He/She/They: Why Pronouns in the Workplace Matter

Intuit’s mission to power prosperity around the world is supported by our values and our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. A huge part of driving ‘belonging’ lies within Intuit’s 11 employee resource groups (ERG). Every employee should feel like they can bring their whole self to work and feel like they belong and can do the best work of their life.

Intuit’s Pride Network is a community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and allied employees that strive to innovate their approach to equality, inclusion while supporting each other at Intuit and beyond. As an ERG they focus on education to eliminate stereotypes and unconscious bias, develop diversity and inclusion training programs, and organize initiatives to help ensure Pride is a global and boundary less community.

While to some, the words ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ may have similar meanings, there is an important distinction between each of these words. “Diversity is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance.” Belonging is feeling like you’re building a meaningful friendship with a group of people you’re dancing with. Feeling that you can just be and exist as who you are without criticism or the need to defend your own identity. That feeling of belonging doesn’t come easy for everyone.

Transgender and Non-binary people struggle with this form of belonging in many facets of life, including work. So what can we do, as allies, to help bring awareness around the discrimination transgender people still face in the workplace? Let’s start with pronouns.

Pronouns in the workplace

Intuit’s Tucson Pride leader noticed the addition of pronouns on an email signature of a colleague. She was inspired by this and suggested that this practice could be leveraged by employees throughout the company.

A few weeks later, another member of the Tucson Pride leadership team, discovered that employees could add their pronouns to our employee messaging system. That sparked a great conversation amongst the Pride team for all employees to be intentional with the use of pronouns and to show support for our colleagues.

In the spirit of fostering an inclusive work environment, The Self-Employed Segment Culture Club – whose charter is to fuel a grassroots movement to continually improve and refine the way we work – built the fields in Slack for pronouns and name pronunciation.

So what’s the big deal?

Why should we care about something as innocuous as pronouns? It’s important because representation and visibility matter, especially for members of our community that may be going through a transition. For those of us who are comfortable living our lives with the gender assigned at birth, be it male or female, navigating the world seems pretty straight forward. We go to our respective restrooms, we dress accordingly based on our genders and we have the privilege of navigating societal norms. But this thinking leaves out some of our LGBTQ+ community.

Those that are transgender, queer, or non-binary may often have to navigate the “gray” area, some of whom are actively transitioning. Sometimes, it may be hard to know how to address them without being offensive. While using the incorrect pronoun for these individuals may be unintentional, it can be hurtful and demoralizing. It’s the same feeling as when someone always refers to you by the wrong name.

Leading introductions with our own pronouns can help start a conversation, and allow folks to tell you their pronouns. Allies can help create space for our transgender and non-binary team members to safely share themselves. Normalizing pronouns is also helpful because gender is not always visually obvious. We should never assume someone’s gender.

The importance of supporting small gestures like email signatures serve as a reminder: We SEE you for who you are, how you EXPRESS yourself, and most importantly affirming that you BELONG here at Intuit.

Intuit is a company that strives to continually innovate our products and services. In the same way, our culture is core to who we are as a company and includes how we treat our employees, their unique identities as well as how we can continue to build practices that support diversity and inclusion.

While we’re proud of the work Intuit has done as a company to support diversity and inclusion, we know our work is far from done. We believe that diversity isn’t something we do—it’s who we are. We’ll continue to focus on diversity in the workplace and increasing visibility for underrepresented minorities to reflect the customers we serve.

While recognizing pronouns is one action everyone can immediately take today, a small gesture goes a long way. In addition, when addressing groups of colleagues, use gender-neutral terminology such as “Hi all”, “Hey team”, or “Hi folks”, rather than terms like “Hi guys”.

As shared by Abigail Braceros, our Intuit Global Pride Advisor, “Whether you work at Intuit or at any other company, everyone can help play a part in making sure all people, regardless of their gender, feel like they belong.”