Announcing the results of its annual Workplace Equity Index, Stonewall, the UK's premier lobbying and advocacy organization for lesbian and gay rights, has ranked PRIDE, J.P. Morgan’s networking group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) employees, as the best employee network among investment banks and #3 overall.

The index, published in the Financial Times, aims to capture the 100 best employers for LGBT candidates in the UK, as well as to applaud company efforts to increase recruitment and retention of LGBT employees.

J.P. Morgan was particularly praised for engaging with staff on sexual orientation diversity through its new intranet site and poster awareness campaign, launched last autumn.

Tim Hailes, chairman of PRIDE London, attended the awards dinner on Wednesday, accompanied by Tony Foster of PRIDE Bournemouth and Abi Amosu of Human Resources. “PRIDE helps to create an environment where you can be open about your sexual orientation if you want to be,” says Hailes. “Its goal is to help create a culture in which everyone can perform to the best of their abilities without wasting energy worrying about something which, at the end of the day, should be irrelevant to your ability to do your job effectively.” UK employers and LGBT jobseekers pay close attention to Stonewall's annual Workplace Equality Index, which ranks companies across a number of categories including the promotion of supportive working environments for lesbian and gay staff and a commitment to diversity training. This year, J.P. Morgan came 19th in the overall index and was ranked the third-best investment bank, ahead of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse and behind Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

J.P. Morgan is a long-standing supporter of Stonewall. As a member of its “Diversity Champions” program, J.P. Morgan will sponsor a table at the Stonewall Equality Dinner on March 22.