Celebrating Transgender Awareness Week 2022

Supporting transgender and non-binary employees doesn’t have to be costly or complicated, simple actions can go a long way in making employees feel respected, valued and motivated at work.

A survey conducted by TotalJobs in 2021, found that almost two thirds of transgender individuals don’t share their history of transitioning at work, a 13% increase from previous years, which suggests that there is still a very long way to go in embedding workplace cultures where trans employees feel free to be themselves.

To drive change and protect the wellbeing of trans employees, it’s essential to empower line managers and people leaders with the information and resources to improve awareness and build confidence in recognising the unique challenges trans and other LGBTQIA+ individuals face in the workplace.

At the most basic level, organisations need to be implementing transgender-specific policies, providing training and support structures to increase awareness and understanding, and making line managers accountable for delivering against inclusion objectives. But it should go much deeper than this, including reviewing every people policy to ensure inclusive language is used, and ensuring policies based on traditional gender binaries, such as maternity and breastfeeding policies, are updated to include those who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Positively promoting the use of pronouns in email signatures also helps to build awareness and reduce the risk of individuals being mis-gendered.

There are many more ways in which every organisation can take steps towards building more inclusive cultures, so this Transgender Awareness Week we’re sharing some practical tips for how to embed trans-inclusive workplace cultures.

Firstly, this insightful Gender Identity webinar featuring guest speaker Octavian Starr from GIRES, the Gender Identity and Research and Education Society, is packed with expert advice on how to advance equality and eliminate discrimination for LGBTQIA+ individuals in the workplace.

We’ve also put together a simple guide to help people leaders to take positive steps towards change.

And finally, take our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion calculator to assess how inclusive your organisation really is.