Enterprise-Rent-A-Car joins Stonewall's Diversity Champions programme

The company follows in the footsteps of KPMG (100th member), HP (200th), Google (300th), the Army (400th), and Lend Lease (500th).

Spencer King, corporate communications manager for Europe at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, told HR magazine: "It is so important to have diversity and inclusion programmes in place. If you care for individuals, you can get the best out of them.

Stonewall is the UK’s charity for promoting equality of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees in the workplace.

King added: "I don’t think it is difficult or taboo to address LGB equality in the workplace. In our organisation it does not come from HR, but from the top down. Our CEO, Andy Taylor, is passionate about diversity. For us it is not a tick-box exercise."

And David Shields, Stonewall’s director of workplace programmes, added: "Every major employer should be concerned about diversity – but with LGB there are challenges because it is an invisible diversity strand. Employers have to work to make it visible. LGB employees want to talk to colleagues about their lives in an open and honest way.

"We are not prescriptive with employers but we can show them what to work on, help them with measurement and show them how they rate against other employers in their sector."

The Diversity Champions programme is Britain’s good practice forum focusing on LGB workplace issues. The programme includes an exclusive series of seminars throughout the year that focus on different elements of emerging good practice, unique online support on sexual orientation issues, exclusive access to Proud Employers recruitment as well as discounted access to Stonewall’s annual Workplace Conference and Leadership Programme for emerging LGB leaders.

There is also post-Workplace Equality Index support; while all employers in Britain are free to enter the Index, only Diversity Champions are offered feedback after the Index is published to help them identify their areas for improvement.

Other notable Diversity Champions include Rugby Football League, IBM and all the Armed Forces.