Top marks for Goldsmiths in Stonewall LGBT staff survey

The inclusive culture of Goldsmiths, University of London has been recognised in an independent staff survey coordinated by the charity Stonewall.

The survey is part of the college’s submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI). This is the first time that Goldsmiths has contributed to the Stonewall WEI and national staff survey and is part of efforts to advance equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) staff.

The national survey of almost 100,000 employees working for over 400 organisations across a range of sectors asked people about issues such as inclusivity of workplace culture, LGBT role models, and how comfortable LGBT employees felt about disclosing their sexual orientation in the workplace.

The survey saw 306 responses from Goldsmiths staff with 21% from LGBT employees and 79% from non-LGBT employees. The workplace culture of Goldsmiths rated highly for inclusivity with 88% of LGBT respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that it was inclusive of lesbians, 86% inclusive of gay people, 73% of bisexual people and 73% of trans people.

According to Stonewall the number of staff able to identify visible LGBT role models was significantly above what they would expect to see with 76% of Goldsmiths LGBT respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that gay role models were visible and 73% that lesbian role models were visible.

The proportion of LGB staff who felt they could disclose their sexual orientation to managers and students was also comparatively high: 58% of LGB respondents said they felt comfortable being out to all managers, putting Goldsmiths in the top 100 of organisations surveyed, and 54% said they were comfortable being out to all colleagues – above the sector average of 51%. In addition, 84% of LGB respondents said they would feel comfortable reporting homophobic or biphobic bullying and harassment.

Pete Mercer, Group Manager and HE lead at Stonewall, said: “The results of the college’s Stonewall staff survey revealed some very positive responses, in particular how ‘inclusive’ the culture of the institution was perceived to be. What was also note-worthy was how consistently this was felt across different identities under the LGBT umbrella.”

Anna Spragg, Equality, Learning and Development Manager at Goldsmiths, said: “Goldsmiths is proud to be a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champion’s Programme and it was really heart-warming to hear the feedback from Stonewall about the results of this survey – with some results being quite unusual for the sector. It’s great that we are able to measure how LGBTQ colleagues are feeling on the ground and use this to make Goldsmiths an even more inclusive and welcoming place for LGBTQ staff.”