The second part of my investigation into organisations in Ireland who have Diversity and Inclusion Landing pages, looks at large Irish organisations. The fact that their Headquarters are based in Ireland allows their content to be tailored to an online Irish audience. So they can promote the Irish organisations that they work with to achieve their goals. These are a a few of the best examples that stood out.
Bank of Ireland (BOI)
Bank of Ireland is one of Ireland’s largest financial institutions with nearly 9,000 employees. I previously interviewed BOI about their D&I endeavours you can see this interview here, and for full disclosure, I worked for the bank in 2016/17 and I am currently a freelancer for ThinkBusiness.ie, which is a sub brand of the bank:
BOI begin their D&I landing pages with videos explaining what they are doing in D&I and why this is important. It makes for a more interactive experience. At the end of the landing page there is another video, explaining their efforts and showing their commitment to D&I through events and hiring. This makes their efforts in the area come to life for the viewer.
BOI has a number of Employee Networks each bringing change for the group including WithPride, Multicultural, Family Network, Accessibility, Inter-generational, and the Gender Balance network. Each of these helps promote inclusion and diversity for colleagues and the community. The organisation utilises its partnerships to help offer support to employees. The Family Network works closely with Family Carers Ireland to share events and resources with colleagues with caring responsibilities. They actively encourage their senior leaders to get involved in their employee networks. Over the last few years, BOI has worked hard to offer progressive family friendly policies to colleagues to encourage a work-life balance for all.
Cpl was founded in 1989 in Ireland and is now a global provider of talent solutions including specialist recruitment, managed services, business process outsourcing, and strategic talent advisory services through Cpl’s The Future of Work Institute. Cpl employs over 14,000 people across 13 countries and 50 offices, supporting 4,000 clients globally. The group was acquired by OUTSOURCING Inc in 2021, joining a network of 250 sister companies, employing 131,500 people worldwide and operating in 36 countries across 6 continents.
At the start of their D&I landing page, CEO Lorna Conn delivers a powerful opening video, about how important D&I is to their organisation and to the candidates and clients that they have. This shows potential employees and clients that they are committed to the D&I process. Sharon, Group HRD, goes on to explain how having a tagline of “Be Proud” and a logo of a fingerprint proves that they are true to their values and understand that no two people are alike, just like no two fingerprints are the same. They speak about Diversity Equity & Inclusion being an integral part of their cultural DNA. They then bring this to the workplace, where their “Be Proud cafes” initiative acts as a safe place for people to meet and share their experiences together about DEI topics that are of interest to their people.
Cpl works with many organisations in the D&I space such as The Open Doors Programme, TCPID, the 30% Club and EPIC (for migrants to Ireland) from Business in The Community, NCBI and most recently Southside Travellers Action Group. This demonstrates that they are driving awareness, information and training for their people, ensuring that everybody can keep fully abreast of developments and trends across industry. The organisation does an excellent job of promoting their efforts in D&I, through the promotion of videos, in-person meetings, monthly updates from the CEO, newsletters, or some of their resource groups. Overall, the company does an excellent job of communicating what is happening in the D&I space to their employees.
Cpl has been awarded with the EDI Gold Mark from Investors in diversity and is 1 of 10 organisations to achieve this standard in Ireland. Cpl won “Company of The Year” earlier this year at the first ever National Diversity Awards, they also won the Diversity & Inclusion Award at the Business and Finance ESG awards in 2022 and were a finalist in the CIPD Diversity & Inclusion category
The company mentions on their website that they have more than 26 countries represented in their workforce. They show that they care about their overseas workforce when they provide them with a welcome to Ireland pack upon their arrival, in addition to a “generous relocation package”. They go on to say their internal Distilled Women’s Network (DWN) and that this includes support in terms of resources, training, and the chance to collaborate with other DE&I leads across the Adevinta group into the resource group. The organisation also gives a special mention to their Women Development Programme which “it aims to build confidence and to encourage individuals to hold up a mirror to their behaviours and deal with change confidently.”
The Distilled Media Benefits Booklet has all the information listed for the benefits of working in the company. This includes information on different types of leave, healthcare and wellbeing, pensions, employee discounts, referral programmes, and awards and recognition the company has won in the area of D&I
Dogpatch Labs is a startup hub, located in the historic CHQ building and in the heart of Dublin’s Digital Docklands. Their website states: “Our mission is to accelerate the development of Ireland’s startup ecosystem by providing a valuable community from where you can grow, share knowledge and form connections”.
