Rating Workplaces on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Equality.
In this 19th edition of the human rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, a record-breaking 767 businesses met all the criteria to earn a 100 percent rating and the designation of being a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.” Top-rated CEI employers come from nearly every industry and region of the United States. To earn top ratings, employers took concrete steps to establish and implement comprehensive policies, benefits and practices that ensure greater equity for LGBTQ workers and their families. The CEI rating criteria have four key pillars:
- Nondiscrimination policies across business entities;
- Equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families;
- Supporting an inclusive culture; and,
- Corporate social responsibility.
Since 2002, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation has published the CEI report based largely on the annual CEI survey administered to hundreds of major global employers. The first Index in 2002 had just 13 top-rated companies.
Companies rated in the CEI include Fortune magazine’s 500 largest publicly traded businesses (Fortune 500), American Lawyer magazine’s top 200 revenue-grossing law firms (AmLaw 200) and hundreds of publicly and privately held mid- to large-sized businesses.
The CEI helps guide the wide-scale adoption of LGBTQ specific practices and language within existing business structures. For example, where businesses enumerate federally protected categories of workers in their non-discrimination policies (e.g. based on race, religion, disability, etc.), the HRC Foundation evaluates them on the inclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” protections. In terms of benefits, the HRC Foundation evaluates employers on the provision of health insurance coverage for same- and different-sex spouses and partners.
