Luxury brands often enjoy a reputation for diversity, equity and inclusion that run far ahead of more staid corporations. But is that reputation truly deserved?
The luxury industry comprises very varied sectors: from beauty and cosmetics to wines, private jets, travel, and automobiles, and personal luxury goods including fashion, accessories, watches, and jewellery. Yet there are similar trends at play across these sectors, including a shift toward sustainable practices, growing interest in positive impact luxury, and an increasing emphasis on values-driven social objectives – often involving inclusion. If companies hold their values authentically, it is impossible to ignore questions about LGBTQ+ progression.
I began my career working in the luxury fashion industry and often saw LGBTQ executives working as CFOs, chief marketing officers, sales directors, etc. Twenty-five years on, with globalization, the professionalization and the rise of powerful family owners in the industry, what I now see leaves me asking whether the industry has stalled on diversity, equity and inclusion – or even gone into reverse, when it comes to opportunities for LGBTQ individuals at the upper-end of the corporate ladder. Based on the number of LGBTQ executives I see “in the closet” I am also questioning whether the traditionally more conservative watch and automobile sectors have progressed at all.
The fundamental question is whether companies’ claimed commitment to inclusion actually stops before talent reaches more senior management levels. Indeed, in multiple sectors, like beauty, jewellery and fashion, women make the majority of the workforce on the shop floor, and we might see LGBTQ+ employees, men, women and transexuals, in prominent roles – e.g. working as chief creative officers – but is that merely a shopfront concealing a lack of more diverse representation higher up in the management structure? Are senior managers able to bring their own selves to work?
To avoid complacency, CEOs need to consistently assess whether their entire workforce and its management tiers consistently offer equal opportunities for LGBTQ employees.
It is time for leaders across the luxury industry to ask themselves some tough questions about whether LGBTQ+ employees face a glass ceiling in their organization – how they can find out and what they can do to smash it.
Yet there are problems in assessing the issue – not least being the lack of visibility. Few organizations have representative LGBTQ data; LGBTQ data is collected through self-disclosure only and therefore not fully reliable. Indeed, some employees opt not to widely disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity for a variety of reasons including safety.
This complexity does not mean CEOs are excused for turning a blind eye to the possibility that their organizations are failing LGBTQ employees. The reputational risks of failing to live up to claimed brand values are too great – as are the benefits of genuine diversity and inclusion for better understanding and serving diverse customers, stakeholders and partners. Given that the global spending power of the LGBTQ+ community is an estimated $3.9 trn annually, the prize is substantial. Besides, as talent is scarcer, sectors that are known for their lack of LGBTQ+ inclusion all the way to the top might lose valuable recruits.
It is time for leaders across the luxury industry to ask themselves some tough questions about whether LGBTQ+ employees face a glass ceiling in their organization – how they can find out and what they can do to smash it.
Leaders can benefit from asking these questions to start meaningful conversations and send impactful messages to the LGBTQ community and beyond; to reflect on their personal stance and whether they are role-modelling inclusion enough, including in their top team and in the more senior ranks; and thirdly to identify and give scale to potential hurdles and opportunities.
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