How to Help Non-Binary Job Seekers Feel Included, Not ‘Othered’

Plenty of job applicants have had this experience: They fill out a job application, and at the end, they are asked to enter their demographic information. They select their background information and disability status. When they go to put in their gender, however, the drop-down offers just two options: male or female. For people who do not identify as strictly male or female — an umbrella gender category called non-binary — choosing between two genders that don’t quite fit can be a particularly isolating experience. 

. Despite having a challenging year in terms of business, stakeholders, and customers, 767 organisations received the highest score possible for their LGBTQ inclusive workplace practises, according to the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) 2021. It's interesting to note that the CEI index increased by 12% from 2020. Self-identified bisexuals make about 9% of the population in India. Non-binary people comprise a rapidly growing share of the workplace. Yet many companies still fail to adequately recognise non-binary people as part of their hiring processes. Such omissions carry the risk of alienating a key group of workers, who might interpret a non-inclusive hiring form as a sign that a workplace won’t be a supportive environment for them. 

Tata Steel was among the first companies in the commercial sector to offer and provide money for gender reassignment procedures for its LGBTQ employees, in addition to all other standard benefits.

A research study by Macrothink Institute, titled - Experience of LGBT+ Employees at the Workplace in India: Diversity and Inclusion states that, “although the number of people who have come out about their sexual preference is small (23), 34.78% of them report having faced negativity when they came out, which is not a good sign. More than two-thirds (72.72%) have faced some form of discrimination at work after coming out.”

LGBTQ people in India are not a small minority. The approximately 33-million-strong population will not remain silent in their efforts to reclaim equality.

According to Pavitra Singh, CHRO at PepsiCo India, LGBTQIA+ inclusion should extend beyond Pride month, with a focus on key pillars such as employee awareness and sensitization, concrete actions, and allyship. "Our ultimate goal is to become a company that truly values equity and inclusion," she says.

Follow these best practices to be more inclusive of non-binary jobseekers as they move through the application process.

Build an Inclusive Job Application 

In order to show non-binary applicants that your company is a safe space, hiring managers should be sure to use inclusive language in job applications. The application, after all, is a potential employee’s first touchpoint with your company, and for LGBTQ+ jobseekers, it can serve as an important signal of what your workplace values. 

“I think people under-emphasise the importance of the job ad or description and the language that’s being used,” says Jessica Hardeman, Global Director of Employee Lifecycle at Indeed. “There are easy things you can do that will attract more candidates.”

Some companies have simply chosen to add an “other” option to the gender section of their applications, an approach most experts recommend avoiding. Even if the idea of “other” is to include many different genders at once, “just as easily, somebody could read ‘other’ as, ‘Oh, great, I am being othered.’”

Godrej Capital's Ruhie Pande recollects reading once that diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having your voice heard. "As a result, our recruitment and selection strategy goes beyond a candidate's functional fit to hire individuals from various disciplines, backgrounds, demographics, and organisations," she explains.

The company's policies and benefits are gender-aggressive, and employees are not required to declare their sexual orientation in order to receive such benefits. "While this is not an actively tracked metric, it is worth reflecting on how broadcasting such policies and benefits has frequently resulted in employee self-declaration," she adds.

Instead, offer male, female and non-binary as gender options, offering a fill-in-the-blank option is a better approach to include in the application form/process.

Companies can also add a space for applicants to list their pronouns. If someone’s candidacy moves to the interview stage, knowing their pronouns might help avoid a situation where a recruiter or hiring manager accidentally misgenders them. That said, pronoun questions should always be optional. Some non-binary applicants might be nervous about sharing their identity early in the application process, for fear of bias.  

Report Non-Binary Employees Correctly on Government Forms

Many employers have been slow to add a non-binary gender option to forms like applications and employee records because the forms they must submit to the  government usually feature only binary gender options: male or female. 

The Supreme Court declared transgender people to be the "third gender" in 2014. It upheld that discrimination based on gender identity is constitutionally prohibited in all aspects of life, including employment. Following this decision, it enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 (Transgender Act).

The Supreme Court also ruled that a person's sexual orientation is a private matter; making individual privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

This law prohibits both government and private entities from denying or terminating employment or discriminating against transgender people based on gender identity.

But that paradigm is starting to change, and official recognition of non-binary identity has become more common at the government level. Unfortunately for HR managers, though, not every agency has made it so easy for non-binary people to identify themselves. 

More companies are signing up to the UN STANDARDS OF CONDUCT FOR BUSINESS - Tackling Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Intersex People, UN-Standards-of-Conduit.pdf (unfe.org), committing thought and action to protecting human rights in the workplace, marketplace, and community as their focus shifts to building more equitable societies.

The LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community is gaining significant mindshare among Indian enterprises, but action on the ground must move faster. Consider the following: Last year, only 105 organisations in India registered to participate in the 2022 India Workplace Equality Index (IWEI), a comprehensive benchmarking exercise for India's employers to track their progress on LGBT+ workplace inclusion. According to Statista data, there were over 1.48 million registered companies in India as of June 2022.

- 87% of LGBT respondents said their organisation does not have formal LGBT Employee Resource Groups. Source: The 2016 Indian LGBT Workplace Climate Survey

- 48% of firms (globally) have a standalone global policy addressing LGBTQIA+ issues. Inclusion of the LGBT Community in Workplaces: The Indian Context, 2018.

- Despite a difficult year for businesses, stakeholders, and customers, 767 companies received the highest score for LGBTQ-inclusive workplace policies. Surprisingly, the CEI index increased by 12% when compared to 2020. Source: 2021 Corporate Equality Index (CEI).

Focus on Other Aspects of Inclusion

While using inclusive language in job applications and employee records is a critical first step, a truly gender-inclusive hiring process takes into account the multifaceted ways in which trans identity might show up in the hiring process. 

Recruiters and hiring managers should remain cognisant of names, for instance. Many trans and non-binary people use a name other than the one they were assigned at birth, and employers should be careful to use each candidate’s preferred name.

Likewise, when verifying an applicant’s background, keep in mind that their professional references or former bosses might know them by a different name. If a hiring manager does encounter a discrepancy between names, they should not assume the worst

Rather than confronting the applicant on a discrepancy in names, hiring managers should be open to the fact that the information they encountered on, say, an old college transcript is likely to include a name assigned at birth that the applicant no longer recognises (known as a dead name). 

Training hiring managers and recruiters on the nuances of non-binary and trans identity is one way to ensure a more inclusive workplace — and so is holding accountable anyone at your company who might disrespect non-binary applicants. 

If a recruiter is not sensitive to a person’s preferred pronouns, or uses a dead name even after being corrected, they risk alienating both qualified candidates and current employees. Thoughtful inclusion is critical for not only a company’s brand but for the humans who work there. And an inclusive mindset at a company inevitably trickles down to the hiring process. 

Job applicants “look at your company pages, they look at the people that work at the company already, because they are really thinking, can I see myself there?” says Kathryn Koo, a Senior Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Business Partner at Indeed. “All of these things kind of come into play when they are deciding to click submit — or not.”

Many businesses have come forward and proposed LGBTQ-supportive initiatives; others are still catching up.

While the majority of businesses practise inclusivity and strive to create a diverse, discrimination-free environment, some have yet to implement concrete policies or make visible changes.