Pride 365 Certification doesn’t just indicate that a company is performing well now but that it will never be complacent and has committed to incremental improvement for years to come.
Pride 365 Certification is about what a company is not just willing to do but what they are willing to be. The Certification recognises that every organisation is at different stages of their inclusion journey. It also recognises that just because a company has its policies right, doesn’t necessarily mean that it “feels” inclusive to work there.
Finally Pride 365 Certification is different in that it marks you not against others but against yourself. Companies should look to themselves, how well they did last year, the improvements they have made this year and then how they can use that progress as a springboard for the years to come.
Pride 365 sees that making the reason for positive change out of the desire to be seen as topical or woke, is simply wrong. Moreover, competing against other organisations makes the desire to be inclusive more about bragging rights rather than wanting an inclusive workplace because it would just make your staff happy and more productive.
For example if a company is inclusive it is harder to show that sentiment than it is to point to a metric or box and say “look we ticked it”. As we have seen time and time again, metrics do not always translate to inclusion.
Instead Pride 365 Certification and maintaining it, is dependent on how authentic a company is in its desire to make their company inclusive, their commitment to improving the lives of the LGBT+ community in the wider society and to make a difference for the long term.
Pride 365 believes in Transparent Meritocracies as the greatest mechanism to drive inclusion and fairness. Pride 365 organisations believe in the equality of opportunity, the importance of attitudes and have procedures in place to ensure that from hiring, firing, promotion there is transparency and accountability to ensure that the cream rises to the top.
A meritocracy on its own does sound like a positive step, however the issue is when the concept of what is merit and what is not becomes subjective. Typically leading to ideas that simply echo what has come before being what is considered merit and outside the box or new ways of thinking is valued as a lower merit. This can even extend to people, where internal prejudice means a desire to find people who not just think like you but are most like you. Causing those who are not the same as you, but have ideas of their own to be pushed aside.
365 Certified organisations not only are committed to meritocracy they are also committed to implementing transparency and using the power of data to ensure that bias is not present when promoting, hiring, firing or deciding on salary and bonuses.
By creating an environment of transparency this naturally leads to greater accountability and that leads to being able to see people for who they are and importantly what they can do.