Lloyds Banking Group tops LGBT inclusive employer list

The banking firm, which came second in the 2016 list, launched a new colleague volunteering programme, forming official partnerships with LGBT charities.

This includes trans youth charity Mermaids, elder LGBT organisation Opening Doors London and the Albert Kennedy Trust, for homeless LGBT youth, volunteering over 1,000 hours and raising £30,000 for them throughout the year.

They’ve also supported Bi Awareness Day and Transgender Day of Visibility, with new training tools, social media campaigns, and by flying the bisexual flag and transgender flags at 35 of their key sites.

Second and third for Scotland – as well as the overall UK list – were law firm Pinsent Masons and financial advisers JP Morgan. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) came in at fourth in Scotland – making it the top public-sector employer – and 13th on the UK list.

Royal Bank of Scotland came in fifth in Scotland, and was placed 13th in the UK-wide table alongside COPFS.

The Scottish Government was ranked 50th in the UK – its first time entering the top 100 list since 2012.

The Top 100 Employers list, created by lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) equality charity Stonewall, is compiled from submissions to the Workplace Equality Index, a powerful benchmarking tool used by employers to assess their achievements and progress on LGBT equality in the workplace.

This year saw 439 organisations take part in the Index, the highest number in its 12-year history. Each participant must demonstrate their expertise in 10 distinct areas of employment policy and practice, including networking groups, career development, training, and community engagement.

More than 92,000 staff from across these organisations also took part in an anonymous survey about their employers’ attitudes towards workplace culture, diversity, and inclusion, making it one of the largest national employment surveys in Britain. This is an enormous increase from approximately 60,000 respondents in 2016.