Queer Data: The LGBTQ+ Community in Tech
Blog: The Tibco Blog
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Every June, we’re excited to celebrate Pride Month alongside the LGBTQ+ community here at TIBCO and abroad. But, PRIDE isn’t just a month-long event. We must take the time to support our peers outside of celebratory holidays like Pride Month, Black History Month, and Women’s History Month. There are many exciting communities in the tech space you can get involved with, such as QueerTech, Lesbians Who Tech, Trans*H4CK, oSTEM, and Out In Tech, to name a few.
In this blog, we highlight how far our queer tech community has come and some key areas we can still grow to create an inclusive and open workplace for all.
Queerness in Tech: A Data-driven View
Diverse workplaces create more innovation and drive higher revenues. It’s a proven fact, demonstrated by BCG research.
So if increased diversity equals increased revenues, why aren’t all companies finding more success?
One issue has to do with perceived diversity versus actual diversity. While a company can seem diverse and inclusive, members of minority groups might not feel the same. A recent Blind survey reports that while 86 percent of people say they think their workplace is safe for LGBTQ+ individuals, only 76 percent of LGBQ people and 64 percent of gender non-conforming and trans people agree. This demonstrates the importance of minority voices regarding their own safety and needs.
The Kapor Center notes that inclusive practices not only benefit minority groups but generally create a better workplace for all employees: “Having a diversity and inclusion strategy was associated with fewer reports of unfairness, significantly lower sexual harassment, bullying and stereotyping, and lower rates of leaving due to unfairness. Having a comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategy had a much greater impact than having individual initiatives (e.g., unconscious bias training).”
Want to make your workplace more equitable? Check out these 10 strategies.
TIBCO Spotfire Helps HR Visualize Diversity
TIBCO’s data support these reports. To gain a better view of employees and remain competitive during a volatile job market, TIBCO’s HR department turned to TIBCO Connected Intelligence software to fuel analytics and drive strategy with cutting-edge technology. With people analytics and connected HR data, TIBCO is changing how it hires, promotes, and retains key talent.
Elijah Ross, HR diversity, equity, and inclusion analyst at TIBCO, explains, “Through analysis, we’ve found that more diverse teams perform well; they’ve had higher engagement based on surveys. Our dashboards show an overall scope of data we already have but in terms of diversity and inclusion. My everyday job at TIBCO is seeing where the discrepancies are, where we’re doing well, and how we can continue to improve.”
Read this case study to learn more about TIBCO Spotfire people analytics.
4 Intersectional Ways You Can Support All Communities
What I love most about Pride Month is how it intersects with and supports other spaces. When we create more inclusive spaces for our LGBTQ+ community, we’re also opening the door to greater diversity in other areas such as race, socio-economic status, nationality, and much more.
Here are several ways you can change the way you show up to foster more community:
- Keep Learning and Unlearning: The most important thing we can all do is understand we all have biases and learned behavior—each one of us brings our own experiences and background to every situation. Instead of relying on learned patterns, acknowledge that the world is constantly changing and growing—and open yourself to new ideas. By listening to others’ experiences, you might learn something new about yourself.
- Lead By Example: Whether you are a people manager or an individual contributor, your presence makes a difference in the workplace. Set an example by proactively featuring your pronouns in communications, making all your coworkers feel welcome, and creating spaces for people to have open conversations. Instead of waiting on someone to make your dream workplace, start making that space today.
- Think Before You Speak: Be mindful of the phrases and idioms you use. By switching to gender-neutral language (“folks” versus “ladies and gentlemen”), you can make the workplace more comfortable for all people. And if you work for a global company, consider eliminating any regional phrases or slang (the English language is full of them!) that others might not understand.
- Build Equity into Your Products, Designs, and Workflows: If you are on the cutting edge of technology, you have the power to shape the future. By making your research and designs inclusive of all kinds of people, you can help eliminate bias and create better products.
Check out this great list of resources for LGBTQ+ members in tech.
TIBCO Supports PRIDE
For Pride Month, we have some exciting events we hope you join and enjoy if you’re a TIBCO Employee.
Hosted by author Kevin Thomas Townley Jr., the Queer Art Storytelling Tour, featured queer art throughout the ages and over the globe. Some art included gender-bending Egyptian statues of Hatshepsut, an anthropomorphized Victorian teapot of Oscar Wilde, Andy Warhol’s screenprint of Marilyn Monroe, and controversial self-portraits with horses.
On June 28th at 9 AM PST, we’ll be chatting with Mean Girls actor and activist Daniel Fanzese during the PRIDE Keynote. After coming out as gay in 2014, Franzese became more active in the fight for civil and human rights in the LGBTQ community; and through his portrayal of the HIV-positive character Eddie in the second season of the HBO series Looking, and its subsequent series finale television film, Looking: The Movie, he has become a well known AIDS activist in the United States. In 2015, he became an ambassador for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Be sure to add it to your calendar if you haven’t already!
And there are so many other exciting activities we’ll be announcing soon (like drag queen bingo!), so stay tuned. If you’re a TIBCO employee and want to join our PRIDE ERG, reach out at prideerg@tibco.com.
The post Queer Data: The LGBTQ+ Community in Tech first appeared on The TIBCO Blog.
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