LGBTQ office bullying still a thing nowadays

While Corporate America is starting to realize the benefits of working with the LGBTQ community, LGBTQ office bullying is still happening to two people in five, according to a survey.

The CareerBuilder survey also reported that 56 percent of LGBT workers are being bullied repeatedly, and 41 percent leave their jobs because of the bullying.

This is still a sad state of affairs, despite the fact that 91 percent of Fortune 500 companies have already instituted non-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation.

LGBTQ office bullying: Survey says

The nationwide survey, conducted Harris Poll, was done from February 16 to March 9 this year.

It covered a representative sample of 3,420 full-time workers from various US industries and companies, including 238 LGBTQ workers.

In the survey, it was reported that 40 percent of LGBT workers feel bullied at work, which is 11 percentage points more than the national average of all workers.

As mentioned above, 56 percent of bullied LGBTQ workers report of being bullied repeatedly while 41 percent left their jobs because bullying.

Moreover, one in five LGBTQ workers experience health issues due to work bullying while 72 percent don’t report their bullying to the human resources department.

Here’s more data: 53 percent of the LGBT workers reported that they were bullied by just one person while 13 percent said it was in a group.

Lastly, 14 percent of bullied workers said the bully was younger while 61 percent said it was someone older.

Talking about LGBTQ office bullying

Corporations need to address the endemic problem of bullying LGBTQ workers.

“Bullying of any kind or of anyone has no place in the workplace – period. Employers have a responsibility to create a safe working environment for all employees,” said Michael Erwin, director of corporate communications and social media at CareerBuilder.

“They can minimize this destructive behavior by offering sensitivity training and enforcing anti-bullying policies across their organizations,” Erwin said.

The top 5 examples of bullying cited by LGBTQ workers include:

1. False accusations of mistakes (61 percent)
2. Being ignored w/ comment dismissed or not acknowledged (50 percent)
3. Different standards policies than other workers (49 percent
4. Victims of gossip (47 percent)
5. Being picked on for personal attributes (42 percent)

Erwin called on LGBT workers to adopt the following tips in dealing with work bullies:

1. Take notes and document your interactions with the bully, which you can show to a third party like the company HR.
2. Rise above, but don’t be afraid to confront the bully. 20 percent of bullied workers said the bullying stopped after confronting the aggressor.
3. Bring in experts (i.e. your HR team) on your side.

David Kilmnick, CEO of The LGBT Network, a nonprofit organization said that bullying “has such a negative impact, not only to the LGBT person, which is a given.”

“If you’re being bullied for who you are, it will impact how one feels safe in one’s workplace. But there are so many other people, non-LGBT folks, that don’t want to hear this,” Kilmnick said.