Permanent tsb is an equal opportunities employer committed to creating a professional environment in which our employees feel valued, included and empowered to succeed in their career, regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, race, religion, ability/disability, background or life experiences. At its core, we are an organisation built on a diversity of many different cultures and sub-cultures, established through mergers and demergers over a 200 year period.

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) became a strategic area of focus for the Bank in 2017. The following year we launched our D&I Strategy, recognising that a diverse and inclusive organisation leads to a better understanding of customers, better decision making, improved innovation, while protecting against group-think and unethical behaviour.  

We have made significant progress since the launch of our D&I Strategy in 2018. Actions taken include:

• Launching an Equality Through Diversity and Inclusion Charter.
• Reviewing our HR Policies and processes through a D&I lens, with changes being implemented across our policies, processes, recruitment procedures and role profiles.
• Conducting an accessibility review of our premises and customer processes.
• Delivering comprehensive D&I training to all colleagues, with an added layer of training for our customer facing teams on unconscious bias. We also introduced training on inclusive leadership for those in people management positions.
• Promoting a culture of psychological safety through Speak Freely, our channel for encouraging colleagues to speak up and raise a concern.
• Introducing Smarter Working Options to enable greater flexibility, including the implementation of reduced hours, job sharing, compressed hours and incentivised career breaks.
• Continuing our work with the 30% Club and Triple FS (Female Fast Forward – FS Women in Leadership).
• Announcing a three year partnership with the WorkEqual Campaign, promoting gender equality in workplaces across Ireland.
• Publishing our Gender Pay Gap.

Our Employee Resource Groups

To support the delivery of our D&I Strategy, the Bank set up a number of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), whose aim is to enable employees to join together based on shared characteristics or life experiences. The ERGs aim to help diverse groups obtain a collective voice within the organisation and serve as an organised and established platform to promote change, organise events and create awareness to support permanent tsb and our people to become more inclusive.

There are currently four ERGs in place:

• PRISM - Our LGBTQ+ Network for colleagues and allies. The Network promotes and values individual differences no matter how our people identify.
• Better Balance – The Network works with us to strive for gender balance within our organisation.
• LiveWell – The Network aims to promote and improve wellbeing and work life balance for all colleagues through positive connection and support.
• DICE – The Network promotes and celebrates people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities and cultural heritage.

Most recently, we have been focused on promoting D&I in wider society, and are committed to positively affecting change through the following:

• Signing the Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI) Social Inclusion Pledge: We have added our signature to BITCI’s new Elevate Social Inclusion Pledge to promote inclusion in the workplace, further supporting our commitment to D&I within permanent tsb.  Business has a key role to play in supporting social inclusion in Ireland, and this is a valuable opportunity for us to create real, measurable and meaningful impact. Adding our signature to this Pledge further supports our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion within permanent tsb, as we remain focussed on taking action and making our workplace more inclusive for all colleagues. If you want to learn more about the Pledge, visit BITCI’s Website.
• Committing our support to the Dublin City University (DCU) Access Programme: As part of our commitment to social inclusion, permanent tsb are supporting the DCU Access Scholarship Programme, which aims to transform the lives of young people from socioeconomic disadvantaged backgrounds and help them realise their full potential in life. As part of our commitment, we will participate in the DCU Access to the Workplace Programme and look forward to welcoming Access students on paid professional work placements with the Bank this summer. More information on the DCU Access Programme can be found here.

You can learn more about our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion in our Annual Report, beginning on page 42.