Less Than 1 in 5 Irish Adults Believe LGBT Professionals Have Equal Workplace Opportunities, LinkedIn Survey Shows

Research commissioned by LinkedIn shows that just under one in five Irish adults believe that Irish workplaces offer equal opportunities for LGBT workers.

Despite significant social progress made in Ireland since the 2015 marriage equality referendum, LinkedIn’s research shows that LGBT professionals still face considerable workplace hurdles. Some of the main findings from the research, which surveyed 1,000 adults nationally, include:

– Approximately 20% of LGBT professionals sometimes feel uncomfortable in the workplace due to their sexuality;

– Just three in 10 Irish adults agree that LGBT professionals should only be open about their sexuality in the workplace;

– Similarly, only one-third of the LGBT community are fully open with everyone in their workplace about their sexuality, including their direct manager;

Although Corporate Ireland was highly visible at the recent Pride parade, LinkedIn’s research shows that many members of the Irish LGBT community still feel uncomfortable in the workplace.

The survey also underlines the fact that much more needs to be done to create an inclusive work environment. Worryingly in this regard, just three in 10 respondents felt that LGBT professionals should be open about their sexuality in the workplace if it is perceived to appropriate to their working environment.

LinkedIn’s research also shows that discrimination against members of the LGBT community remains an issue in the Irish workplace: one in four Irish workers said that they were offended by a joke made about the LGBT community by a colleague in the past 10 years. This figure rose to almost one in two when LGBT professionals were asked the same question.

Approximately one in 10 of Irish professionals said that they had seen an LGBT colleague discriminated against or treated differently to straight colleagues. Of those who saw discrimination against LGBT colleagues in the workplace, 46% said they witnessed homophobic comments, with 42% noticing assumptions being made about an LGBT colleague’s personality or characteristics.

Over one in four of the group who witnessed discrimination saw an LGBT colleague(s) being made to feel as though they weren’t part of the team. For example, 14% of Irish professionals witnessed an incident where an LGBT colleague was not invited on a night out and 9% said they saw an LGBT colleague left out of a workplace sports team.

LinkedIn’s research also shows that respondents believe that there is a lack of LGBT professionals at a senior level in the workforce, with just 1 in 5 Irish workers surveyed saying that an openly LGBT professional is part of their organisation’s leadership team. Similarly, there are low levels of awareness about LGBT workplace inclusion programmes, with just 18% of Irish professionals saying that their employers had this kind of support in place.

Commenting on the findings, Lisa Finnegan, LinkedIn Senior HR Director EMEA & LATAM, said: “There has been great progress in recent years to make Irish society fairer and more inclusive. However, our research shows that there is still a lot of progress to be made in the workplace, with the majority of the public believing that the LGBT community do not have equal opportunities when it comes to their professional lives. It is also concerning that workplace discrimination remains an ongoing problem and that one-fifth of LGBT professionals at times feel uncomfortable at work due to their sexuality.”

Unsurprisingly, 58% of surveyed professionals from the LGBT community said they felt Irish employers should do more to support LGBT staff. Overall two in five Irish professionals would like to see employers creating a more supportive environment for people to come out at work.

Ms Finnegan said that workplace inclusion programmes were key to breaking down prejudices and tackling discrimination. She said that LinkedIn’s own workplace initiatives included bias training; the provision of mentoring programmes and employee support groups for the LGBT community had proved effective in creating a diverse, inclusive workplace.

“Change starts by accepting that there is a problem. Then it’s a question of identifying the causes of the problem and putting solutions in place to help address it. To create an inclusive workplace environment, employers need to put support programmes in place and get everyone to work together to tackle discrimination,” she added.

In more positive findings, two in three straight professionals consider themselves to be an LGBT ally in the workplace and would intervene in active discrimination against an LGBT colleague. Almost half of Irish professionals have seen an increase in the number of LGBT allies in the workplace since the marriage equality referendum.