IDA Ireland, the Ireland’s premier Foreign Direct Investment agency, prioritizes integrating Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) principles into its organizational culture and practices. The agency adopts a practical, action-oriented approach, driven by the Public Sector Duty mandate of “Assess, Address, Report” from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. By actively listening to employee experiences, implementing comprehensive plans, and consistently reporting progress, IDA Ireland ensures its commitment to accessibility and inclusivity is deeply embedded across all levels of the organization. This strategic focus is further outlined in their EDI Action Plan 2021-2024, covering six key pillars: Neurodiversity, Social Mobility, LGBTQ+, Gender, Multicultural, and Disability. With strong support from leadership, including CEO Michael Lohan, and a dedicated EDI team, IDA Ireland strives to create an inclusive environment that values cognitive diversity and harnesses the unique perspectives of its global workforce.

I interview IDA Ireland’s EDI Leah to find out more about what the company is doing in the area of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

1. How does IDA Ireland integrate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) principles into its organisational culture and practices?

IDA Ireland has strategic actions in EDI, which are outlined in our EDI Action Plan 2021-2024, and we have additional initiatives and activities across six pillars of Neurodiversity, Social Mobility, LGBTQ+, Gender, Multicultural, Disability and there are a lot of things happening across IDA in these spaces. 

EDI is also a standing agenda item throughout our various committees, including Board, Executive, Management and Joint Consultative committees. This means there is a strong connection and buy-in across our formalised processes. It’s been wonderful to have the support and commitment from our CEO, our Board of Directors and other Senior Leaders.  When you couple that support with the voices of our amazing colleagues, we get a lot of opportunity to make IDA an even better place to work. 

Our CEO, Michael Lohan, firmly believes in dignity and respect and the importance of cognitive diversity for the organisation’s success. When IDA Ireland was awarded the Investors in Diversity Gold accreditation from the Irish Centre for Diversity, he noted that this level of commitment and activity is a collective effort. He recognised that at IDA Ireland we are very fortunate to have a brilliant EDI Team spearheading this work but that everyone across the organisation takes ownership and displays leadership when it comes to EDI. He spoke about the importance of us melting our different backgrounds and experiences from across the globe and how he is honoured to be part of an organisation where you can grow from others and learn from them. 

IDA Ireland has clear People and Public Service values to which it is aligned, and which are core to the organisation. We’re in the process of reviewing these as we prepare our upcoming strategy for 2025 and beyond, to ensure we retain a strong set of values that serve as guiding principles for the organisation. The upcoming strategy will also form the backbone of our new EDI Action Plan. FDI is a competitive international space, and we can support our colleagues and, ultimately our goal of bringing FDI to Ireland by creating the enabling conditions for unique life experiences to thrive. 

 Bringing economic benefit to Ireland is what drives everyone in IDA.  We need to think creatively, come at things from a different vantage point.  This is vital to the success of what we do day-to-day.  

2. Can you provide examples of specific initiatives or programs IDA Ireland has implemented to promote EDI within the company?

There are a few initiatives that I’m really proud of us having implemented at IDA Ireland such as our partnership with the Open Doors Initiative (ODI). We’ve had a Work Placement Programme with them for a few years now and it’s  an incredibly impactful process that has helped us expand our understanding of diversity and how to foster inclusion in the workplace. 

We also have colleagues across IDA Ireland who participate in the ODI Mentoring programme. So, we’re contributing to and supporting the journeys of those seeking employment outside our own organisation.  

IDA Ireland has been the headline sponsor for Legacy Dublin since it began 3 years ago. Legacy Dublin, a Common Purpose Programme, each year brings together approximately 100 young people aged 18-25, over an intensive 2.5 day period to create solutions for making Dublin a more inclusive city. There are so many areas that Gen Z (and soon enough Gen Alpha) want to change – and we’re honoured to support a programme that gives them the space to figure out how to do that. 

I’m also proud of our internal EDI Team and their commitment to representing the diverse communities within IDA Ireland and to learning from those same communities outside of IDA. We believe in “Nothing About Us Without Us” so the team is constantly amplifying underrepresented voices and seeking to better understand how their life experiences can inform change in our processes, policies, and procedures. 

