YEARBOOK & DIRECTORY
Finance Dublin Yearbook 2023
Diversity, equality and inclusion progress positioning Ireland as a modern and attractive employment base
Meliosa O’Caoimh, current chair of the 30% Club’s Ireland Chapter, outlines the organisation’s evolving focus and shares her perspective on encouraging diversity, equality & inclusion in financial services, including from experiences in her role as Country Head, Ireland at Northern Trust.
Q: What is the 30% Club and its Irish Chapter?
The 30% Club is a global campaign supported by board chairs and CEOs of medium and large organisations committed to greater gender balance at leadership levels and throughout their organisations for better business outcomes.
The Irish Chapter hosts more than 300 organisations representing more than 650,000 employees. It supports the achievement of a minimum 30% gender balance at senior decision-making tables across Ireland, including Boards and within the c-suite. We are business-led – representing the needs of our supporter organisations – and the daily workings of the group are managed by a volunteer panel representing a cross-section of those organisations. We work across all sectors of the workplace, and our members represent public, private, state and multi-national employers in a bid to represent all voices.
Q: How are you working to deliver positive change?
The 30% Club works in three ways primarily. Firstly, by activating senior leaders – engaging chairs and CEOs to drive change and support organisations in their diversity and inclusion endeavours, with a specific focus on gender.
Secondly, we aim to influence those with power to drive change – we aim to influence at a national level on diversity related-topics and in a complementary way to other national initiatives working to address related issues.
This has included being the driving force behind the government initiative ‘Balance for Better Business’, making submissions on key national topics such as career guidance, agile working and gender targets, and supporting industry groups such as the Women in Finance Charter. We have also recently completed research exploring how the next generation of employees in Ireland feel about gender diversity. We learned that the agenda resonates strongly with them, that their expectations of employers are high, and they know exactly what they expect to experience when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Future initiatives will build further on this work.
Finally, we look to enable future women leaders, and support the development of talent pipeline through mentoring, executive education scholarships and board-ready initiatives. Our focus is also on encouraging all women, and not just focusing on particular sectors of the workforce.
Q: What issues are you focused on currently?
A key area of focus for 2023 is supporting the outcomes of gender pay gap reporting which the majority of our supporters completed last December as a result of the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 Ireland. While the gender pay gap is described as the difference in the average hourly wage of men and women across a workplace, in reality it is evidence of unequal representation of women in higher paid roles – which ultimately is what the 30% Club aims to address.
As Irish companies are learning, the gender pay gap reflects the skills mix throughout an organisation, and while a high gender pay gap indicates significant under representation at senior levels, a low gender pay can also be a symptom of under representation at every level within the organisation i.e. a lack of female representation across the organisation as a whole. A small number of organisations have also reported a reverse gender pay gap where men are under-represented – which is also a cause for action within the 30% Club, as we promote balanced representation as the best business outcome.
Q: Why is this an important area to focus on?
It is an important next step in positioning Ireland as a modern and attractive employment base. We have a strong history of supporting equality legislation in relation to equal pay; initiatives such as Balance for better Business have driven progress in senior representation, and now gender pay gap reporting gives a mechanism for measurement as rightly needed in a business strategy – as ultimately what gets measured gets done. Finally, and most importantly however, it is ultimately less about the reported numbers and more about action-planning. It brings the topic front and centre out of HR and into the Boardroom for the most senior focus.
Q: Turning to your role managing Northern Trust’s asset servicing business in Ireland, what role does encouraging diversity and equality play in your business strategy?
We consider it as central to our company’s growth. Our company globally and its leadership – including the Ireland senior management team – is focused on supporting and embedding the culture of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in our workplace. Our strategy is designed to develop both a workforce and culture that reflects our values and supports our business growth.
Pillars of this strategy are supported by employee-led networks called Business Resource Councils that deliver engagement-based activities, education and awareness. For example, the Women in Leadership Business Resource Council is dedicated to supporting female representation while encouraging male allyship in our business; another, the Working Families Business Resource Council, offers expertise, guidance, seminars and networking for those within our organisation with family/caregiving responsibilities.
Initiatives are many and varied but include targeted and scalable development programmes to engage female talent, such as Mentoring Circles for junior-level female talent: dedicated sessions for women to share experiences, build their network, strengthen confidence and develop their own leadership skills. Another is our Diverse Leaders Programme, designed to help both women, and ethnic minorities, realise their authentic leadership style and build the necessary skills and confidence to successfully navigate our organisation.
In May 2022, we signed the Irish Women in Finance Charter, a collaboration between industry and government under the Ireland for Finance strategy that commits our organisation to reach a set of female representation targets across our business. We have set ourselves a goal of improving female representation at senior levels from 44% to 48% by December 2025. As of December 2022, we reached 45%.
Ultimately, we are committed to ensuring continuous, meaningful change takes place across our business, and one of the ways we hold ourselves to account, and measure performance, is through the implementation of a bespoke DE&I dashboard. Using this quarterly dashboard, we track metrics related to hiring, retention and promotion, and use this information to identify interventions to ensure diverse representation at all levels of our organisation.
Balanced teams are more likely to achieve successful business outcomes and I feel that we all have a responsibility to help ensure that Irish financial services are as attractive and accessible a career path as possible for diverse talent. I am passionate about the opportunity that exists today for us to grow our industry as a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.
