Great Place to Work Ireland are delighted to announce the 2022 Best Workplaces for Women. Taking the global standard Best Workplaces methodology as its basis, the Best Workplaces for Women recognises those top organisations which, while providing a great work environment for all employees, are creating positive and supportive workplaces for women in particular. These organisations develop and promote practices that make sure women in the workplace have a fair and positive work experience, and have the opportunity to contribute their talents and develop personally and professionally. They strive to bring balance to the interview process; create networks for women to connect, inspire, mentor, and challenge each other; have development programmes that foster a strong pipeline of female talent; offer flexible working packages that employees can adapt to best suit their needs; and much more. www.greatplacetowork.ie

All the companies featured here have well-thought-out policies that support women through their child-bearing years and beyond. The normalising of female-specific health issues, and removing the taboos that surround them, is something every employer needs to make a priority. Some companies go further, offering women support around IVF, egg-freezing and lactation.

Flexible working policies are now par for the course in the kind of organisations where women want to work. Hybrid models that can be tailored to suit each individual’s particular needs are a powerful demonstration of trust and respect, as are flexible hours which allow women to factor in school pick ups and drop offs, and other family responsibilities.

Organisations which recognise that their employees have a life outside of work, and don’t expect them to be available for late and weekend meetings as a matter of course, find it easier to hang onto their people. Women appreciate companies that encourage them to disconnect, and respect the sanctity of their holidays and downtime.

Many of the women interviewed here expressed a sense of pride in working in an organisation where diversity and inclusion is truly valued. It’s easy for a company to pay lip service to diversity, and just as easy for its employees to spot a lack of authenticity. Interestingly, when male leaders in an organisation are perceived as having a genuine commitment to equality and diversity, that support is seen as hugely important to the women working there.

Time and again, women spoke about corporate culture that is genuine, human and empathetic. Being supported with kindness through tough personal times – bereavement, illness, pregnancy and the return to work after maternity leave – is something people never forget. A macho corporate culture is a major turn-off for many women; they simply don’t want to work for those organisations.

Great employers offer women the opportunity to develop skills, gain new qualifications, and progress in their careers, not always in a predetermined trajectory. The option to move between different roles is one many women want. The best employers make training and education available to all, and ringfence time for feedback and mentoring. Many women spoke of how empowering they found it to be trained to speak out and encouraged to make their voices heard, and of how much they gained from training in leadership and management.

One of the most powerful things an organisation can do to encourage younger women is to have senior women in positions of authority and leadership, and to make sure they are both seen and heard. Visibility is key – as the old adage goes, you need to see it to be it. Many women spoke of the importance of having a mentor, and of how they want to carry on that baton and mentor younger women in turn.

In the end what makes somewhere a great place to work is respect for each person on a human level, underpinned by a genuine understanding that they are people with whole lives rather than just employees.

Helen Gallagher, Global Head of HR at Morgan Mckinley Global Talent Solutions

I started at Morgan McKinley in 2001, coming straight from college into an administrative position. I knew from Day One this was a company I felt very comfortable in, as it was full of ambition and energy. There was a real sense that with hard work you could achieve a lot.

For me, it’s all about the culture, which is empathetic and caring. It’s a very collaborative place to work, and we also have a lot of fun. There are endless opportunities for people to progress their career.

When you hit your five and ten year anniversaries, you are entitled to a paid sabbatical. In 2019 I availed of this sabbatical and took twelve weeks off to spend time with my family. At the time my dad was unwell so having time to spend with him and my mum, and with the kids at home, is something I’ll always treasure. My colleagues were so supportive of me during that time. They kept in touch with me and when my dad passed away so many got in touch and attended the funeral. We all have challenging times, and for me having that opportunity to take a step back from work and spend time with people I love was so important to me. When I returned to the workplace I was very well supported and I really appreciated it.

Career progression is so important. People leave organisations if they can’t see what the opportunities are ahead. I wanted to pursue my CIPD qualification and when I went back to college in the evenings, I had full support from Morgan McKinley financially and in terms of study leave.

As a business Morgan McKinley has always been very happy to sit down and have career conversations with people, and we have a great cohort of people within our leadership teams who act as career coaches and mentors. We don’t need to look outside the organisation to find inspiring women because we already have so many within. It’s a very flat structure, and there’s never a bad time to talk about your career progression and the opportunities that exist. As an organisation, we know people will stay if they feel that they’re fulfilling their goals and objectives.

