The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC) — the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization — is releasing its second annual ‘HRC Equidad Chile: Global Workplace Equality Program,’ the leading national benchmark survey and report recognizing 20 major employers in Chile (CL) who have demonstrated a commitment to LGBT equality by adopting vital LGBT-inclusive policies and practices for their employees. The Chilean-based survey, inspired by HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI) — the premier benchmarking tool on corporate LGBT-inclusive policies and practices in the U.S. — is HRC’s first in-country program in South America and the second in Latin America, following the success of HRC Equidad MX in Mexico.

“This report highlights those major employers in Chile who have shown a substantial commitment to establishing LGBT-inclusive policies and practices in their workplace,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees have as much to offer as any of their colleagues and deserve to be welcomed, valued and supported as their authentic selves to ensure that they succeed.  Further, they can provide critical insights to companies as they develop strategies to succeed in diverse markets.  Creating an inclusive environment for all employees is not only good for company morale, it is good for the bottomline.”   

“The HRC Equidad CL report is invaluable in the fight for LGBT equality in Chile,” said HRC Equidad CL Implementing Partner Emilio Maldonado. “This report serves to identify and recognize major employers in Chile who are working hard to create LGBT-inclusive workplaces, setting a standard that will encourage other major employers to adopt policies and initiatives that will help usher in culture change in their workplaces, industries and communities.”

“At Entel we are very happy and proud of the work done in matters of diversity and inclusion, which we started with conviction more than four years ago,” said Entel Human Resources Manager Felipe Straub. “Although we still have a long way to go in Chile, this recognition reinforces our commitment to contribute to the transformation of our society, one in which we are all welcome, leaving behind biases and discrimination of any kind. We aspire to make the ability to value each person in their identity and value the richness of diversity central to our organizational culture and society.” 

Entel, one of the largest telecom employers in Chile, is one of the two employers on the HRC Equidad list of recognized companies that is based in Chile. Empresas SB is the second.

This year, HRC Equidad CL evaluated 63 major employers in Chile and recognized 20 with the HRC Foundation’ designation of “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.” That list includes: Accenture, BASF Chile, Bayer, BCG, Caterpillar, Deloitte, Embajada Británica en Santiago, Empresas SB, Entel, General Electric, H&M, IBM, J.P. Morgan, McKinsey & Company, P&G, SAP Chile, Scotiabank, Sodexo Inversiones, Uber and Walmart. Altogether, these 20 employers represent 95,278 employees.

In its inaugural report, HRC Equidad CL had 31 participating companies, 15 of which were recognized for their exemplary efforts to create LGBT-inclusive workplaces. This year, the number of participating companies more than doubled and top scorers increased by 33%.

This year, the results of the 2020 HRC Equidad CL report were revealed in a virtual event hosted by Fundación Iguales and HRC. Guests included corporate leaders and representatives of major employers recognized for their continuing efforts to create an inclusive corporate culture and commitment to undertake the HRC Equidad CL survey. 

The survey assesses businesses and multinational companies based on three core pillars of LGBT inclusion:

• Adoption of non-discrimination policies

• Creation of employee resource groups or diversity councils

• Engagement in public activities to support LGBT inclusion

Through its partnerships with local organizations, HRC is leading the efforts to advance LGBT workplace inclusion and equality in workplaces across the U.S., Mexico, and Chile impacting more than 30.6 million employees worldwide.

For more information on HRC’s Global Workplace Equality Programs and business toolkits, please visit hrc.im/equidadCL.