The 30% Club is a global campaign supported by board chairs and CEOs of medium and large organisations committed to greater gender balance at leadership levels and throughout their organisations for better business outcomes.
Melíosa O'Caoimh: "Balanced teams are more likely to achieve successful business outcomes".
The Irish Chapter hosts more than 300 organisations representing more than 650,000 employees. It supports the achievement of a minimum 30% gender balance at senior decision-making tables across Ireland, including Boards and within the c-suite. We are business-led – representing the needs of our supporter organisations – and the daily workings of the group are managed by a volunteer panel representing a cross-section of those organisations. We work across all sectors of the workplace, and our members represent public, private, state and multi-national employers in a bid to represent all voices.
Q: How are you working to deliver positive change?
The 30% Club works in three ways primarily. Firstly, by activating senior leaders – engaging chairs and CEOs to drive change and support organisations in their diversity and inclusion endeavours, with a specific focus on gender.
Secondly, we aim to influence those with power to drive change – we aim to influence at a national level on diversity related-topics and in a complementary way to other national initiatives working to address related issues.
This has included being the driving force behind the government initiative ‘Balance for Better Business’, making submissions on key national topics such as career guidance, agile working and gender targets, and supporting industry groups such as the Women in Finance Charter. We have also recently completed research exploring how the next generation of employees in Ireland feel about gender diversity. We learned that the agenda resonates strongly with them, that their expectations of employers are high, and they know exactly what they expect to experience when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Future initiatives will build further on this work.
Finally, we look to enable future women leaders, and support the development of talent pipeline through mentoring, executive education scholarships and board-ready initiatives. Our focus is also on encouraging all women, and not just focusing on particular sectors of the workforce.
Q: What issues are you focused on currently?
A key area of focus for 2023 is supporting the outcomes of gender pay gap reporting which the majority of our supporters completed last December as a result of the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 Ireland. While the gender pay gap is described as the difference in the average hourly wage of men and women across a workplace, in reality it is evidence of unequal representation of women in higher paid roles – which ultimately is what the 30% Club aims to address.
As Irish companies are learning, the gender pay gap reflects the skills mix throughout an organisation, and while a high gender pay gap indicates significant under representation at senior levels, a low gender pay can also be a symptom of under representation at every level within the organisation i.e. a lack of female representation across the organisation as a whole. A small number of organisations have also reported a reverse gender pay gap where men are under-represented – which is also a cause for action within the 30% Club, as we promote balanced representation as the best business outcome.
Q: Why is this an important area to focus on?
It is an important next step in positioning Ireland as a modern and attractive employment base. We have a strong history of supporting equality legislation in relation to equal pay; initiatives such as Balance for better Business have driven progress in senior representation, and now gender pay gap reporting gives a mechanism for measurement as rightly needed in a business strategy – as ultimately what gets measured gets done. Finally, and most importantly however, it is ultimately less about the reported numbers and more about action-planning. It brings the topic front and centre out of HR and into the Boardroom for the most senior focus.
Q: Turning to your role managing Northern Trust’s asset servicing business in Ireland, what role does encouraging diversity and equality play in your business strategy?
We consider it as central to our company’s growth. Our company globally and its leadership – including the Ireland senior management team – is focused on supporting and embedding the culture of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in our workplace. Our strategy is designed to develop both a workforce and culture that reflects our values and supports our business growth.
Former UK PM Theresa May with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the 30% Club's 9th Annual Chair and CEO Conference in Dublin on 2nd Feb. Background: Chair of the Ireland Chapter of the 30% Club, Northern Trust's Melíosa O'Caoimh.
Pillars of this strategy are supported by employee-led networks called Business Resource Councils that deliver engagement-based activities, education and awareness. For example, the Women in Leadership Business Resource Council is dedicated to supporting female representation while encouraging male allyship in our business; another, the Working Families Business Resource Council, offers expertise, guidance, seminars and networking for those within our organisation with family/caregiving responsibilities.
Initiatives are many and varied but include targeted and scalable development programmes to engage female talent, such as Mentoring Circles for junior-level female talent: dedicated sessions for women to share experiences, build their network, strengthen confidence and develop their own leadership skills. Another is our Diverse Leaders Programme, designed to help both women, and ethnic minorities, realise their authentic leadership style and build the necessary skills and confidence to successfully navigate our organisation.
In May 2022, we signed the Irish Women in Finance Charter, a collaboration between industry and government under the Ireland for Finance strategy that commits our organisation to reach a set of female representation targets across our business. We have set ourselves a goal of improving female representation at senior levels from 44% to 48% by December 2025. As of December 2022, we reached 45%.
Ultimately, we are committed to ensuring continuous, meaningful change takes place across our business, and one of the ways we hold ourselves to account, and measure performance, is through the implementation of a bespoke DE&I dashboard. Using this quarterly dashboard, we track metrics related to hiring, retention and promotion, and use this information to identify interventions to ensure diverse representation at all levels of our organisation.
Balanced teams are more likely to achieve successful business outcomes and I feel that we all have a responsibility to help ensure that Irish financial services are as attractive and accessible a career path as possible for diverse talent. I am passionate about the opportunity that exists today for us to grow our industry as a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.