Diverse and Perfect

Chicago-based brokerage firm Aon Corp. earned top honors from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in September. The civil rights organization gave Aon a perfect 100 score on its Corporate Equality Index 2008.

The index measures how companies treat their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, investors and customers.

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The Washington, D.C.-based lobbying and outreach organization, whose logo is those familiar blue and yellow equal symbol seen on vehicle bumper stickers, based the ratings on such factors as: diversity training, responsible advertising, domestic partner benefits and nondiscrimination policies.

Aon joined 194 other major U.S. businesses from retail, banking, hospitality, legal, insurance and other sectors with perfect ratings. In contrast, only 13 companies earned perfect scores in 2002, the first year of the index. Aon earned a 95 in last year's index.

In total, the Human Rights Campaign scored 519 companies. HRC invites companies from the Fortune 1000, Forbes' 200 largest private companies and The American Lawyer magazine's top 200 firms to participate. It also grants requests to participate from any private-sector, for-profit company with 500 or more full-time employees.

Led by its chief diversity officer, Corbette Doyle, Aon has two of its own metrics for measuring the success of its diversity program--women in senior management, and four regional programs.

One other broker participated in the index this year. Marsh parent Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. scored a 78, up from 30 the previous year.

November 1, 2007

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