Last year, the CEI for the first time expanded its scoring criteria include global LGBT-inclusive workplace policies. The business community responded, and this year 98% of CEI-rated companies offer  both sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination protections to workers domestically and internationally. The Mexico City launch featured representatives from HRC’s on-the ground program HRC Equidad MX: Global Workplace Equality Program, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, The Dow Chemical Company J.P. Morgan Chase, and the Mexican state-owned petroleum company, PEMEX.

“Now more than ever, we need to find points of collaboration to protect our global community’s gains and continue to move forward,” said Mary Beth Maxwell, HRC’s Senior Vice President for Programs, Research and Training. “With strategic partnerships across the public sector, private businesses and civil society, we can drive real change in the lives of LGBTQ people and further our shared goals of full inclusion in workplaces around the world.”

Alejandro Dieck Assad, deputy director of Human Resources of the Corporate Management and Services Division at PEMEX, Mexico’s oil and gas leader, highlighted the company’s commitment to LGBT inclusion -- including educating the workforce on inclusive policies, and holding employees accountable.

“More than 35,000 employees have taken courses on inclusion and diversity that are a fundamental part of the assessment that all employees have to take to get promoted,” Dieck Assad said.

HRC Equidad MX launched in September to strengthen and promote LGBTQ workplace inclusion throughout Mexico. The launch, as well as yesterday’s event, represent years of collaboration between civil society organizations, Mexico’s business community, and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

“We are proud that so many U.S. companies in Mexico have adopted more inclusive and equal workplace policies. We applaud HRC’s efforts to promote these best practices in Mexico as well as the United States and look forward to continuing the collaboration between the Embassy and HRC,” said U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson.

Reflecting the historic commitment within the business community to global LGBTQ workplace equality, HRC announced at the Mexico City launch that its Global Business Coalition, a consortium of major global businesses committed to upholding protections for LGBTQ workers everywhere, had tripled in size.  Launched in 2015, HRC’s Global Business Coalition now includes 36 companies representing more than 3.5 million employees operating in over 200 countries around the world.  The major businesses participating in the coalition cut across industries and combined generate more than $1 trillion in revenue each year.

“Increasingly global employers are leveraging their values of fairness and inclusion in more public platforms such as HRC’s Global Business Coalition,” said Deena Fidas, Director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program. “Most major private sector employers understand this, but need the partnership, resources and guidance to actually implement best-in-class policies and practices.”

In conjunction with the launch of the CEI in Mexico City, HRC Equidad MX released a Spanish-language toolkit for workplaces in Mexico and around Latin America.  The guide provides predominantly Spanish-language workplaces with a resource to help train and equip employees to build LGBT-inclusive environments.

The newly-released toolkit complements significant progress already made by major businesses and law firms globally. This year, a record-breaking 516 businesses earned the CEI’s top score of 100, up from 407 last year. That’s a single-year increase of more than 25 percent -- the largest jump in the 15-year history of the nation’s premiere benchmarking tool for LGBT workplace equality. 883 companies and firms were officially rated and, in addition to the record number of companies receiving a perfect score of 100, progress continued across workplaces, including:

• 94 percent of rated companies had adopted sexual orientation equal employment policies and 92 percent had gender identity equal employment policies.
• Same-sex domestic partner or spousal benefits were provided by 98 percent of rated companies.
• 70 percent of rated companies offer transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage, up from 60 percent from last year, the largest single year increase in trans-inclusive health benefits since the coverage was added to the CEI.

To learn more about the CEI, visit http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is the educational arm of America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.