By Alison Lowe – Touchstone Chief Executive and LGB Champion
I am delighted to announce that Touchstone has improved 42 places in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index and we are now ranked 170 out of 363 employers.
Jay Silver (manager of Touchstone’s Community Support Team) and I met Madeline Lasko from Stonewall on 24th February to go through our performance and understand how we can improve further and achieve our objective of becoming a Stonewall Best 100 employer.
Some of the things we need to get better at include:
- Promoting our policies more effectively to LGB staff. This will be picked up with team managers, via briefings in our staff newsletter and elsewhere and by highlighting changes to policies, especially where these affect LGB staff.
- To develop a more effective LGB staff network. We are looking to work with Community Links to share their group and resources.
- Setting targets for LGB representation at all levels of the organisation and what action we are taking to improve this. It is very important that staff feel safe to disclose their sexuality, as we can then improve our practice and policy development. The information is used for this purpose only.
- Consult LGB service users – I will be organising an LGB event in collaboration with our service user involvement group News For You in 2012.
- Improving staff communication on LGB issues. I will be arranging a forum meeting for staff on how to do this and also how to differentiate between different LGB groups: BME LGB issues for example.
I am incredibly excited about embracing the opportunities that a more inclusive and open workforce can bring and hope to work with all staff this year to make Touchstone a happier workplace for all.
