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The U.S. Supreme Court  on June 15 that an employer who fires an individual for being gay or transgender violates . In other words, discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals is now forbidden under federal law.

As someone who supports LGBT rights, I believe it’s a big step forward, and one that I hope compels  to change their ways.

But, as my research and that of others shows, there was already a powerful reason to do so: Workplaces that are more inclusive tend to perform better than those that aren’t.

Creating inclusiveness

How can organizations be more inclusive?

Based on my  in diversity in , which spans 20 years, I believe a good start is enacting strong policies that emphasize that discrimination based on sexual orientation is always inappropriate.

 regular education and training on these policies, which helps encourage more interpersonal interactions around the issue and challenging discussions that force people to confront their own prejudices.

 also play a key role by modeling what inclusiveness looks like and holding people accountable for their actions.

Inclusive workplaces also tend to instill this spirit throughout the organization, from its mission statement to how it conducts employee evaluations.

A path to success

In a , a colleague and I examined LGBT inclusion at 65 of the biggest university athletic departments in the U.S. and compared it with how well their teams performed in the gym or on the field.

We  by looking at factors such as department nondiscrimination policies, the existence of LGBT-focused resources, and a fan code of conduct that explicitly prohibits homophobic, transphobic, and sexist behavior. We measured performance with .

We found that as LGBT inclusiveness increased, so too did the  of the school’s teams.

The benefits were especially positive when the state in which the university was located had a  and low levels of  individuals.

Equally important was what we did not find. Specifically, LGBT inclusion did not hurt performance when the state didn’t have a large gay population or when bias was high. Put another way, there were only positives—and no negatives—associated with having an inclusive workplace.

These findings are consistent with our previous sports-related ,  and .

Inclusion beyond sports

This connection between work environments that are supportive and welcoming to LGBT individuals and better performance isn’t limited to sport organizations.

Researchers in , , and  have all come to similar conclusions.

For example, in a study of thousands of companies,  found that LGBT inclusion also correlates with employee productivity, profitability, and business performance. Other research has shown companies recognized for their inclusive efforts see higher  as well as more success in .

And, naturally, LGBT people working in inclusive workplaces experience less , making it easier for them to be  at work, which helps improve .

So although the Supreme Court has finally and firmly banned LBGT discrimination, companies that have already embraced more inclusive workplaces have long been reaping the benefits.

This article was originally published by It has been published here with permission.