Stonewall Workplace Conference

Speaking Out: Improving performance through diversity

Stonewall's annual Workplace Conference 2008 was held on Wednesday 16th April at the QEII Conference Centre in central London. It was Stonewall’s fifth conference, and was kindly sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

The increasing profile and importance of diversity in UK workplaces means there are ever more opportunities to address sexual orientation equality. As a reflection of this, the 2008 conference featured extra breakout sessions and an outstanding line up of speakers, including Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Ron Dobson, Commissioner, London Fire Brigade, and Gordon Pell, Executive Director at RBS.

The breakout sessions at this year’s conference were as follows: 

1. 1. Employee network groups: Manchester City Council and Deloitte & Touche explain how to set up a network group and maximise the benefits to your LGB staff and your whole organisation.
2. 2. Cross-sector and regional network groups: speakers from the Midlands LGBT
   Employees’ Network and TechMedia share their experiences of this next step in network groups.
   3. Career Development: Hampshire Constabulary and Morgan Stanley talk about how identity can affect leadership, and specific career initiatives for LGB staff.
3. 4. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Goldman Sachs discuss the implications of posting LGB staff to countries where homosexuality is not accepted. This session will be most useful for multi-national companies and government departments which post staff abroad.
4. 5. The latest research on the effect of sexual orientation on productivity in the workplace. Presented by Stonewall and Bailey Balfour Consulting.
5. 6. Monitoring: how to obtain and make the best use of monitoring data and staff attitude surveys. The Home Office and HBOS share their experiences.
6. 7. The role of straight allies: how can network groups and organisations as a whole benefit from ‘straight allies’? HM Prison Service and South Wales Police share their thoughts on this relatively new area.
7. 8. Mentoring: the best developed programmes: how does mentoring benefit organisations and aid the career progression of LGB staff? With Accenture and the Shaw Trust.
8. 9. The Workplace Equality Index: Pinsent Masons talk about how they used the Index to improve diversity in their workplace, whilst Stonewall advises how to gain the experiential evidence which will be required for the WEI 2009.

To see copies of the breakout session presentations and to download a podcast of the keynote speeches and panel discussions please log into the Members Only section of the Workplace website.

Not a member?

To join the Diversity Champions programme and benefit from the UK's only employer's forum on sexual orientation issues and full details on all the other benefits click here.

If you have any questions about the conference please call the Workplace team on 020 7593 1850.