Progressive approach that lasts more than just one month
It’s almost a month since individuals, groups and businesses up and down the land celebrated Pride month. Each year Pride month is an important milestone in the calendar – an opportunity to help celebrate diversity and inclusion, acknowledging all the different and wonderful people who make up our society in all their various guises.
However, actively focusing on diversity and inclusion should not be something that happens just for a single month every year. In any modern thriving organisation there should be a culture and an attitude that we all adopt professionally and personally in our daily lives of inclusion and acceptance. For a business to be truly successful it should be rigorous in its efforts to ensure that it is open to all differing opinions and ways of living and show an acceptance of the very diverse world in which we work and live.
That consistent approach to open-mindedness and acceptance is as important in the work place as in one’s personal life. It is not sufficient to “talk the talk” you need to “walk the walk”. Taking a position of acceptance of opinions and cultures of your colleagues makes your work place a better environment for everyone. This is not just true of the LGBT+ community but of all the diversity that a modern workplace contains.
I am very pleased to work within an organisation that has always been progressive in its outlook. Welcoming diversity, welcoming inclusion and treating each other with the respect we all deserve. It is important to me that my workplace embraces a culture which can be summarised as “give to everyone else what you claim for yourself” regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sex/gender/orientation.
Looking on social media there were negative comments circulating around Pride month and, disappointingly, these seem to come from members of the LGBT+ community themselves – criticising those larger organisations (such as supermarkets and banks, or in one example that tickled me, the manufacturers of concrete) whereas my thoughts are that it is important for these large organisations to show they support an equal and diverse culture. I think the allegations of “pink washing” are mean spirited and lack vision.
This blog is quite deliberately written and published post Pride month because such basic principles of humanity are not just for a month but for every day of the year.