The open and communicative culture is one of our key strengths, and internal communications have only improved during the pandemic. Our global CEO published a daily newsletter and it was a great way to stay connected with everybody. As women, we were homeschooling, and caring for elderly relatives and vulnerable family members. We felt very supported; there was lots of flexibility for people as they adapted. That’s continued post pandemic as we see how productive people can be with more flexible working. It’s not even a question anymore, it’s just there and it’s fantastic, particularly for women in the workplace.

I have three kids and now; they are aged seven, nine and eleven. When I returned to work after my second I did a four-day working week using parental leave, which allowed me to balance my work and my family life. Personally I’ve never felt that having kids has interfered with my career trajectory.

That said, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s still a lot to do in this area; we’re not perfect. We are no different to many other organisations in that we need to improve the ratio of females at senior leadership and board level. We are addressing this and developing an action plan with our emerging leaders programme, which will ensure diversity of thought at senior leadership and board level into the future.

www.morganmckinley.com

Ayesha Thompson, Talent Solutions Manager, Osborne

I began my journey with Osborne eleven years ago, first starting in our recruitment team, then I was given the opportunity to manage our first regional office. As the demands and requirements of both my professional and personal life have changed, so too has my role in Osborne. The last few years has seen me concentrate on all aspects of internal recruitment, training and staff development. This has allowed me to work more closely with our entire team of Osbornites and help them articulate and ultimately achieve their personal goals. As someone who has been supported in my career, I adore being able to support others with theirs.

Now my role is varied: internal hiring, training, onboarding, induction, and ongoing learning and development. I lead out in our technical projects, am involved in our Outplacement Services, and in our sister company Osborne Career Consultants where we work specifically with people around their career goals. I am also part of the Great Place to Work team and have been since Day One. My broad experience helps me to dip into each of those projects as necessary.

When I joined the team, there were six people in one office and now we are almost 80 people in eight offices in Ireland and one international office in Toronto. I’m so proud to have been part of that journey. Shona McManus is our CEO and the owner of the company, so this is a female-led business, with women working at all levels.

Our culture is very much family first, whether you’re a parent or a carer or have another family commitment. That empathy and understanding comes directly from our CEO, herself a working mum. We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve received an emergency phone call. In Osborne we have a policy of drop everything and go and deal with what the issue, knowing your team has your back and supports you. As a working mum I really appreciate that. We also have a rule in place where no emails are sent between 7pm – 7am which promotes a work-life blend and removes any pressures on individuals to be logged on while at home.

In Osborne we are able to accommodate our Osbornites, and to be flexible if we have school drops or other commitments. People are more open to having those conversations now, maybe asking to change their hours by 15 minutes to facilitate a drop-off, and it’s not such a big taboo anymore.

In Osborne, learning and development is part of our DNA and our culture. One of our core values is curiosity, and we are always asking: how can we do this better?

Within our Love to Learn program we encourage people to upskill and seek out further qualifications. Last year I was delighted to be able to support 43 people who went through the programme. I have availed of a number of opportunities myself through the programme. We encourage people to step forward and try new things, it’s a culture of constant evolving and development. Sometimes women feel that unless they tick all the boxes, they’re not going to put their hands up, but we try to create an environment where it’s safe to put yourself forward even when you don’t tick every box.

Over the last few years we’ve been running a comprehensive wellness program for our whole team. We’ve brought in nutritionists and psychologists, and we offer counselling. In recent years the impact of Covid has resulted in many people experiencing a significant increase in anxiety and stress, particularly in the initial phase of Covid whilst juggling homeschooling and work. Many of my colleagues have availed of counselling to help support them.

I have two daughters and what I really want to do, like any parent, is support them as much as possible while also working and maintaining a real sense of purpose. That is very important to me. At Osborne I have been able to carve out a career for myself and make the most of opportunities for professional development and learning. And I have this other life outside work which is really busy. Of course there is juggling, and sometimes that can be stressful, but I’ve been fortunate in my role and I’ve been able to tweak it with the full support of my CEO and colleagues. I’ve had the facility to work three or four days rather than five, I am currently working four mornings a week in order to facilitate my family life. I love that I have that flexibility, but it is so important to me that I am able to maintain a job that’s purposeful for me. I feel very fortunate I have been able to do that.

www.osborne.ie

Sylvia Coldrick, Chief Risk Officer for the Western European Market, Liberty Insurance

I’ve been with the company for 21 years, so my life has changed and evolved hugely. I now have three very active teenagers. I enjoy sports, I’m a keen GAA fan and I help with fundraising in my local community.

