Yearly Equality Index
Every year the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) publishes an index of the best and worst companies to work for in the United States based on their level of of equity towards the GLBT population. Factors included in the ranking include whether or not the company has any anti-discrimination policies protecting GLBT employees, whether or not said companies offer health benefits to partners of GLBT employees, Corporate structure and political activism by said companies (what they support politically through monetary donations etc.) and the overall perception of GLBT employees of their employers. There are many other items that go into the rank, you can find them all here. I thought you might be interested in seeing how my company ranks as well as a visual of the worst employers in the country for GLBT people.
Keep in mind the rank is on a scale of 1 -100. 1 being the worst, 100 being the best.
In 2008 (the most recent year published) Menards Ranked 43 – From my perspective this is pretty accurate. Menards is a pretty quiet company when it comes to politics. Their primary objective is to make money, end of discussion. That said, they do have anti-discrimination policies and anti-harassment policies that well exceed other companies I’ve worked for in my lifetime. It is nearly impossible to have a successful retail business and not be somewhat tolerant and supportive of diversity. Menards does not go out of it’s way but they do not actively contribute to a hostile climate for it’s GLBT employees.
Below is a list of the bottom of the barrel. You’ll notice that Meijer (a company that I worked for several years ago and the company that Jirar worked for) received only a score of 20. 2 of the worst 10 companies in the country are Michigan based. Michigan isn’t all bad, in the top 20 where companies such as the big automakers (GM, Ford), and Dow Chemical ranked with in impressive 100 score. You can say what you like about HRC (they are a politically movtied and very active group) however their rankings do have significant importance, particularly to those companies that value the contributions of their GLBT employees. Most of the Fortune 500 companies in this country far exceed private companies when it comes to fairness, all Fortune 500 companies exceed our Federal government when it comes to fairness and equality.
