Stonewall Workplace Equality Index
The University became a Stonewall Diversity Champion in 2018 and submitted its first application to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index in 2019, with the aim of becoming a top 100 Employer by 2025.
Stonewall is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+) rights charity based in the UK. Named after the Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Villiage in 1969, the charity is now the largest of LGBTQ+ charity in Europe. Stonewall provides help and guidance aids for LGBTQ+ people and organisations, including guides on terminology and community resources.
Stonewall Diversity Champion
We have been a Stonewall Diversity Champion since our joining in August 2018. The Diversity Champions programme is the leading employers’ programme for ensuring that all LGBTQ+ staff are accepted without exception in the workplace. Stonewall works with over 750 organisation in the UK and, like them, we share the belief in the power of a workplace that is truly equal.
Workplace Equality Index
With the support of the Diversity Champions programme, we will be able to assess our progress on LGBTQ+ equality through Stonewall’s benchmarking tool, the Workplace Equality Index (WEI). To participate in the index, employers demonstrate their work in ten areas of employment practice and policy, from HR policies to visibility of LGBTQ+ role models. As part of this, all staff from across the University were given the opportunity to complete an anonymous survey about their experiences of diversity and inclusion at work.
Our aim is to become a Top 100 LGBTQ+ Employer in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index by 2025. Following feedback form our first submission last year, along with the LGBTQ+ Staff Network and the Trans and Non-Binary Staff Network, we have developed an institutional action plan that includes our LGBTQ+ equality actions for a number of areas of work.