Tim Cook Comes Out: What Big Companies Can Do for Gay People

“If knowing that Apple’s CEO is gay can help someone struggling with their identity, comfort someone who feels alone, or inspire people to stand up for equality, then it’s worth giving up some of my privacy,” Cook said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook came out last night.

His public statement was sincere and moving, and many people found it heartening. As the CEO of a company with global influence, Cook hopes his statement will encourage more gay people and help advance equal rights.

“Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority, and it’s opened a window onto the challenges other minority groups face every day.” His words give us reason to believe that Apple, under his leadership, will do more to respect diversity. Apple is not alone: IBM, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, Disney, and other large companies are providing equal opportunities for LGBT people. As Selisse Berry, founder of the LGBT nonprofit Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, has said, large companies pay attention to diversity because LGBT employees, who make up 5%–10% of their workforces, are no small group.

Look more broadly, and “minorities” are not so few in number. Yet they face greater pressure and more obstacles in daily life, especially at work. Many large companies, fortunately, are trying to change that.

On October 24, 2013, senior executives from Goldman Sachs and IBM gathered at Le Royal Méridien Shanghai, near East Nanjing Road, to launch a workplace handbook for companies in mainland China: Creating an Inclusive Workplace for LGBT Employees in China: An Employer Resource Guide. Representatives of nonprofits including Community Business, the Aibai Culture and Education Center, and the British Council also attended. All shared an interest in China’s LGBT community.

Community Business, the Hong Kong nonprofit that published the handbook, had previously released similar employer guides in Hong Kong in 2010 and India in 2012. Its work spans corporate social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, work-life balance, and community investment. Goldman Sachs and IBM are its two principal corporate sponsors.

“We see growing interest among Asian employers in LGBT issues. More companies are asking about and attending the LGBT events we organize. But China’s social conditions are complex, and companies seeking greater acceptance of LGBT people at work may face many challenges,” Community Business CEO Wei Yuxueyi wrote in the handbook.

The guide was arguably the first in China to give a full account of the circumstances and challenges LGBT employees face at work and draw recommendations from relevant cases. It brought large companies and nonprofits together to discuss the relationship between employers and LGBT employees in Chinese workplaces. “When a company asks why it should include LGBT people, the answer is a business one: to attract and retain employees. Inclusion can make a substantial difference to both productivity and creativity,” said Cai Jiacong, an executive director at Goldman Sachs.

“Goldman Sachs has no fixed assets, no factories or machines. We have only people. So we place more value on people than other industries do, and we think this is very important.” Cai returned repeatedly to the value of people. At Goldman Sachs, he said, they are the most important asset. Every individual deserves attention and should feel respected.

And not only at Goldman Sachs. People are the most important asset at every company.

The attention IBM and Goldman Sachs have given to LGBT inclusion owes much to support from other minority and disadvantaged groups. LGBT people, women, Black people, and people with disabilities are all part of workplace diversity. Their mutual support is one way to fight discrimination. Damien Lu believes groups fighting discrimination should join forces, as Black, gay, and women’s rights groups did in the early American civil rights movement. “Anyone can face discrimination. The call should be for society to stop discriminating not only against gay people, but against anyone. Discrimination against any group is wrong.”

Goldman Sachs’s “Straight Ally” initiative puts that principle to work. Its mothers’ group supports its LGBT group, as do LGBT people’s friends and relatives. That broadens the base of support and makes it easier for straight employees to speak publicly for equal treatment. Goldman’s experience suggests that beginning with a shared commitment to diversity is relatively easy; once that commitment is established, a company can make clear that LGBT inclusion is part of it. The alliance offers another benefit: LGBT employees who are not ready to come out can join while presenting themselves as straight. Seeing support from colleagues and an inclusive workplace may then help them come out, making the workplace more open in turn.

Goldman established the China chapter of its LGBT network in 2010. That year it also launched a pioneering Managing Director Ally program, or MD Ally, which won a Best Innovation Award from the Human Rights Campaign. The program selects a number of managing directors from each department and trains them to create a more inclusive workplace for LGBT employees and offer support. Any employee who supports LGBT people, regardless of sexual orientation, can join the alliance and take part in its activities. Since the program began, membership in Goldman’s Asian LGBT network has grown from 20 or 30 people in 2009 to more than 300 in 2013. In its Hong Kong chapter, 20 to 25 members have disclosed their LGBT identity within the company.

