NEWARK, N.J. – Panasonic Corporation of North America announced it has received a 100% ranking from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), earning it the designation as a leading company for LGBTQ+ employees in the United States. Panasonic’s achievement is a culmination of more than a year-long, employee-led effort to carefully examine, reflect, and act on improving policies, introducing processes, and expanding existing program offerings for LGBTQ+ employees.
This year, Panasonic joined the ranks of more than 545 companies and businesses in the U.S. to earn the Equality 100 Award: Leader in LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion by scoring a 100 on the CEI, the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality. The award recognizes Panasonic’s commitment to developing and implementing programs, tools and processes that ensure a diverse and equitable environment for its employees, in turn benefiting the company’s partners, customers and communities it serves in.
“At Panasonic, we remain both committed and accountable when it comes to ensuring a physically and psychologically safe workplace where every person can thrive,” said Megan Myungwon Lee, Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of Panasonic Corporation of North America. “We cultivate an environment where everyone is able to share their voice and talents, and have the opportunity and resources to fully realize their potential. We are deeply honored to be recognized by the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index for our efforts to elevate equity for the LGBTQ+ community and foster an inclusive company culture.”
The CEI rates companies on detailed criteria falling under four central pillars, including: non-discrimination policies across business entities; equitable benefits for LGBTQIA+ workers and their families; supporting an inclusive culture; and corporate social responsibility.
Panasonic’s PRISM Business Impact Group, which advocates for an inclusive and safe workplace culture where individuals can thrive in both their professional and personal lives, was the driving force to elevate equity for LGBTQ+ employees. Over the last year, Panasonic expanded its voluntary Self-ID program to include gender identity and sexual orientation, developed and published a guide to equitable benefits for LGBTQ+ employees, expanded its healthcare coverage for transgender employees and domestic partners, and continued its support for the broader LGBTQ+ community through the work of PRISM and Pride Month initiatives.
In addition, Panasonic created and implemented a supplier diversity policy to ensure that our procurement processes promote inclusion of qualified and certified businesses owned by people of diverse backgrounds and/or underrepresented populations that include minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQ-owned and disabled-owned businesses.
“For well over two decades, businesses have played an important role in furthering LGBTQ+ equality by centering employee needs and voices when it comes to workplace inclusion. While there is much more work to be done, year-over-year growth in CEI participation is evidence of a business community that recognizes the responsibility and value in upholding equity and inclusion,” said RaShawn “Shawnie” Hawkins, Human Rights Campaign Sr Director of Workplace Equality. “Our goal at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation is to work in a spirit of partnership with companies, providing educational resources and leading benchmarking, and collaborating on ways for businesses to support the LGBTQ+ community at a time when we face unprecedented legislative attacks, heightened anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and physical violence. The CEI is an ever-evolving tool – a blueprint that companies can use to show up more effectively in supporting their LGBTQ+ employees and their families.”
According to the HRC, the results of the 2023-2024 CEI showcase how U.S.-based companies are promoting LGBTQ+ friendly workplace policies in the U.S. and abroad. The first year of the CEI included 319 participants, and the 2023-2024 CEI now includes 1,384 participants; further demonstrating the tremendous trajectory of the CEI, a record-breaking 1,340 businesses have non-discrimination protections specific to gender identity, up from just 17 in 2002. These critical non-discrimination protections cover 21 million employees in the U.S. and around the globe.
The CEI rates employers providing these crucial protections to over 20 million U.S. workers and an additional 18 million outside of the U.S. Companies rated in the CEI include Fortune magazine’s 500 largest publicly traded businesses, American Lawyer magazine’s top 200 revenue-grossing law firms (AmLaw 200), and hundreds of publicly and privately held mid- to large-sized businesses.
The full report is available online at www.hrc.org/cei.
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