Why do businesses want to treat everyone fairly?

We know that gender-variant people want equal rights. But what about employers? Why should an employer care about transgender employees, anyway?

This page is for employers. What's in it for the bottom line of the business, anyway?

Advantages to Employers

Your human resources. Staff. Workers. Collected knowledge and experience. People are one of your most valuable assets. Finding the best and the brightest can be difficult. Retaining people in whom you've made an investment is important. The cost to find and hire, and train a new employee can be several months salary in some businesses. You don't want to waste money by losing valuable resources or ignoring good potential employees.

Productivity

You want your employees to be at their maximum productivity. If they have to hide a part of themselves, they spend energy keeping a secret. Employees who can be honest about who they are can put their full energy into their job. This is why many companies prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, permitting them to be open about their lives. For the same reason, an employee who has to spend energy appearing to be a man, when their true gender identity is a woman, is less productive than an employee who can freely be herself. Successful companies are progressive companies. The corporate culture that leads to success is the same culture that leads to diverse employee populations. Corporate Diversity programs help ensure this diversity. Successful companies emphasize diversity.

Talent pool

Give yourself access to every population of talented employees. If you decide that you won't hire a gay man, or a lesbian, or a transsexual, you're limiting your choices. To be competitive in today's fast-paced business world, you must make full use of every resource you have. This includes gender-variant employees, customers, and suppliers.

Loyalty

Companies that assure their gender-variant employees they will be treated fairly experience an increase in loyalty. A employee who can transition on the job, or who can dress in the way they are most comfortable, will feel great about their employer! He or she will usually want to stay with the company. The good feelings will create extra energy to put into their job.

Recruiting

The best employees have many choices of employers. They can choose the best jobs. Your organization will be more attractive to diverse employees if they know that company policy encourages them to be themselves. Any minority group will value an assurance that they will be valued and not discriminated against. Gender variant employees, like other minorities, will prefer to work for employers with an EO policy that includes them.