2019, “Situation of LGTBIphobia at work”, stated that jokes are the most common form of discrimination, 90%, compared to insults with a 19%, workplace harassment with a 8.1% and sexual or gender-based harassment with a 4.2%.
According to the study "LGBT diversity in the work context in Spain” (2019) by Empatika for REDI: the 86% of LGBTI people has ever heard homophobic or transphobic jokes or comments, or rumors about their sexual orientation or that of someone else, a 31% hears them very frequently in their work . Situations of blocking the professional career or worsening of working conditions were also pointed out as realities of the work spaces, one 8% commented that a person was frequently not chosen to carry out certain functions and one 6% that they were not considered in any way. frequent for a salary increase for being LGTBI.
From Mainjobs We encourage companies to assume diversity and inclusion commitments as an opportunity to create more competitive companies, better work spaces and greater strength and stability in their teams, in addition to offering our expert team to accompany any organization in its adaptation to the new regulations regarding LGTBI Plans.
