During this year’s Pride Month, Morr & Co took the opportunity to look into and reflect on what we do as an employer to support the LGBTQIA+ community and how we ensure our workplace is inclusive.
With this year being the 50-year anniversary of the first UK Pride, we want to continue to make strides towards societal equality and visibility. It has been great to see that each year, more businesses demonstrate their support of Pride Month and their LGBTQIA+ employees, especially in what have typically been considered more conservative sectors. We want to use this opportunity to reflect not only this month, but all year round, and make a commitment to taking demonstrable action.
Whilst Pride Month is a time of celebration, it is also a time to recognise the challenges the LGBTQIA+ community faces in today’s society. So, we took the opportunity to engage with our team, whether they identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community or as an ally, to find out what they think we do well and where there is room for improvement. We recognise that everyone feels differently in what they choose to share in the workplace, but we hope that whatever people do want to disclose, they feel comfortable to do so at Morr & Co.
We were proud to hear that our employees feel that the firm has an open and inclusive culture that allows people to be themselves, and that discriminatory behaviour is not tolerated. People described Morr & Co as a safe space for those who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and that the firm provides equal opportunities to all.
The feedback also identified areas where we can improve. For example, it was pointed out that we have not stated externally that we are an inclusive firm where the LGBTQIA+ community is understood and accepted.
Bearing this in mind, and taking on the feedback received from our colleagues, Morr & Co is making the following commitments to better demonstrate our allyship and to build a workplace that is ever more inclusive and supportive:
- We will ensure that all content we produce (such as our blogs, articles, website content and our internal handbooks and policies) uses inclusive language and demonstrates our support of the LGBTQIA+ community, including all family and relationship structures.
- We will look at options to allow employees to add their preferred pronouns to internal and external communications.
- We have approached LGBTQ+ organisations to look at running educational talks and training for our employees, to raise awareness of the issues, improve inclusivity and allow people to be better workplace allies.
- We will explore ways in which to create channels of communication to continue listening to the feedback of our employees, clients and communities on how we can improve our allyship.
When we rebranded earlier this year, we emphasised that the “& Co” was of fundamental importance to us. We are a united team of talented individuals across the business and to be united, we recognise that everyone has to feel that they are equal, valued, and respected.
We hope that the actions we take will continue to strengthen our community at Morr & Co and we look forward to building a better workplace for all.