{"id":1246,"date":"2018-01-04T12:29:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T17:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/company\/stories\/active-ally-workplace\/"},"modified":"2019-08-21T14:18:38","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T18:18:38","slug":"active-ally-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/company\/stories\/active-ally-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"How to be an active ally in the workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n\t\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t
\n \n

You have to be assertive to be an ally, says LGBT advocate Jeanne-Marie Navetta. For more than a decade, Navetta has led the Straight for Equality project for PFLAG<\/a>. Her nonprofit \u201caims to invite, educate, and engage new allies in the effort to achieve full inclusion for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT).\u201d<\/p>\n

As Navetta says: \u201cAlly is not just a noun, but a verb.\u201d<\/p>\n

For employees who are gay and lesbian, transgender, people of color, physically disabled or \u201cneurodiverse\u201d\u2014like those with autism, bipolar disorder, epilepsy and other conditions\u2014the visibility of allies matters more than many may realize. And these realities are also more rampant than many people grasp.<\/p>\n

For example, one in five<\/a> people experiences a mental health issue in a given year. And even in a world where eight-in-ten Americans know<\/a> someone who is gay, same-sex marriage is legal, and corporate leaders like Apple\u2019s Tim Cook are openly gay,\u00a053 percent of gay workers<\/a>\u00a0still remain closeted at work, and more than 100 anti-LGBT laws<\/a> were pending in states last year. Some firms are reacting to this need\u00a0with not just tolerance, but active welcome, and for good reason\u2014embracing strategies that help employees maintain a healthy mental state<\/a>\u00a0has been shown to not only improve the work experience for everyone but also to cut costs related to absenteeism and reduced productivity.<\/p>\n

Autism acceptance has brought some of the most impressive strides as of late. The autism spectrum, which includes Asperger\u2019s syndrome, affects roughly one percent of the world\u2019s population, roughly 60 percent of whom have a higher than average intelligence. But 85 percent are unemployed<\/a>, due largely to social difficulties.<\/p>\n

Autism At Work<\/a>, an initiative by the software company SAP founded in 2011, aims for a 1 percent autistic workforce. The firm was inspired by a Danish software company called Specialisterne<\/a>, founded in 2004 by a man with an autistic son: 75 percent<\/em> of its 50-plus employees, mostly programmers, are on the spectrum. When the founder, Thorkil Sonne, gave a talk at Harvard Business School, one professor recalled, \u201cHe\u2019s the only person I\u2019ve ever seen in an executive program at Harvard get a standing ovation.\u201d These proactive cases, reviewed<\/a> in 2016 by two Harvard Business School professors, may soon become more common. Management consultancy Accenture, for instance, has a Mental Health ally program<\/a> with 6,000 members, offering training and certification in allyship and advocacy. Yahoo also recently announced<\/a> its NeuroDiversity Employee Resource Group, designed to help neurodivergent employees be open about their strengths and challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply understanding how my mind works differently, I\u2019ve been able to let go of how I thought I should do things and accept myself for who I am,\u201d Yahoo\u2019s Head of Production for the Global Marketing Department Margoux Joffe told Fast Company. Joffe, whose ADHD was diagnosed at age 29, is the group\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

Navetta and Joffe are both examples of how positive change requires not just conviction, but action. The little acts of outreach matter when building toward fairness in our own communities and workplaces. Minority employees\u2014those of color, the disabled, LGBT, and neurodiverse alike\u2014don\u2019t know that they are supported in a workplace unless their coworkers say something, and their bosses do<\/em> something to prove that they value equality.<\/p>\n

A key part of efforts toward welcoming will be a mindset shift, in which coworkers become allies. Here are a few tips for how to evolve your own workplace conversations and move the process forward:<\/p>\n