Lavender Ceiling and Work Policies.

 Lavender Ceiling and Work Policies.

Being LGBTI is an aspect of one’s identity and therefore a part of a person’s work life. As often as we try to clear ourselves of sexual identity in the workplace, it serves as a fundamental aspect of who people are and how they maneuver in organizations. A frivolous discussion by employees in the workplace about families, social gatherings, dating will almost always assume that that the organizations members are heterosexual. The discussions will always be heterosexual sided and statements made will surely be condemning the lgbti person and shaming them. This therefore leads to LGBTIQ+ members feeling left-out and unfortunately such conversations will always go uncontested.

We live in a capitalist world where wage labour serves as the essence of us waking up in the morning and going to work. The work environment requires one to interact with individuals of different cultures, races, beliefs etc. Some of these interactions may prove fruitful and others may somehow inhibit our abilities to grow in our careers. Cohesively, with capitalism being the driving model behind work, reaching the personal full potential serves paramount in an individual’s livelihood and more or less productivity.  Earning alone shouldn’t be the driving force towards working instead, self-actualisation and feeling that you have accomplished your goals should be such.

Over the years, with numerous psychological and scientific theories being explored, managers or employers have come to the conclusion that an employee who has their needs met is a productive employee. According to Maslows hierarchy of needs, in-order for an individual to reach self-actualisation, his or hers; physiological, safety, social and esteem needs should be met. Each of these categories of needs tends to define an aspect of livelihood, safety and physical integrity of an individual. Health is multi-faceted and companies in their bid to ensure overall staff health, have implemented numerous well-being programmes for their employees. These include providing in-house psychologists, mental health training for employees but unfortunately they have not been done to cater for LGBTIQ+ issues within the workplace.  Policies present in the workplace usually cater for the health and safety of individuals, but do-not specifically have policy mandated in creating awareness against the discrimination of LGBTIQ+ personnel, and how other staff members can cope with having such members as part of their social space.

Explicit policies that will validate the presence of LGBTIQ+ identifying personnel and protect them from any discrimination are of crucial necessity. These policies should maintain that every staff member or worker should be able to reach self-actualization. Such policies should allow for equal opportunities at work regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation. The analogy ‘institutional fit’ which is usually used to disregard homosexual people from any promotion should be non-existent in companies. The lavender ceiling should be a concept of the past and it begins with policy change. LGBTIQ+ members should be afforded the opportunity to take up senior and leading positions. An individual’s gender expressive nature should not determine whether he or she or they (inclusive of gender non-conforming individuals) can take up a senior or leading position. All individuals are equals and their abilities should go unnoticed when it comes to taking up positions in an entity. The lackadaisical feeling towards issues of lavender ceiling and glass escalator should come to an end. Every individual should be allowed to reach their full potential and achieve self-actualization.