In Honor of Pride

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Recently, we hired a new employee with a historically female legal name and a historically male preferred name. He didn't bring it up or provide an explanation or address anything up front, however, our onboarding representative immediately put herself in his shoes. What if he doesn't want to bring this up with his new co-workers or new manager? How do we ensure his protection when his legal name goes in the system and his manager can see that?

How do we protect our trans brothers and sisters in a world that requires them to confront their past every time they reach for a fresh start?

While we in HR need to know the legal name of an employee for taxation, benefits, and employment verification it is also our responsibility to maintain confidentiality of employee information from others, including their leaders.

So what do we do?? Well, we reached out to our HRIS Representative to see if we could make the "Preferred Name" field the only one that managers could see. Security access settings can sometimes make all the difference!

I wondered how many times he had to go through that process. Being forced to explain the transformative process of finding himself to every single employer he's ever had. With a simple step, we were able to completely eliminate that issue for him and he was finally able to achieve a fresh start in a new job.

Things that many of us never have to even think of can really change the employment experience of others. The gift of working in Human Resources is that we can shape the onboarding and employment experiences of our employees in incredible ways. We just have to be willing to step outside of ourselves and look at the experience through their eyes!

Do you have a similar experience? Comment or send us a message!