Pride is a powerful emotion and an integral part of the LGBTQ+ community. When I think of Pride, I think of an opportunity to come together and celebrate the freedom to be ourselves.

With Transgender Awareness Week happening this week, it’s a time to celebrate with Pride – and reflect on the strides we have made and the progress still to come.

This year at Avanade, a key focus for us was expanding our LGBTQ+ Employee Network (Prism) across our Growth Markets regions – Australia, Brazil, Greater China, Japan and Southeast Asia – to accelerate its impact in creating a safe space for all our people, and we grew our Prism network here in Japan significantly.

It was a pivotal point in our journey to foster inclusivity and equality – and this week we are proud to reach another milestone in Japan where Avanade has been certified “Gold” in the PRIDE Index, the highest level of certification accorded to an organization for its efforts to  create LGBTQ+ initiatives in the workplace.

Established by the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization work with Pride, the PRIDE Index is the first index in Japan to evaluate LGBTQ+ initiatives in the workplace. Each letter of “PRIDE” represents an evaluation indicator: Policy, Representation, Inspiration, Development and Engagement. So, what better way than to look at the power of PRIDE to guide us on our journey to promote advocacy of the LGBTQ+ community and create an inclusive and diverse work environment.

Policy

At Avanade, we’re on a journey toward equality by first focusing on equity. We believe our policies need to reflect the support and resources that the LGBTQ+ community needs in the workforce. While having the right policies in place is a good starting point, organizations also need to hold themselves accountable. By strengthening corporate reporting and compliance and incorporating equity measures, organizations can set themselves on a path to achieving diversity and inclusivity.

  Representation

A workplace needs to reflect the communities we live in. When LGBTQ+ individuals see themselves represented in the workplace, it sends a powerful message that their identities are acknowledged and valued, and these individuals bring with them diverse perspectives and experiences to the workplace – so it’s a win-win!

A great place to start is by uplifting diverse voices through employee networks, which provide a safe space for people to connect and share their stories. They also act as a resource to educate other employees and advocate for LGBTQ+ issues. In Japan, we also launched a local LGBTQ+ portal designed to share a wealth of easily accessible information, resources and support.

To encourage more interactive connections and meaningful conversations, we regularly host events and webinars to showcase inspiring stories from our colleagues and guest speakers, and we also to commemorate awareness days throughout the year. For Transgender Awareness Week, we will be hosting a webinar and group discussion with a guest speaker – focusing on celebrating trans pride and learning how to be a trans ally.

Inspiration (Awareness raising)

It is so important to support and amplify causes that your employees and community care about outside of the walls of your organization. By doing this, you create awareness and inspire others to take action in turn.

Here at Avanade, we are proud to take a public stance to support the broader community through advocacy, volunteering, partnerships and events. We know there are a lot of organizations doing great work and we want to support that. For example, Avanade has recently joined Business for Marriage Equality and Business Support LGBT Equality in Japan. We had our own booth at this year’s Tokyo Rainbow Pride Festival and plan to do the same next year!

Development

We know that allies are important, so one way to broaden awareness of LGBTQ+ topics is through training and learning and development opportunities. For example, we hosted learning sessions for our managers which focused on how to create an LGBTQ+ friendly organization. For the rest of our colleagues, it was all about how important the role of an ally is. Additionally, we have overarching inclusion and diversity commitment frameworks to ensure we are making progress on our goals.

Empowerment and Engagement

By engaging in some of these initiatives, you can empower and support your employees to be acknowledged, feel seen, be heard and ultimately enable people to be their authentic selves.