I’m proud to work at Liberty because of its commitment to providing equal opportunities for everyone. The culture encourages everyone to bring their whole self to work; it truly is a place where each person feels included, that they belong. It’s a workplace that values diversity, not just in words, but in actions too. We actively promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), we respect different viewpoints, and we value the uniqueness that each individual brings to the organisation. DEI is a key component of our business strategy.

At Liberty we are guided by strong values: putting people first, being open and transparent, doing the right thing and always trying to make things better. These key values inform day-to-day decision-making, from executive level down to the agents in our contact centres.

Women make up 60 per cent of our workforce and hold over 50 per cent of our leadership positions. Growth, promotion and development opportunities are open to everybody, and our talent policies make Liberty a great place to work at every stage of a woman’s career.

Thanks to Liberty I have a great work-life balance. The company takes a holistic approach to supporting the evolving needs of its employees, and provides an environment in which everyone feels they can do their best work.

Even prior to COVID, we had flexible working arrangements in place and these have evolved further over the past two years. Last year we launched the Liberty Digital Way, which offers even greater flexibility. We encourage people to work around their individual personal commitments, and we have introduced a disconnection policy, to ensure downtime. These supports have helped me personally to pursue a leadership position in Liberty whilst raising a family and ensured that I haven’t had to compromise either my career or my family life.

We have a very strong Wellness programme to support the emotional and physical wellbeing of our employees. Personally I’ve appreciated the keep-fit activities. We recently had a step challenge and since it I’m still motivated to charge my Fitbit rather than just having it sitting there.

You know the saying ‘You have to see it to be it’? We maximise the visibility of our female leaders by using them as spokespersons at different events and from an early stage I was very lucky to work with a number of inspiring female leaders and colleagues. They gave me the self-confidence and belief to progress in my career, acting as role models and mentoring me both professionally and personally. Liberty has provided me with access to leadership development programs, professional coaching and technical training.

Liberty is a great place to work because it provides great open, equal opportunities to women. You can bring your true self to work and flourish personally and professionally.

www.libertyinsurance.ie

Maria Cregan, Senior Manager for Quality Assurance, Alcon

I’ve been working with Alcon in Cork for the past eleven years. I started as a Quality Engineer and now I’m a Senior Manager for Quality Assurance. I have two small boys so life is busy outside work too.

When I started in Alcon I noticed it had quite a diverse workforce, and over the years it has become even more diverse and inclusive. As a woman this makes it a very comfortable place to work, because it recognises peoples’ differences, both visible and invisible, in ways of thinking and leading, and in terms of disabilities, religion, and sexual orientation. I’m proud to be part of a workforce that is so diverse and inclusive.

Early in my career I was my own worst enemy when it came to taking on new challenges, riddled with self-doubt. I was unsure of what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. In 2014 we set up a Women At The Table (WATT) group. At the time I was a junior engineer. We met regularly, had conversations, and heard from inspirational senior female leaders in the company how they too had experienced self-doubt. I was able to envisage what I could become because of the women who had gone before me. They gave me confidence. Over the years WATT has grown, and we’ve had guest speakers including female global vice presidents; we ask them to come and speak to us about their career progression, the challenges they have faced and how they overcame obstacles.

We’ve developed supports for women returning from maternity leave and heard from older women too. It never occurred to me how menopause could affect your working life. When you’re in your early 30s, menopause is not something that’s on your radar. Last year we ran a menopause clinic for one week and there are plans in place for this to happen again. We also have an occupation nurse on site on a regular basis who is available for discussions on menopause all year round.

In terms of being female-friendly, it’s not just a question of looking to the current workforce, but also to the future. Alcon participates in iWish, encouraging young women to pursue STEM careers, and we take students in on placement too.

Personally the female-friendly supports that have helped me most are those around maternity leave. Each time I went out on maternity leave, I had a one-on-one with my manager and my manager’s manager and there was a conversation about when I’d like to come back, what I’d like to do and where I’d like to be. Leaving for maternity leave can be as daunting as coming back, particularly on your first, when you don’t know what’s ahead of you. Those conversations reassured me that they wanted and needed me back. When I was out on maternity leave my manager checked in with me to see how I was doing on a personal level, nothing to do with work. That made me feel I wasn’t forgotten about. When I came back, I eased back in starting with a shorter week and flexible hours. There was parental leave too. I believe from speaking to friends that’s not the way it is for everybody.

