When Leanne Thomas came out as Gay, never did she envisage herself on a mission to change the perception of LGBTQ in the workplace and the plans for her future certainly didn’t include recruitment after her own personal experiences with a number of different high street Recruitment Agencies. However her own personal journey has found her doing exactly that.
In May of this year Leanne Thomas launched her very own Recruitment Agency with a focus on advocating diversity and inclusion within organisations. Not only will her firm be looking to work with companies that are working hard to promote these practices but more importantly they are looking to work with companies that are yet to realise the benefits of diversity and inclusion to their business.
Leanne believes passionately that her business can establish a good case within any company as to why diversity and inclusion initiatives should be used within their strategy and own working methods and whilst doing this she hopes to set some new industry standards.
Talking candidly Leanne said “I spent nearly 11 years working for over 20 organisations in different sectors. In that time, I came out as a lesbian about 5 times but it was only ever to the team I was working with or just a few people discreetly. When I wasn’t out as a gay female, I felt I had lost my authenticity and it also made me feel quite isolated.”
Surprisingly her feelings of seclusion even started to filter into the beginnings of her own company she continues...“Yeah, I still felt the same way when I was starting up. Working with a team of 5, my team would talk about their personal lives. They would ask me questions about my personal life but I felt really uncomfortable discussing it with them. It was difficult when they asked questions about how I spent my free time, as I practically live in Soho at the weekends or I go to gay/lesbian clubs around the country. I remember thinking to myself “why do I feel so uncomfortable discussing my life with my team? I mean we are a team and if I feel like I can’t be myself completely, how are we going to bond?” I tried to justify it by thinking it was me keeping some distance from them as their boss. However it kept coming up in my mind. I have worked for many companies in the past where I felt I couldn’t be myself and talk about the lesbian side of my life and here I am in my own company still feeling that way. Then I thought that if I feel this way I wonder if there are other LGBTQ people who feel like me. One of the goals I then decided to focus on is ensuring that no one should go to work feeling like they can’t be who they are or feel afraid of being ostracised for who they truly are. I used to work for agencies, as a candidate myself and they would often ask me what type of organisation I wanted to work for, what size company, would I prefer corporate or a more informal environment? All of these questions which are very job oriented. Out of all the agencies I worked for I never came across one that asked me about working for companies which have a network of groups set up for the underrepresented in an organisation or sold diversity and inclusion as a benefit of working with any company.
Perception is also something we need to change and something that I have had my own experiences of. I have prepped for a few interviews where dress code has been an issue. For instance I was told to wear a pair of heels and ensure that the bag I was carrying was “more feminine”. I was also advised on one occasion to change what I was wearing in one of these preparation sessions. The examples I have given are quite recent which says to me that there is still some work to be done before we have reached a point where everyone will be able to walk into a job and focus on the only thing that matters. THE ABILITY TO DO THE JOB!”
Armed with more drive and passion than I have witnessed in quite some time, her frank yet often witty account of her own very personal experiences began to open my eyes of what it would be like to feel DIFFERENT for whatever reason in the work place, a place where we spend most of our adult life?
Leanne, takes me through her website http://www.leannethomasassociates.co.uk which was built by Tamworth based Recruitment Website Design and Job Board specialists, Zero-One Design. She proudly points to her business logo that was also designed by the aforementioned with Leanne worked closely alongside; her Rainbow initials popping boldly from a white background.
“I’m really proud of the website, I feel that we’ve achieved exactly what I wanted and it’s also fully responsive too.” “There is no glass ceiling in recruitment. To infinity and beyond! ” she says with a chuckle.
I have no doubt after meeting this young lady that she will do exactly that.