Issues impacting the gay and lesbian community were a major focus of a Battlefords Chamber of Commerce luncheon held as part of Small Business Week.
The guest speaker Tuesday at the Balych Mural Meeting Room, North Battleford was Amanda Guthrie, education co-ordinator with OUTSaskatoon, who spoke about diversity in the workplace and how employers can create a more inclusive environment.
Guthrie is from North Battleford and has strong connections to the local Chamber, where her mother Heather Guthrie is a long-time employee.
In her presentation she spoke of why LGBTQ rights matter in the workplace and why it matters to those in business.
Guthrie talked about statistics from Europe that showed more than half of LGBTQ people hide their sexual orientation in the workplace and that one-third of LGBTQ workers lied about their personal lives.
“That might seem like a little thing to you, but really it’s a pretty big thing for a person to hide an entire section or person from their coworkers,” said Guthrie.
She also pointed to nearly one in 10 LGBT employees leaving jobs simply because the environment was unwelcoming. Guthrie said there was a big concern around losing talented employees from the LGBT community.
“If they did feel welcome, they would probably perform better, they would probably have better relationships both with coworkers and with customers, and they would probably stay in the corporation for a longer amount of time.”
Guthrie also noted there was a “huge economic gain” for businesses to be open to acceptance of diversity and the LGBT community. She said by doing so, LGBT people would then come to your business and spend money there.
She also pointed to some of OUTSaskatoon’s efforts to train companies to be LGBT friendly.
Guthrie noted that SIGA had approached their organization to do training for their employees over the next year. “It’s showing social progress is happening in the business community as well,” said Guthrie.