Alcon has given me great opportunities and it’s definitely helped me to grow as a person. There are inspirational female leaders here on site and I know that I can work towards those positions if I see one I want; there have also been global roles that women here have progressed onto, which is a credit to Alcon Cork.

www.alcon.com

Susan Mulhall, Category DIY Manager, Woodie’s

I joined Woodie’s in January 2021. I’ve worked in buying for over 20 years, mainly in fast fashion for companies such as Primark and Dunnes. Moving into DIY – looking for combi drills, hammers and hacksaws as opposed to blouses and skirts – was a complete change for me. It’s been a good and interesting first year and the onboarding was seamless, both operationally and on a human level, despite the Covid-related restrictions and how those impacted on in-person meetings. Workvivo, our internal communications platform, let us all know what was going on in our stores, whose birthday and Woodie’s Day – the anniversary of when someone starts – it was. The organisation supported me very well through this time as I got my feet under the virtual desk and I found everyone very welcoming.

‘Homely and Real’ is one of Woodie’s’ core values and I know this sounds really cheesy, but I felt it in bucket loads from people during onboarding. Everyone was reaching out and casually saying hello, and it definitely came across as an authentic value. A lot of companies have values, but it’s what they practise consistently that counts.

My assistant category manager came back from maternity leave around the time I joined and she told me she had amazing support. So we’ve got two strong females heading up DIY, one new to the company and one back off maternity leave. I feel empowered but supported. DIY could be perceived as a bit male and macho, and I think there’s an assumption of the particular type of male that might work in DIY but I’ve experienced the complete opposite in a very positive way. The fact Woodie’s has a female Category Head of Department of DIY with a fashion background is in itself quite a statement for the company to make.

I’m obsessed with female entrepreneurs. I’m constantly reading books. The way I look upon this job is that I’m running DIY for Woodie’s as a female entrepreneur. They’re totally open, if anything, they’re like ‘Give us more, share more, what can we do?’ And that’s awesome because a lot of people say that in job interviews, but when you get into the company, it’s all, ‘Can you just toe the line there now?’.

I’m ambitious. I want more and I’m not afraid to say it. I like that I’m in a community where I can say that. My work as a volunteer with ChildLine is very important to me and I’m now the ambassador for ChildLine within the company. I have to leave a little bit early on Tuesday night to get to my shift and it’s not even a question; I’ve been given the space and time to use my voice internally and externally. I get so much out of it. It’s made me a much better listener and more empathetic, and allowed me space to not have all the answers. That’s an important thing to be able to say as a female leader.

At Woodie’s there’s support for women at every stage of their lives, through hybrid working, maternity leave and education for the whole workforce about menopause. It feels as if the company is responding to the female life cycle, so no matter where you are in your life they are there to figure out what support looks like. It doesn’t surprise me that 50 per cent of the workforce is female, the company is exactly 50:50 gender balanced, and many women have been here for 20 or 25 years; their lived experience is what makes it a great place to work for women.

www.woodies.ie

Joan O’Callaghan, Manager for Monitoring and Observability, Udemy

I’m the Manager for Monitoring and Observability within the engineering organisation of Udemy. I’m based in Dublin and my staff is in Istanbul. I’ve worked for the company for six years, starting when we had 20 employees in Dublin; now we’re over 200.

I have a degree in computer science, and unfortunately it’s often the case that women are the minority in technical roles. This can lead to feeling like an outsider or in the minority, but I’m fortunate that this isn’t the case at Udemy.

Our mission to enable opportunities for individuals and organisations everywhere makes me proud to perform my work every day. We are a learning platform that individuals can use to create an educational resource on almost any topic. They create the course and upload it to our platform where learners can access around the globe. For our instructors, we are an opportunity to share what they know with the world while being a source of revenue for them. Our learners can be individuals or businesses who want to provide learning and development opportunities to their staff. They can upskill from anywhere and at the time of their choosing.

During the pandemic, we witnessed a shift in how people learn. Our platform had an increase in traffic as on-site and classroom learning weren’t possible, we were supporting continuity for many businesses, and people isolating or in lockdown who wanted to learn new skills and hobbies. I am very proud to be a part of a company that helped in some way during the pandemic! What really appeals to me is that we are democratising learning by making it available and accessible to people who may not have had access to education due to personal circumstances, finances, or other reasons. It’s especially important to me since women are often the ones pushed out of the learning environment for family, cultural, or other reasons; it’s a systemic worldwide problem.