3. How does IDA Ireland ensure that its recruitment and hiring processes are inclusive and accessible to candidates from diverse backgrounds?

At IDA Ireland, we approach recruitment on the basis of, “the best person for the job” but we strive to understand, and are subsequently examining how we define what “best” means in the context of each role. 

We’re currently undergoing a review of our recruitment process, which the EDI Team are driving in partnership with our Recruitment Team. This is happening in tandem with reviews of our organisational competencies and values to support the IDA 2025-2030 organisational strategy. 

We’ve learned much about the barriers that underrepresented communities face in job descriptions, applications, interviews and onboarding, so we’re looking to remove barriers and create further accessibility with this review.  

We also offer a wide range of information sessions on various forms of diversity such as disability awareness, neurodiversity awareness, LGBTQ+ awareness to name a few, so that all of IDA Ireland can be better informed. I should also mention here that our work with  the Open Doors Initiative has been able to greatly  inform our Work Placement Programme recruitment process. This has given us a space to trial certain changes, introduce different training, and investigate what changes may work for the wider organisation and how we could go about implementing them.  

IDA Ireland is also looking to expand where we advertise current vacancies. We’re in our second year of partnership with Back to Work Connect, a returner friendly jobs board, and earlier this year we partnered with African Professional Network of Ireland. IDA Ireland’s job opportunities are being advertised with both organisations and we’re looking forward to developing the partnership with the companies and communities they represent.  

Another active piece that we’re constantly refreshing as an organisation is our Unconscious Bias staff training. Our first organisation-wide training on this started in 2020 whiche was offered to everyone from entry level through Board over the following two years. Earlier this year, we began a refresh of this topic under the banner of Conscious Inclusion, so all IDA Ireland staff will attend a 2.5hr workshop that focuses on how we create bias and how we mitigate against it. Understanding the topic and openly discussing it, allows us to challenge ourselves and our colleagues, especially in the context of recruitment, where snap judgements can easily rule out a great candidate. Mark Fenton, MASF Consulting, created and facilitates this programme for us. 

4. What measures does IDA Ireland take to foster an inclusive environment where employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives?

Our EDI Pillar leads are responsible for amplifying the voices of the communities they represent. We form working groups for each project or initiative and have volunteers actively co-design with us. This approach takes time and we go through many iterations of an idea before a launch but we’d rather have something informed by real life experiences than something developed more quickly but not as in touch with reality.  

We also regularly attend external events and webinars to understand the EDI landscape outside of IDA Ireland. Importantly, we challenge ourselves to keep making progress. To accomplish this, we search out education in the EDI space, and try new things to keep moving the bar forward.  

This approach links back to our Public Sector Duty and “Nothing about us without us”. As you build trust with colleagues and external contacts, they’ll tell you what isn’t working, or what needs to be fixed. So it’s our responsibility to listen and take action. 

Actions also needs to be balanced – if you’re doing International Women’s Day Events, you need to be doing International Men’s Day events. Inclusion is for everyone, so we need to be deliberate about bringing everyone along and representing each community.  

5. Can you share any success stories or case studies highlighting the positive impact of IDA Ireland’s EDI initiatives has had on the businesses you support?

IDA Ireland’s EDI initiative started as something purely internal. Before signposting potential resources or providing direction and guidance for client companies, it was important that we had our own EDI actions to speak to. As we’ve progressed on our journey, we’ve been able to speak to our clients about how they too can begin or expand their EDI activity. Some clients are interested to understand the Irish legislation and policy, while others might want more help in diversifying their talent pools.  

IDA Ireland’s Talent, Transformation & Innovation Team developed a resource called Widening the Talent Pool where they share information on organisations that help companies to recruit from diverse communities – Back to Work Connect, Generation Ireland, DT4E, and Bowsy have all been featured as part of this resource. 

Over the past few years we’ve noticed a significant increase in client companies looking to understand the Irish offering in EDI. Their interest is coming from an authentic place of wanting to impact areas of underrepresentation in their sectors, or just being open to doing better for all underrepresented communities. 

6. What outside training in the area of EDI has IDA Ireland undertaken recently? Why is it important to grow your knowledge in these areas?

