So, Pride Month has come once again, and you, the conscientious business owner, have got in with the festivities by slapping a rainbow-colored version of your company logo on your Twitter account. Inclusivity achieved, right? Unfortunately, to your shock, you find those snarky millennials and Gen Z-ers rolling their eyes and busting your chops over cynical “rainbow capitalism.” Where did you go wrong?

Fear not, for the Huntsville Business Journal is here to guide you out of the benighted depths of hollow lip service and into the realm of true, concrete measures that you can enact for your company to become truly inclusive. These are steps that you can take to put your company values into practice.

Codify Anti-Discrimination Protections and Inclusivity Practices Into Your Company Policies

The first step is the one most directly under your control as a business owner; laying down the law for your domain. Setting policies in writing and making them available for all employees to read makes an inarguable standard for you to cite in the event of harassment or mistreatment of your LGBTQ employees.

For very small companies, it’s usually more cost-effective to hire outside HR consultants to review your proposed company policies, to ensure that they are in accordance with the law. Once a company grows past the point of around ten employees, it may be time to consider hiring a dedicated HR manager to delegate much of these responsibilities.

When establishing an HR manager or department, it’s important to ensure that they have both the temperament for conflict resolution, and the proper training and education to ensure the smooth performance of their duties.

Another benefit of dedicated HR review is the ability to check for biases, intention or otherwise, in your hiring process.

Ensure Benefits are Equitable

The benefits that you offer to your employees should be equitable between LGBT employees and non-LGBT employees. Review life insurance and health care policies to ensure that the wording doesn’t exclude same-sex spouses from being named as beneficiaries. Transgender employees have particular medical needs, and going the extra step to see those accomodated for can solidify your reputation as a truly LGBT-friendly employer.

Set the Example Within Your Company

Once you’ve established inclusive policies designed to protect your LGBT employees, and you have a dedicated HR specialist to ensure they’re carried out, the work of cultivating a truly inclusive company culture shifts from direct control to more of a supplementary role. Speak with managers and team leaders about your expectations – a brief mention of the company culture you seek to cultivate in your business can go a long way in communicating the importance that you place on it.

Small acts of solidarity can have a large impact, more than one might think. As an example, if one were to schedule a company social function where employees’ families are invited, a quiet word or private email to an employee reiterating that, say, their same-sex spouse is just as welcome as any other employee’s spouse, and that they can come to you if they ever need to, can go a long way in reassuring them that your company is truly a safe and inclusive work environment.

Be Visible, All-Year Round

There are many resources located in and around Huntsville that are dedicated to ensuring that members of the LGBT community have the ability to find businesses that are safe for them to patronize. This can be especially helpful for those in the beauty industry – salons, barber shops, hair removal centers, and specialty boutiques, among others – to spread the word that they are LGBT-friendly businesses that welcome the patronage of that community.

One of the most prominent of these resources is the Rocket City Rainbow Pages, an online directory of organizations and businesses that are LGBT-affirming.

Those involved in the practice of law or medicine have additional avenues of engagement; the Campaign for Southern Equality has an extensive directory of trans-affirming medical and legal service providers. It’s also common for law firms to host legal name change clinics for transgender people, and that can be a great way for law offices to make a name for themselves among the LGBT community.

Making connections with Gay-Straight Alliance groups on college campuses can raise your company’s profile among soon-to-be young professionals looking for employment.

Advocate For Your Values

Politics is a messy affair, altogether distasteful, and if it could be avoided entirely, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, that is not the world in which we find ourselves, and as a result, real people – including your employees, customers, and community as a whole – are affected by the legislation and rhetoric of the state and national debates over LGBT rights.

Your employee won’t be putting forth their best effort if they’re wracked with worry that the state could strip away the legal recognition of their marriage, or take their children away, or even throw them in jail.

Obviously, the political climate of the state of Alabama is not within your power to control. However, what you can control is what stance your company makes within its community.

You can speak out against rhetoric that demonizes LGBT people as “groomers,” or inherent child predators. You can stand up to the most reactionary, inflammatory demagogues running for office, and point out that political extremism is bad for business. You can add your voice to campaigns such as the Freedom for All Americans project, which lobbies for Federal passage of legislation to codify LGBT Anti-Discrimination protections into law nationwide.

It can seem a daunting risk, to court backlash for standing up for the LGBT community. But if one doesn’t hold to their values when doing so is difficult, or less-than expedient, then one doesn’t really hold those values at all.

A Real Pride

Ultimately, taking these steps will make real, lasting benefits for the community, and will solidify your business’s reputation as truly inclusive. Pointing to your proven record of concrete actions will demonstrate that, for your company, inclusivity is more than just a hollow buzzword, and the Pride rainbow is more than just a marketing ploy. Such a reputation cannot be purchased; it has to be earned.