Goldman Sachs’s approach brings senior managers into the effort while including as many employees as possible, a strategy many large companies choose. A broad appeal for diversity can be easier to embrace. LGBT employees, like women, people with disabilities, and people of different races, are part of that diversity and deserve to be included and valued. Framing the effort this way helps win support across groups.

IBM began its LGBT inclusion policies much earlier than Goldman Sachs. It was among the first companies to make a public commitment to LGBT employees worldwide. Its Greater China EAGLE group was founded in March 2009 and now has 50 members. In 2010, IBM introduced same-sex partner benefits in Greater China. Employees in stable, long-term relationships could present a marriage certificate obtained abroad or sign the relevant documents to receive benefits on equal terms, including marriage, maternity, and bereavement leave. Their partners and children could also receive benefits available to employees’ families, such as medical insurance.

For years, IBM and Goldman Sachs have ranked at the top of the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Today, most Fortune Global 500 companies include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, and more than half offer equal benefits to same-sex partners.

Out & Equal Workplace Advocates has built the world’s largest virtual community linking LGBT groups at major companies. Its annual global summit brings together 350 companies, including IBM, Google, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, and Disney, to discuss what they have done within their workplaces.

“Large companies pay more attention to diversity because they understand that 5%–10% of people are LGBT, whether they are customers or employees. Ignore them and you exclude a very large group,” said founder Selisse Berry. In many countries, large multinationals have been the first to bring ideas of equality and diversity into local workplaces. In places such as Singapore, the Middle East, and Africa, where same-sex relations are criminalized, some companies have even written to governments to make LGBT employees’ presence known and press for social change.

“We can’t change what governments do, but we can make our voices heard,” Cai said. Companies are already bringing about change.

Before joining Community Business, Amanda Yik worked as a dispute-resolution lawyer. Over the past year, she has spoken with companies large and small in Shanghai and Beijing. Some were surprised that even one or two of their employees had come out. That response helped prompt her and Kevin to write the LGBT Employer Resource Guide.

After extensive research and interviews, Yik came to see companies as important agents of LGBT equality. “The workplace is a major arena for LGBT people because companies are relatively neutral in political and social terms, and LGBT people play an important role within them. If people’s behavior and thinking change at work, those values may one day affect society. Employees absorb company culture and influence one another. They can carry that inclusive culture into their lives with parents and friends, gradually changing their communities,” she said.

Making room for diversity is a way to respect individuals. It can attract and retain talented people and free employees to work more effectively. A Stonewall survey found that, compared with a workplace where employees conceal their sexual orientation, diversity policies can raise LGBT employees’ productivity by 30%. “Goldman Sachs has 3,000 employees in Asia. If 5%–10% are gay, that could be as many as 300 people. If those 300 become 30% more productive, that’s the equivalent of 90 employees. It’s straightforward business logic,” Cai said, explaining why Goldman values a diverse workplace.

Goldman is taking that logic to other companies, especially the banks, law firms, and accounting firms it works with, where people are likewise the main asset. In October 2013, senior LGBT executives from financial institutions met in Hong Kong for “Out on the Street.” Founded in the United States in 2011 by banker Todd Sears, Out on the Street is an LGBT leadership organization that brings together 19 leading financial institutions, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Morgan Stanley. At its annual summit, openly LGBT executives discuss how to create equal opportunities in finance and the business strategies involved.

The effort extends beyond finance. Service and technology companies, which also depend heavily on their people, have made respect for individuals part of their cultures and have been among the first to try to build equal, diverse workplaces. IBM is one example.

Respect for different cultures and equal opportunity have helped IBM recruit a diverse workforce and draw out employees’ creativity. The benefit is more than access to talent. A workforce that “truly reflects the cultural characteristics of the market” can also create business opportunities and profit. Anthony Tenicela, an IBM executive in business development and global leadership, described the company’s LGBT ecosystem as a network connecting employees, management, and technology teams inside IBM with the consumers reached by its advertising and marketing and with diverse suppliers outside it. Those relationships, he said, ultimately benefit the business.

