Two Jacksonville-based businesses, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Adecco North America, are among nine in Florida with perfect scores on this year’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign.
Each year the HRC Foundation rates large U.S. companies and law firms on their LGBT inclusion policies and practices.
The HRC’s Deena Fidaf says the scores are based on businesses’ answers to an extensive questionnaire.
"Each business not only indicates yes or no to the number of questions, but they also have to affix validating documents," Fidaf said. "So we actually review their insurance summary plan documents. We review their personnel handbooks and really verify every single component of the survey."
Two other Jacksonville-based businesses are also included in this year’s Corporate Equality Index. CSX Corporation scored a 75 while Winn-Dixie Stores received a 40, the lowest score of the 21 Florida companies that took the questionnaire. But, Fidaf says that’s not a bad thing in this case.
“Winn-Dixie is a fairly recent entry into the corporate quality index but it is certainly a business that is what we would call on its journey of LGBT inclusion. And so we are thankful that they are engaged in these issues and they’re engaged in the Human Rights Campaign.”
Of the 851 U.S. businesses that participated in this year’s survey, just under half earned perfect scores and the distinction of being one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.”
