Whitbread Pride 2023 - Amy

Hi, my name's Amy.

I’m an HR Insight Analyst. When I’m not asking people to fill out GDPR forms or sending out regular reports, I help the D&I team to monitor our senior leadership representation, break down the team survey results to identify if minority groups are feeling included, and spend hours staring at spreadsheets calculating gender and ethnicity pay gaps.

Why do you think Pride is important?

To me, the Pride season is an important chance for us to celebrate how far we have come in such a relatively short time. It was only 50 years ago we had the first pride parade, and less than 10 years since gay marriage has been allowed. There’s tonnes of progress we can still make, but it’s nice to take a break and celebrate what we’ve already achieved, especially in a world where it’s so easy to get bogged down in negativity.

Thankfully, I exist in a world where people are warier when I say I work in HR than when I say I am Bi, and I put that down to much better representation in the media over the past few years. I hope that positive representation continues to grow for everyone in the community, so all of us can feel more comfortable and safer being ourselves.

Also, Pride celebrations are a cracking excuse to wear glitter!

Do you think it’s important for organizations to celebrate Pride? Why?

Many organisations preach inclusivity, but you can see from turnover trends that they don’t put in the effort to make their workplace inclusive; people don’t feel included or valued, and they leave to find greener pastures. It’s all too easy to virtue signal, but I think Whitbread does a good job of making inclusivity possible, our networks, the religious leave policy, event packs sent to sites, and of course, celebrating Pride!

When people feel seen and valued, they stick around longer (trust me, my team writes the stats), so yes, celebrating Pride is an important aspect of being an inclusive brand that people want to work for.

What can organizations do to support LGBTQ+ people outside of Pride month?

Equality and equity in policies; like parenthood policies, inclusive health care, choice of clothing/uniform options, and partnerships with other ethical and inclusive companies we want to emulate.

Listen to current LGBTQIA+ employees to get insight on what would make them feel more included & comfortable at work, then make steps to implement those changes.

What are you hoping/hopeful will be achieved for LGBTQ+ equality next?

World Peace!

No, but genuinely I’d like people to be kinder to each other, and respect others’ autonomy to do what they want with their lives & bodies. Even if you don’t understand what someone identifies as, or why they present in a certain way, you can still be respectful - that applies to any aspect of life, not just gender or sexual identity.

It costs nothing to be kind to others - I’m sure someone from Accounting can back up my maths on that.