The awards committee consisted of HR professionals, gay rights advocates, and representatives from both the corporate world and unions. The award-winners share with HRWire their winning initiatives and some obstacles on the road to these achievements.

Historically Supportive

The Eastman Kodak Company's award was for having a "historically supportive workplace" for LGBT employees. Of course, in terms of gay rights, "historically" can denote a very short time period. Michael Snyder, former director of benefit strategy at Kodak, notes that in the late 80s and early 90s, "there were significant obstacles" against setting up a domestic partner benefits program at the company.

"The first benefits we offered for domestic partners were relocation assistance and things like that. At that point, health care was off the table," Snyder says. "And the benefits were offered to 'household members,' so that could include an employee's aunt, too."

The support of high level executives at Kodak was crucial in creating and implementing the policies, Snyder tells HRWire. "The policy came about finally due to the senior vice president at the time, Jack McCarthy. He understood the obstacles, but he kept insisting it was the right thing to do and he wouldn't take no for an answer." In the past decade, Kodak has greatly expanded its benefits offerings to domestic partners. Health care, dental, dependent life insurance, accidental death insurance and adoption are all covered. Kodak has several programs and resource groups that address LGBT issues, according to Colleen McVeigh, a department manager and member of the Lambda Network, an employee resource group formed in 1992.

The Lambda Network runs educational workshops for employees and management. All Kodak employees are required to complete 40 hours of training per year, and attendance at Lambda Network workshops counts toward that requirement. The Employee Advocate Program offers 16 1/2; days of training to interested employees. "Advocates can model change across the organization," McVeigh says. During the training process, employees learn how to build an inclusive culture, what are the barriers, how to deal with sexism in the workplace, how people can partner across differences, and what actions can be taken to improve workplace inclusivity, McVeigh explains.

McVeigh and Cathy Brill, an HR strategy director at Kodak, gave a workshop at the Out and Equal Leadership Summit. McVeigh says the top two concerns HR professionals mentioned at the workshop were about finances and possible religious opposition. Smaller companies may be unable to sponsor workshops and training seminars, but they can still implement aspects of a diversity program.

When religious objections come up, McVeigh says she advises HR professionals to remind employees that "no one's trying to change religious beliefs. We're looking for people to be open-minded and value what everyone brings to the table."

Significant Strides

Ford Motor Company's award was for the company's taking "significant strides" for progress in LGBT workplace issues. Ford offers employees similar benefits as Kodak: same-sex health care benefits, zero tolerance harassment policy, corporately-sponsored employee resource groups and sexual orientation training.

Harry Jones, director of workforce diversity and external relations at Ford, accepted the award. He tells HRWire that support from high places was key in implementing such policies. "The leadership decided to get serious about this issues. It's part of the broader strategy in creating an inclusive work environment," Jones says. "Senior level leaders are connected with the resource group in order to sponsor, facilitate, remove barriers and get things accomplished."

Ford recently began providing all of its employees with a home computer, including an Internet connection, and Jones notes that this connectivity is an important part of the diversity process. "We are connecting our employees. This offers the ability for members of different resource groups to network," he says.

Although he admits there were obstacles on the domestic partnership benefits issue, which Ford implemented this year, Jones says that after long debates on the senior level, "the decision was a clear decision -- our policy is strong adherence to inclusiveness." And a recent internal survey found that the area most improved in terms of employee satisfaction was Ford's efforts around diversity, Jones says.

Friend of the community

In the individual award category, Ethel Batten of Lucent Technologies was honored. Batten, now vice president of human resources, was director of diversity at the time she applied for the award.

Batten was the recipient of the Friend of the LGBT Community award for her efforts in implementing health benefits for same sex partners, for adding transgender and bisexual employees to Lucent's Equal Opportunity Policy and for helping establish an employee business partner group for gay and lesbian employees.

She also sponsored educational programs in the company. "We had interactive workshops for managers, where consultants, trainers, members of PFLAG [parents and friends of lesbians and gays] spoke," Batten tells HRWire. "There was a very high participation rate for managers."

Employees are very receptive to the programs, Battens says. "There were some issues with the religious right," she notes, "but I stress to them that our issue is not about supporting the gay lifestyle but about creating an environment where everyone can bring their whole self to work. It should be a workplace where everyone can come and work productively."

Batten finds such programs are also valuable as recruitment and retention tools. "Members of the EQUAL group volunteer as recruiters on campuses. People feel that it must be a safe place to work," she says.

This article is courtesy of HRWire. All rights reserved.

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