A large segment of our market is people on mobile apps in non-English-speaking countries, where education may be less accessible. We have testimonials from both instructors and students saying we have changed their lives; there’s a real, tangible impact.

At Udemy, our culture attracts people who are enthusiastic about learning; it’s very special. We have done our best to scale culture with our growth; we care about the mission, but we also care about the people. Empathy has always been a major priority within the company. There are very few places where you can say, ‘I am making the world a better place by working here.’

Many tech companies have a ‘bro culture’ where it is quite ego-driven. People are in it for the glory, and the person who shouts loudest does best. That is not the case at Udemy. It is very much, ‘Are you good at your job and are you able to be decent and professional and get along with people?’ We don’t get as much of the toxic behaviour that happens at other tech companies.

When I joined Udemy, the engineering team was led by an amazing woman. She has since moved on, but she set the tone. Representation matters. When you walk in, you want to see people that look like you. You want to see other women in positions of leadership and I saw that from the very first day. A lot of companies focus on diversity, but not necessarily at the leadership level, where there’s an opportunity for women to inform strategy and culture. Globally, women head our People, Finance, Strategy, Learning, and Customer Success Teams. In Udemy EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), our staff base is 50 per cent female.

As in many tech companies, I’m an engineer who became a manager. This doesn’t always work out so well. Being able to hit your technical goals doesn’t always translate to being a great people manager. At Udemy, everyone receives training in how to have feedback conversations, workplace sensitivity, anti-harassment and bias, and in my transition to being a manager, I received even more training to help me make that change successfully.

There’s a lot of talk about work-life balance but it’s like ‘thoughts and prayers.’ If it’s not acted upon, it’s meaningless. Here, people lead by example. If you have a work-life balance that acknowledges you have a life outside of work, that says, ‘of course you bring your kid to the dentist instead of going to a meeting,’ if you have that modelled by the leaders of the organisation, then people recognise it’s okay for them to follow suit. When everybody started working from home during the pandemic, you could tell that initially people were a little embarrassed to block off time in their calendar for family responsibilities. But now, if you look at people’s calendars, it’s the norm.

In my role, I deal with engineering incidents and emergencies and there are times when I need to deal with an emergency at 3am. That’s part of my job, but there would never be a scenario where my boss would expect me to work during the weekend because things were not planned properly. Downtime and holidays are sacred. We also have free health insurance for us and our dependents, free dental insurance, free financial planning, and access to Maven, which offers IVF, egg freezing, and lactation consultation. It’s pretty cool.

The year I joined Udemy, one of my kids was diagnosed with special needs and it was a pretty difficult time for a while. My boss doesn’t have kids but I received so much support and empathy, not just from my boss but from my boss’s boss, and my boss’s boss’s boss. Everybody. They couldn’t have done more. Another time, a member of my family was seriously ill and I had to drop everything. Udemy sent me food, gifts, flowers, and encouraged me to log off and deal with it. They were amazing and I think that’s when you see the true colours of a company: when something potentially inconvenient for the company happens but they still prioritise the wellbeing of their staff. It is because of all of this emphasis placed on every employee’s wellbeing – regardless of title or location – that I have remained a proud employee at Udemy for six years.

www.udemy.com

Nathalie de Villiers, Head of Operations, CACI, (Credit Agricole Creditor Insurance)

I’m Head of Operations at CACI in Dublin, in charge of operations, projects and IT, and a member of the senior management team. I am a mum of two boys and I just had a baby seven months ago. Obviously, working and taking care of my children can be a challenge sometimes, but I really like what I do at work and I love my children. I am very happy in my life.

I’m proud to work in a company where I have always felt respected both as an individual and in terms of gender and age, and I am surrounded by good people. What we achieve every day for our customers makes me proud to work at CACI.

As a woman, when I was younger I didn’t have much self confidence. Now I know how important it is to take a step back to remind yourself of your own goals, never to hesitate to ask for something or to speak about and ask for what you need and want, with confidence and clarity. An efficient way to help women to gain confidence is to provide them with training. At CACI we have and continue to provide Leadership and Management training through coaching and through our “CACI Leading the Way” programme which was attended by all managers. I was lucky to benefit from great training programmes. I am somebody who now makes my voice and the voice of my teams heard on a day-to-day basis. I’m not afraid to ask for what I think is good for my teams, what is good in terms of value, and what we need to bring and to build. It’s part of my job to do that.

Another crucial initiative is the mentoring programme. During 2021, one of the executives of the Group mentored me and the opportunity to have regular exchanges with somebody of this level of knowledge and experience has been a major enrichment to me.

