Some learn through love, others through pain (in their pockets)...
+Gay Alliance – In SP, gays come together and form a "secret" group in the financial market
After being marked by a statement offensive to gays in 2013, the Barilla turned the game around and is in list of friendly companies of
LGBT this year, carried out by the North American organization Human Rights Campain (HRC).
In season, Guido Barilla, president of the pasta manufacturer that bears his surname, said that gay couples would never star in his company's commercials because he preferred the "traditional family."
The statement, made to an Italian radio station, was costly. The issue had repercussions around the world and consumers called for a boycott of the brand, accused of not respecting diversity.
It didn't go down well and Guido Barilla went public to officially apologize not once, but twice. But it looks like the company has learned its lesson. For the first time, it appears in the HRC selection (made in the United States 13 years ago) and already meets 100% of the requirements established by the organization.
Only companies that embrace four main objectives are on the list: offering benefits to spouses of the same sex as employees, not discriminating in benefits for transgender employees and their dependents, demonstrating competence in managing LGBT issues and publicly committing to this community.
Barilla, along with 365 other companies, was approved in all criteria.
The company's creation of an "inclusion and diversity council" a year ago certainly had an influence on this result. The idea of the committee was, basically, to consult experts and activists to define structured strategies and goals to improve diversity internally.
"We have all learned a lot about the real definition and meaning of family, and over the past year, we have worked hard to reflect this throughout our organization," Guido Barilla told CNN.
