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The Corporate Equality Index, created by Stonewall, a group campaigning for the rights of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, identifies the UK's top 100 employers for employing lesbian, gay and bisexual staff.
Scores were awarded on eight categories, including policy, benefits, staff involvement, recruitment and diversity practice.
With regard to the latter, 1,630 employers were asked whether they carried out compulsory training on sexual diversity. Here we ask employers from the index for their approach to training staff in handling matters concerning sexual diversity.
Fiona Bartels-Ellis
Head of equal opportunities and diversity, British Council
Equality index ranking: 1
We have very firmly mainstreamed this issue, getting across the message that this has to be part and parcel of everything - not simply a human resource dimension, but part of the core business. We have a series of mandatory one-day workshops run by senior people in the organisation. That's a very important part of reflecting that we take this agenda seriously.
The training covers three areas - the legal strand, the business strand and the moral strand. The training is just the beginning, as participants go away knowing they have diversity and development plan objectives to work towards.
Equal opportunities and diversity are written into our behavioural competence dictionary, and we also map our equality opportunities and diversity initiatives on the organisation performance scorecard.
Teresa Williams
Equality and diversity adviser, Barnardo's
Equality index ranking: 20
One of Barnardo's core standards for staff in our children's services dep-artment - 75 per cent of the workforce - is that all employees take part in an equality and diversity event every year, either receiving formal training or a briefing session.
In addition, we have a new training initiative that supports the display of posters indicating that our workplaces are a 'safezone for lesbian and gay people'. During the training, staff focus on their own feelings towards homophobia, and how that impacts their working practice. They then identify how they can make their service a safe place for lesbian and gay people.
The training also emphasises Barnardo's commitment to equality and diversity, which in turn has grown from our approach to helping children and young people.
Giving equal respe