Credit Agricole offered me the opportunity to evolve in the company from a project manager position when I joined Credit Agricole in Paris to the Head of Operations role in Dublin, through different management roles in between. I have had continuous trust and support and I have now entered a challenging, high-level leadership programme called ”Le parcours directeur Groupe”, similar to an internal MBA, so I can continue to evolve.

One of the strengths of the company is to offer flexibility and very good work-life balance with our flexible working policies. We live in a society where unfortunately family and household tasks may still fall predominantly on women, so avoiding meetings late in the evening and hybrid working help the empowerment of women in the workplace. I am lucky to have a husband who shares equally in childrearing and household tasks but I know from managing my team and from conversations with friends this is not always the case.

Maternity is always a challenge, but I loved the way the company welcomed the news. I could feel a sincere happiness for me and that was a relief. I had time to hand over to my replacement, which helped reassure me everything would continue efficiently during my absence. At my request, I was able to continue my mentoring program during my maternity leave, and my team and manager updated me regularly on what was going on. It has been important for me to not be totally cut off from work for six months. When I came back, there were flowers, surprise ‘welcome back’ meetings with my managers, and messages from my peers. It was so nice to feel valued and appreciated. I think the way I have been supported during this important time of my life shows how CACI is a very great place to work.

I would recommend CACI as a Great Place to Work for Women and for all – we are so proud and deserving of our certification of GPTW and of being recognised as a GPTW for Women and we will as always continue to build on both!

www.ca-caci.ie / www.greatplacetowork.ie / www.ca-assurances.com

Aisling Mahony, Partner Marketing Director for EMEA, Informatica

Informatica is an enterprise cloud data management technology company and our focus is to help our customers globally to solve data management, integration and migration challenges. As Partner Marketing Director for EMEA I work closely with partners across Europe, including Google, Microsoft, Snowflake and AWS to drive joint marketing programs.

The ethos and spirit at Informatica is truly like a family. People care for and look out for each other, unlike other workplaces I am aware of where sometimes there is more of a ‘mind your back’ culture.

Everything that we do is around data, and DATA spells out our core values as well: Do Good, Act As One Team, Think Customer First, and Aspire and innovate. These values come from the very highest level down, and we are all measured against those values at all times. What I love about Informatica is it really puts its money where its mouth is in terms of doing good by its people.

The IT industry is still very male-dominated and it’s not for the faint-hearted. As a female in tech, finding my voice and having the confidence to speak up was definitely something I struggled with in the past. I’ve not felt that way at Informatica, as we’re encouraged to express our opinion, to speak up, and to be heard. I love this ethos and it is strongly endorsed right up to the very senior levels. You can take a risk, you can fail and you learn from that.

There are some amazing female role models at very senior levels who are trailblazing the way for other women in the company. Three women were recently appointed to our Board of Directors and they are showing the rest of us what’s possible. I’m part of the European Marketing Organisation, within which there is a big focus on encouraging the team to self-develop, bring themselves forward, and develop new skills and capabilities. As part of that initiative I’ve acquired some brand new skills that help keep me very current in what is a dynamic and ever-changing industry.

Informatica is a genuinely inclusive environment, with a huge goal of the talent acquisition team to recruit from diverse backgrounds. There is also a strong focus on getting more females into leadership/management positions. In terms of what we are doing, we know we’ve a long way to go and as we embark on this journey we need to ensure that we’ve got the right set of tools in our arsenal.

In terms of policies that support women in the workplace, there is flexible working for all employees, which is a huge one for working mums in particular. Senior leadership on the male side show their support for women and genuinely want the female voice to be heard. That’s something that’s very apparent here.

Personally, the supports during COVID-19 have been a big help to me as a working mother myself. Empathy around balancing family life comes from the top down. This was demonstrated very clearly throughout the pandemic with our CEO Amit Walia’s messaging around “leading with empathy”, and being happy to speak with any family members who popped up in a Zoom call! As long as you meet your deadlines, you have total flexibility. That is a massive warm feeling for me, as a female, to know that I’m trusted to do as I say I’m going to do, and not feel that I’m being watched or the clock has to be watched at all times.

A recent Great Place to Work survey of staff asked our employees how they how they feel treated by Informatica. 99% felt they were treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation, and 98% of people agreed they were treated fairly regardless of gender. I think that says a huge amount about why I would recommend Informatica as a place that is extremely open, fair, and equal.

www.informatica.com