27 May 2021
Despite promises of building more equitable workplaces, the newest Diversity and Inclusion report from Glassdoor shows the reality is still far off — especially for LGBTQ+ employees who report less satisfaction at work.
Why it matters: Companies have been on a hiring frenzy for chief diversity officers in the year since George Floyd's murder, but workplace perception is not changing on pace with the effort.
What they did: Glassdoor looked at companies with at least 25 reviews from LGBTQ+ workers, a self-identifying feature that it launched in September.
- Across all companies that more than 3,000 LGBTQ members rated, the overall average was 3.27 stars out of 5 — lower than the overall average (3.47) for non-LGBTQ+ employees.
What they found: Six out of the 10 companies that Glassdoor examined saw LGBTQ+ employee satisfaction lower than their overall ratings.
- LGBTQ+ employees at Walgreens, Apple, Kroger and McDonald's, however, rated the four companies higher than non-LGBTQ+ employees.
- At the bottom of the inaugural list were Wells Fargo, Amazon and Walmart. The three had the biggest discrepancies between overall satisfaction ratings of LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ employees.
What they're saying: "It's the employer's responsibility to educate themselves and to deliver the most equitable benefits as possible," Scott Dobroski, VP of corporate communications and a member of Glassdoor’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group, tells Axios.
- "As someone who is part of an underrepresented group, I also encourage everyone to ask for what they want."
The reality: "Employees who face onlyness across multiple dimensions face even more pressure to perform," McKinsey wrote in a 2020 research report. And yet they also feel they face greater barriers to advancement.
- LGBTQ+ women, for example, are vastly underrepresented in corporate America, increasing the stress they feel when they are the only one on a team or at a company with their gender identity, sexual orientation or race.
- Transgender people specifically are more likely to see their gender or orientation as a barrier to career progression — as they are much more likely to hear demeaning comments and sexist jokes and to frequently consider leaving companies because of feeling isolated at work, the McKinsey report notes.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.