Written by Liberty IT
Cathy Donnelly, Senior Director of Talent at Liberty IT discusses how diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of the company.
The industry leader in digital innovation aspires to be a workplace where everyone feels included and that they belong, one that values diversity, not only in its words but its actions and brings its values to life every day. The company’s dedication to this can be seen through the number of prestigious accolades it continues to win for its efforts, most recently a Silver Diversity Mark, one of only seven organisations in Northern Ireland to achieve the accreditation for its commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and ranked third in the ‘Best Workplaces for Women 2021’ listing by Great Place to Work UK.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has been a core business focus at Liberty IT for several years. From launching its Global Guidelines for Inclusion in 2017, to now co-creating localised plans with key stakeholders and employee resource groups, DEI is truly embedded across Liberty IT.
Its DEI Strategy and Action Plan focuses on gender, race, LGBTQ+ and disability. As part of this there are Mentoring programmes for new and developing engineers, a Maternity Engagement Programme, an Allyship Programme, the creation of a DEI calendar where employees have the opportunity to celebrate aspects of diversity throughout the year and currently in development is a programme called ‘8 weeks of Awareness’ to educate and stimulate DEI conversations in safe environments.
The organisation is committed to empowering equal opportunities for females in tech to ensure they excel at every step of their journey. The Women in Tech group have been heavily involved in making this a reality with the creation of mentoring circles last year. The company has also introduced ‘The Power in Me’ workshops, offered initially to females only, and due to be rolled out org-wide this year; these were designed to build confidence and encourage more females to take the next step in their careers and focus on building their personal brand. Every programme so far has been at full capacity and the feedback has been extremely positive with female engineers creating their own networks across the organisation to keep the conversations going and ensure they follow up on actions they committed to in the workshops.
Cathy Donnelly, Senior Director of Talent for Liberty IT said: “At Liberty IT we are committed to promoting an all-inclusive work place for all our employees. We are helping to raise awareness and breaking down barriers through inclusive conversations and education. We have a culture of togetherness and we employ people who want to help make a difference to the organisation, their colleagues and externally in their communities and we have created an environment where people have a deep connection to the people they work with.”
Since March 2020, whilst Liberty IT continued its focus and commitment on DEI, the company also led continued focus on employee wellbeing during the global pandemic. With over 600 employees in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland working from home, the mantra was, ‘Family First, Work Second.’ And 20 months later, this is still very much the case.
“Throughout the pandemic, we made it our priority to make sure that all our employees had the reassurance and security that they needed. It was a difficult time for everyone - those living alone, families with children, families without children and those with caring responsibilities. We wanted to make sure everyone felt supported by us and we rose to the challenge by creating an extensive virtual programme to keep everyone connected with everything from tech talks, social events and well-being webinars – combining fun, education and company updates.”
“Our Employee Resource Groups collaborated more than ever before, creating initiatives that engaged many employee audiences. For example, the Wellbeing, Pride and Environment groups worked closely on a range of mental health events and initiatives including our popular LIT Gets Moving fitness challenge. In January and February of this year, based on the steps logged, our teams covered an astounding 19,400 miles. Pride and Charity worked closely on our Walk With Pride fundraising event, while Women in Tech set up new mentoring circles and STEM created our first ever virtual work experience programme. We received really positive feedback from our colleagues and the regular interaction and engagement kept us close as a company when the pandemic kept us apart physically,” Cathy continued.
“Covid has changed a lot of things for everyone around the world. One of the most obvious changes for businesses and their employees is that the standard 9am – 5pm is gone. At Liberty IT we have welcomed this and created an environment where people’s work and home life can coexist and benefit each other. We have embraced tech to support this more inclusive way of working for our employees and to create space for thinking and allow projects to continue at a time that works for our teams, the business and our customers. We consider what work can be done asynchronously and what work requires us to come together and we build our working week out with that in mind.”
Another example of Liberty IT’s inclusivity in the workplace is the empowerment of its employees to decide their preferred working style.
“We understand that the needs of our employees have changed over the last 22 months and together we have developed a range of working styles that will support their lives and that of our customers. There are three workstyles and each employee can decide what works best for them, office working, hybrid working or remote working. What feels right for each person is paramount and we have asked our people to ‘test and learn’ – they can spend time working in one of our offices and spend time working from home and when the time is right next year, they will select their preferred workstyle.
We are driven by our employees, their feedback, needs and requirements and we are confident that the new working styles will ensure we help people’s work and home life to thrive for the good of the individual, our customers and Liberty IT,” Cathy added.
This article is from the newest edition of the Sync NI magazine, which will available to download later this month.
