The Impact of Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Workplace Issues on Productivity

People in organizations lack the skills, knowledge, tools, and resources to effectively address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workplace issues. Consequently, most organizations fail to attain optimum performance from the approximately ten percent of their population who are sexual minorities. Two examples of what occurs when these issues are not addressed are: (1) gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered employees do not feel included in the organization. When people, any people, are excluded rather than included it is almost impossible to expect optimal performance; and, (2) organizations send messages to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees that encourage them to hide their sexual orientation at work. When employees devote energy to hiding-as gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered employees often do to protect themselves and their livelihood-performance suffers. In this article, these workplace issues are brought out of the corporate closet and into the mainstream of business performance.