The Danish report LGBT-personers trivsel på arbejdsmarkedet (LGBT people’s well-being in the labour market) shows that very few workplaces have an HR policy that addresses issues of gender identity or gender variance. Only 2% of managers and HR staff surveyed said that this was the case. When asked why their HR policy did not address these topics, most responded that they did not think there was a need for it (45%) or that they had not thought about it (30%; Følner et al., 2019).
At the same time, the international research discussed in the Swedish research review shows the importance of active work and policies to create an organisational climate that is perceived as supportive of trans and other HBTQ people. A supportive organisational climate is in turn linked to the perception of a good work environment, job satisfaction and health, as well as the feeling of wanting or daring to be open in the workplace (Eriksson et al., 2022: 43). Being able to be open in the workplace can in itself be a factor that contributes to well-being (see section on openness in the workplace). However, a UK study cited in the knowledge review showed that encouraging openness is not necessarily the best way to increase the well-being of HBTQ employees (this study examines this community as a whole), rather it is more effective to work to actively create inclusive environments. Examples given in the article included encouraging employees to write their preferred pronoun in email signatures and incorporating exercises around heterosexism in diversity training (Fletcher & Everly, 2021).
Consider both overt and covert identities
The research review summarises some further findings on the theme (Eriksson et al., 2022). To create an inclusive workplace, both overt and covert identities need to be considered. This means that a workplace should not take for granted that someone has a certain sexual orientation or gender identity. It should be up to each person to be open at work and to have control over their level of openness, which is recognised as a key factor for an inclusive workplace. This requires a certain organisational climate and awareness by management and colleagues to make this possible. This means a climate in which, for example, it is accepted to be open and pursue HBTQ issues, but without feeling pressure from management or colleagues to be representative of HBTQ issues. This is in line with the fact that being open in the workplace is not always rational, as it may increase exposure to discrimination. It also requires measures that place responsibility on managers and employees as a group, rather than on the individual.
Lack of knowledge leads to poor treatment
It is also clear that knowledge about trans people and trans experiences is generally low and that there is a need for training and awareness-raising initiatives among managers and employees (Eriksson et al., 2022). As mentioned earlier, many trans respondents state that knowledge about trans people and trans experiences is often so low among managers that they do not feel that they are treated professionally, even when their manager is well meaning. Several of the participants mention that they feel that their managers are too ignorant to provide support with respect to the work environment and issues of discrimination (Eriksson et al., 2022). Participants in this study said, among other things, that they wished there was a guarantee of managers having a reasonable level of knowledge and that the level of ignorance of managers makes it difficult to address more subtle problems, such as minority stress and stress about how one’s physical transition will be received in the workplace.