I think further education and information sharing helps create a common vocabulary that we can use to discuss equality, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. If we use blanket terminology (such as Neurodiversity), some people may not know what that means. So we have to take the assumptions away, remove the guess work, and training helps to do this. Once we’re speaking the same language of EDI, then we can work on how to make progress in these different areas. 

Our most recent organisation-wide training is Conscious Inclusion, which I spoke to earlier. 

We’re also focusing a lot this year on celebrating the stories of our IDA colleagues – intercultural stories, neurodiversity stories, disability stories… and by bringing these stories to life, providing a platform to share, we’re demystifying a lot of misconceptions. That educational piece paves the way for progress.  This also helps colleagues to understand that EDI impacts us all,

This year we’ve also hosted Intercultural sessions with Mamobo Ogoro, GORM, and Common Purpose respectively. In February we welcomed ShoutOut for Irish LGBTQ+ history and hosted two recorded sessions for Disability Awareness with James Cawley Jnr from the Irish Centre for Diversity and Siobhan McKenna from Public Jobs. Our Neurodiversity Pillar Lead, Monica Harding, also facilitated Neurodiversity 101 for IDA colleagues and has since delivered this information session for several external organisations as well. 

Other sessions we’ve offered over the years include, but aren’t limited to, Dignity in the Workplace Training, Deaf Cultural Awareness Training, Universal Design Training, ADHD Awareness Training, Perimenopause and Menopause Session, Neurodiversity Training, Disability Awareness Training, Dyspraxia Awareness Training, Dyslexia Awareness Session, Demystifying Cultures, Domestic Violence Awareness Session, Pride 101 (LGBTQ+), Inclusive Homes, Insights into Equality and Inclusion Awareness session, Working together to promote Dignity at Work, Healthy Heart Sessions, ABCs LGBTQ+, and DEIB: What Does it Mean for Our Organisation. 

7. What events or awards have the IDA attended or won in recent years? What have some of the other highlights been? 

In 2023 we won Public Sector Organisation of the Year at the inaugural National Diversity and Inclusion Awards (NDIA). This year at the 2024 Awards we sponsored the Advancing Social Inclusion category at the NDIA – Mr Price Branded Bargains won the category, with Solas highly commended. The webinars from the finalists and the winners are all online, so if you’re curious about what is happening in these spaces it’s a great place to start. 

IDA Ireland also received the Investors in Diversity Gold Accreditation from the Irish Centre for Diversity in January of this year. We’re the first Public Sector Organisation in Ireland to do so. We’ve been working with the Irish Centre for Diversity since 2019, and their Investors in Diversity process is a practical tool to progress EDI agenda in any business (public or private), so the Gold achievement was a big moment for us internally after years of work.

8. Looking forward, what are IDA Ireland’s future plans or goals regarding diversity, equality, and inclusion, and how does it intend to continue advancing these efforts?

We’re in our final year of our EDI Action Plan 2021-2024, so we’re in the process of reflecting on the past few years while simultaneously planning for 2025-2030’s action plan. Our Pillar Leadsare looking forward to bringing their own passions into their respective pillars of Neurodiversity, Social Mobility, LGBTQ+, Gender, Multicultural, and Disability. We’re all driven, and excited, to keep making progress. 

The EDI Lead role in IDA is a permanent, full-time position dedicated to advancing our accessible and inclusive working environment. So that’s one tangible act of IDA’s commitment in the space. While we may have changing pillar leads, or evolving focal points, IDA has committed to keep advancing EDI in IDA.  

And we’re committed to making more progress because EDI is all about progress not perfection. 

9. Are there any other companies in Ireland in the area of EDI that you have not mentioned yet that you are big fans of?

So many!! 

• Siobhan McKenna at PublicJobs.ie 
• Mamobo Ogoro at GORM
• Edel McSorley at Mr Price Branded Bargains 
• Melissa Bosch at EY 
• Niamh O’Connor at CPL 
• Caroline Jones at Solas 
• Sammuel Riggs at Irish Rail
• Clogagh Denny and Kim Cuthbert at National Treasury Management Agency 
• Mícheál O’Leary at the Central Bank of Ireland 
• Tom O’Halloran at Laya Healthcare 
• Siobhan Sweeney at Element Materials Technology
• Shauna Rahman at Grant Thornton