NJ Companies’ Workplace Policies Scored in New Equality Index

On Mar 28, 2019

Forty New Jersey businesses are among America’s leading companies and law firms meeting strengthened criteria to meet the evolving needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community around the world, according to the 2018 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, the educational arm of the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization.

The HRC Foundation has strengthened criteria to meet the needs of LGBTQ workers in the most rigorous scorecard to date. Five hundred and seventy one companies have been designated a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality for their efforts in satisfying all of the CEI’s criteria results in a 100 percent ranking.

In total, 892 companies and law firms were officially rated in the new CEI, up from 887 in last year’s. The report also unofficially rated 135 Fortune 500 companies, which have yet to respond to an invitation to participate in the CEI survey assessing their LGBTQ policies and practices. The average score for companies and law firms based in New Jersey is 83 percent. Of the 40 companies ranked, 19 earned 100 points, six earned 90 points and above, and 31 earned 80 points and above.

“The top-scoring companies on this year’s CEI are not only establishing policies that affirm and include employees here in the United States, they are applying these policies to their global operations and impacting millions of people beyond our shores,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Many of these companies have also become vocal advocates for equality in the public square, including the dozens that have signed on to amicus briefs in vital Supreme Court cases and the more than 170 that have joined HRC’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act. Time and again, leading American businesses have shown that protecting their employees and customers from discrimination isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s also good for business.”

Employer	Headquarters Location	State	2019 CEI Rating
Rosetta LLC	Hamilton	NJ	50
Honeywell International Inc.	Morris Township	NJ	55
Aéropostale Inc.	Lyndhurst	NJ	90
Subaru of America Inc.	Cherry Hill	NJ	100
Prudential Financial Inc.	Newark	NJ	100
BASF Corp.	Florham Park	NJ	100
Software House International	Somerset	NJ	10
ADP	Roseland	NJ	100
Dun & Bradstreet Corp., The	Short Hills	NJ	100
Wipro Ltd.	East Brunswick	NJ	95
Pearson Inc.	Hoboken	NJ	90
Public Service Enterprise Group	Newark	NJ	90
NRG Energy Inc.	Princeton	NJ	40
Campbell Soup Co.	Camden	NJ	100
Mars Inc.	Mt. Olive	NJ	90
Mondelez International Inc.	East Hanover	NJ	80
Quest Diagnostics Inc.	Lyndhurst	NJ	100
Becton, Dickinson and Co.	Franklin Lakes	NJ	100
Wyndham Destinations	Parsippany	NJ	100
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc.	Parsippany	NJ	100
Horizon Healthcare Services Inc.	Newark	NJ	100
Selective Insurance Group	Branchville	NJ	35
Day Pitney LLP	Parsippany	NJ	100
McCarter & English LLP	Newark	NJ	75
RB	Parsippany	NJ	15
Bayer U.S. LLC	Whippany	NJ	100
Celgene Corp.	Summit	NJ	100
Johnson & Johnson	New Brunswick	NJ	100
Merck	Kenilworth	NJ	100
Sanofi	Bridgewater	NJ	100
Novo Nordisk Inc.	Plainsboro	NJ	95
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.	East Hanover	NJ	85
John Wiley & Sons Inc.	Hoboken	NJ	85
Realogy Holdings Corp.	Madison	NJ	85
Unilever	Englewood Cliffs	NJ	100
Ascena Retail Group Inc.	Mahwah	NJ	90
H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB	North Arlington	NJ	45
American Express Global Business Travel	Jersey City	NJ	100
Avis Budget Group Inc.	Parsippany	NJ	90
Travelport Ltd.	Parsippany	NJ	45

Other key findings revealed in the 2019 CEI:

• The number of U.S. employees with a corporate non-discrimination policy protecting them from sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination is 16.8 million;
• Gender identity is now part of non-discrimination policies at 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies, up from just three percent in 2002;
•  More than 500 major employers have adopted supportive inclusion guidelines for transgender workers who are transitioning;
• 135 Fortune 500 companies were given unofficial scores based on publicly available information.

Over the last several years, CEI-rated companies have dramatically expanded their support for transgender workers. This year 83 percent of companies participating in this year’s CEI offer at least one health care policy that is inclusive of their transgender workers, and 73 percent met stringent new criteria that requires all blanket exclusions of medically-necessary care for transgender workers be removed from all health policies the company offers. Additional this year, the CEI scoring criteria requires that to earn a top score, businesses must maintain domestic partner benefits for same- and different-sex partners, and require that their supplier diversity programs explicitly include LGBTQ-owned suppliers.

The CEI rates companies and top law firms on detailed criteria in four broad categories:

• Non-discrimination policies
• Employment benefits
• Supporting an inclusive culture and corporate social responsibility including public commitment to LGBTQ equality
• Responsible citizenship

The full report is available online at www.hrc.org/cei.

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