Both multinationals entering China and Chinese companies expanding overseas have begun paying attention to LGBT people. That 5%–10% of the population matters not only as employees who contribute to productivity, but also as consumers. LGBT Capital, a Hong Kong consulting and financial planning firm focused on the LGBT community, estimates that LGBT purchasing power in the United States is US$760 billion. If China has 85 million LGBT people, their purchasing power would be US$300 billion. Known as “pink money,” it represents a consumer market with enormous potential.

That helps explain why Goldman Sachs global chairman Lloyd C. Blankfein publicly supported the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, and why several IBM executives around the world have come out, encouraging equal workplaces for LGBT people. Whether they consider productivity, the competition for talent, or consumers, companies are paying attention to LGBT people’s needs and looking for ways to let them contribute fully.

Most domestic Chinese companies, however, have yet to grasp diversity or its connection to their business. “They don’t see the business case. Many companies need someone to push them. Their human resources departments or management teams aren’t yet at a point where they can make this a priority. Many are still dealing with basic questions of pay and working hours. We do this work now because we believe it is an important stage in business development,” Cai said. Other clear patterns have emerged in Chinese workplaces:

• Respondents at state-owned enterprises felt less comfortable disclosing their identity at work than those at private firms or multinationals.

• Respondents with more education were less willing to disclose their identity because they feared harm to their careers.

• Lesbians were more likely than gay men to be open about their identity at work.

• Bisexual respondents were less likely to be open about their identity than lesbians or gay men.

• The share of respondents who disclosed their identity was similar in large cities and in medium-sized or small towns. Those in large cities worried more about their careers; those in smaller towns worried more about their families finding out.

Around the world, large companies in many industries are addressing the challenges LGBT employees face at work. In China, beyond multinationals, relatively open workplaces are found mainly in advertising, public relations, marketing, and fashion. That openness and the larger number of LGBT employees who are out in these fields reinforce each other. LGBT people’s talents and personalities can suit this work; the businesses also need an inclusive atmosphere to draw out employees’ productivity and creativity. Their flatter structures can mean fewer worries for LGBT employees about promotion.

After moving to a media company, Wang Xin could be their “true self” again, without the sense of repression they had felt at an e-commerce company. Relationships with colleagues improved, confidence grew, and productivity rose sharply. Li Qiang said he would change jobs for an opportunity at a more accepting company. Their stories show how diversity is becoming a means of attracting and retaining talent. Whether or not employees come out directly affects productivity and relationships at work, making it an important question for companies to address.

“We see growing interest among Asian employers in LGBT issues. More companies are asking about and attending the LGBT events we organize. But China’s social conditions are complex, and companies seeking greater acceptance of LGBT people at work may face many challenges.” That was why Community Business CEO Wei Yuxueyi chose to publish Creating an Inclusive Workplace for LGBT Employees in China: An Employer Resource Guide this year.

Kevin has worked at Community Business for more than four years. In 2009, while still a student at California State University San Marcos, he went to Hong Kong for an internship. He later helped research and write employer guides for Hong Kong, India, and mainland China. From what he has seen of companies across Asia, some—Fortune Global 500 companies, for example—act as “leaders,” creating diverse, inclusive workplaces before employees voice a need for them. Most are “responders,” changing only when employees express a need or interest.

The need has been there all along. In an Aibai survey, 69.5% of respondents said companies should adopt policies against discrimination and for equal employment; 57.84% said employees should receive training on gender and sexual orientation; and 55.71% wanted LGBT employees and their partners to receive the same benefits as heterosexual employees. Outside the survey, though, LGBT employees’ requests rarely receive attention. “At present, Chinese companies are barely aware that they have sexual-minority employees, let alone understand the protections and equal rights those employees need,” said Huang Yaohua, the Aibai project manager responsible for the survey.

(Wang Xin and Li Qiang are pseudonyms.)

Note: This article was part of a special feature produced for Pride Month 2014 and first appeared on QDaily in May. For more LGBT coverage, see the special feature.