Their opening statement is one of the strongest commitments to D&I I have found, “Too many groups are still “under-represented” in tech entrepreneurship. We’re committed to using our position of privilege within the ecosystem to proactively dismantle barriers facing these groups.” To assist visually impaired people, some companies have started giving video descriptions of the person on screen and what they’re wearing. So that visually impaired people can imagine what the person looks like. Dogpatch Labs does this in all of their videos very well.
Tech is often seen as elitist. Dogpatch Labs is dispelling that myth by working with organisations that promote youth and socio-economic empowerment. For example, Coder Dojo or Patch is a summer accelerator for 16 – 20 year olds with entrepreneurial ambition. Female inclusion in the tech entrepreneurial sector is less than 10%, Dogpatch Labs is working to improve this percentage with PyLadies, Women who Code, TeenTurn, and Women in AI to name a few. This is so that more women can connect and network in the industry.
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is Ireland’s largest sporting organisation. The Association today promotes Gaelic games such as Hurling, Football, Handball and Rounders and works with sister organisations to promote Ladies Football and Camogie:
The GAA has a range of different Diversity and Inclusion ambassadors from all areas of D&I, whether that be gender, race, religion or accessibility. They can take their message of inclusivity into every club and school in Ireland and internationally too. As the GAA represents the executives of the GAA, their clubs, GAA playing schools and communities within the GAA network, the D&I team at the GAA felt it was important to state what their clubs were doing in terms of disability and sport, respect, culture, racism, LGBT+ status and the resources and toolkits available.
The GAA lists the partnerships, and companies that they work with to achieve their D&I goals. The GAA proudly list both BeLongTo and The Equality Transgender Network Ireland (TENI) as companies they work with. Often visually impaired technology has issues reading the text in a PDF of certain websites. The GAA shows that they live their mission by providing alt text, which gives descriptions of the images provided. The GAA gives a specific person (Ger MacTavish) that you can contact if you have any questions about their D&I initiatives. This ensures that if you have any questions about D&I you can email them to a specific person, instead of sending it to the info@ email address.
The Grafton Group is an international trade focused, multi-channel distributor of construction products. The success of the business is based on the quality of the products it distributes and the quality of the service it provides to its customers. The group aims to build on its leading market positions in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and Finland and to grow internationally in distribution and related markets. They operate retail shops such as Woodies or Chadwicks.
The Grafton Group promotes the fact that they are a signatory of The Valuable 500 Pledge. The organisations signed up to pledge are the 500 most valuable organisations in the world and they pledge to put hiring for disabled people at the heart of their agenda.
To this end the organisation also promotes the work they do with Employability, which is an employment service that gives job coaching and training to people with disabilities looking for employment. Their website offers an accessibility plug that will help people who are visually or hearing impaired (or other disabilities) access the information on their website more easily.
The company mentions that they work with organisations such as The Irish Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, attracting employees from ethnically diverse areas and pledging to increase the number of people from disadvantaged areas
One of the newest and most popular Irish brands in the world in recent years, Gym Plus Coffee is a clothing brand that specialises in active wear such as hoodies, tracksuits or leggings or any apparel you need for running such as jackets, shorts or bras. With big name ambassadors such as singer Niall Horan, the brand is now one of the leading clothing manufacturers in the athleticwear industry in the world.
However, the brand is also dedicated to D&I. On their sustainability page, they openly admit that their industry accounts for 10% of the carbon emitted world wide. However, the company’s clothing has 35% renewable resources in them, and they are now a carbon neutral company. By offsetting some of their emissions, or improvements to their packaging, office management and investing in sustainable projects such as forest protection or peatland restoration throughout the world.
The company also has partnerships with organisations such as The Runners Sanctuary, which works alongside people in Direct Provision in Ireland. Run Talk RunTheir mission is to increase accessibility to mental health support through running & walking peer support groups or offering 2 scholarships to female athletes in two of the co-founders alma-master University College Cork.
An Irish business law firm with 108 partners and total staff in excess of 570. They say on their website “We understand the challenges domestic and international organisations face in business. We assist our clients in meeting their ongoing legal and commercial imperatives throughout every business life cycle. Corporate social responsibility is a natural fit with the way we do business. We invest in our society and communities through a range of focused programmes”
At the top of their D&I information the company promotes their upcoming events, such as Disability – a driver of innovation. They provide a link where you can find out more information about the event. MHC uses videos and infographics to make their D&I page more informative. The video outlines the work that their D&I committee does, in addition to having an infographic outlining their priorities in terms of D&I
During the video, one of the contributors mentions that the firm is 70% female to 30% male, which is very unusual for a male dominated industry. This then leads on to the open and transparent publishing of their Gender Pay Gap Report, which proves that they are an equal opportunities employer.
Focusondiversity.ie 