Below is the testimony of Indiana's own Bill Hendrix as well as video of his testimony before the Congressional Transgender Issues hearing.
Bill's testimony is about three minutes in
Testimony:
STATEMENT OF
William H. Hendrix, III, Ph.D., Global Leader, Gays, Lesbians and Allies at Dow THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY
Midland, Michigan
For the hearing on
An Examination of Discrimination Against Transgender Americans in the Workplace
Before the
House Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee
On
June 26, 2008
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Bill Hendrix, and I am a product stewardship specialist for The Dow Chemical Company and I have worked with them for 19 years.
In addition to my role as a product stewardship specialist, I also serve as the chair of the Company’s Gays, Lesbians and Allies at Dow (GLAD) Network, an affinity group advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and ally employees within the company. GLAD is one of six employee networks at Dow, all working toward promoting an increasingly diverse and inclusive workplace.
Dow thanks the Subcommittee for holding this hearing to examine the discrimination that many transgender Americans experience in their workplace.
First, I will provide some background on Dow. Dow was founded 110 years ago in Midland, Michigan. Our small town Midwestern roots have encouraged us to establish our enduring Core Values of Integrity and Respect for People. It is these Values that form the very heart of our approach to Diversity and Inclusion.
At Dow we serve customers in 160 countries with about 43,000 employees. Clearly, diversity underpins our workforce, our culture and, indeed, our business model. We know that it is our “Human Element” that is key to our success. As a result, we know that creating a respectful, inclusive working environment is not only a matter of fairness and equality, but also one of critical economic and business importance.
With a shrinking talent pool – particularly in the sciences and engineering – it is essential for us to actively include everyone to ensure we attract and retain the very best talent available in the marketplace. As an industrial, business-to-business supplier with virtually no consumer marketing we must work even harder to have an identifiable employer brand to attract top talent.
When we discuss LGBT workplace policies, we do so knowing that this policy gives us an advantage. Because we don’t have major offices or facilities in the metropolitan areas in the US, our LGBT employees often have more protection from discrimination under Dow’s policies than under the laws of their state or locality.
Specifically, our LGBT policies have been good for our workplace for two main reasons: a) retention of our LGBT employees because they know that they can perform their jobs without fear of repercussion and therefore have more reason to be committed to the company, and b) better recruitment of allies and younger workers, who often use employee benefits such as transgender policies or flexible work hours, as a litmus test for prospective employers.
For Dow, like most companies, the offering of benefits to LGBT employees has been the result of a multi-stage journey. We first instituted sexual orientation in our employment nondiscrimination policies in 2000. We then added parity for domestic partnerships in 2002. We added protections based on gender identity in 2005. Of special note, we have implemented this globally for all the 160 countries in which we have employees!
When comparing our company to other Fortune 500 companies, Dow is one of the nearly 30 percent that currently offer protection for employees based on gender identity. Loss of talent comes at a significant cost to employers, many of whom, like Dow, will suffer from shortages of qualified workers as baby boomers retire.
For our workplace transgender policy, we leveraged a policy developed by HRC and then modified it slightly for our specific workplace conditions. This policy strongly emphasizes mutual respect and good communication between the transitioning employee and his/her supervisor. Communication to the transitioning employee’s workgroup is also critical. For example, working with the transitioning employee, training seminars can be created to prepare co-workers. Our policy also addresses the questions of a transitioning name change, updating company databases and offering support for other legal documents such as passports.
As I have mentioned, it has been a journey for my company. On the whole, our program has gone remarkably well. We have had one employee transition in the workplace since 2005 and utilize the policies. As expected, co-workers have had a few questions and concerns, but our company has been able to address them and ensure that the workplace remains a respectful and productive environment. In discussions with the transitioning employee, she felt most of her coworkers were quite accepting and supportive.
Overall, we have achieved a positive reception of our transgender policy, both internally and externally. Internally, because of our strong commitment to our Human Element campaign’s policies, very little negative notice was taken of the inclusion on gender identity. This was just one more diversity factor within our comprehensive program.
Dow appreciates the chance to share our views and applauds the committee’s work to gather more information on gender identity within the workplace and welcome any further questions you may have.
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