Johanna Fullerton loves Fridays. Not surprising you may say, but she and her colleagues have more than most to look forward to as their company Pearn Kandola uses the last day of the working week to recharge the batteries.
"We don't sell on a Friday. On a Friday, all our psychologists are here and that's the way we manage ourselves, because otherwise you could go for months without meeting your colleagues. You'd always be out working on projects with Microsoft, Bank of Ireland or AIB and never actually have a home focus or a base. It's really the day when we communicate with ourselves and keep each other up to date about projects."
They get together early, starting the day with breakfast in the office before getting down to meetings. Employees decide for themselves whether they want to "dress down" or not. Every six weeks, they have a "social". "Friday is quite a busy day but there's a real atmosphere and buzz about the place."
Although she is just 33, Ms Fullerton is already a partner with the Oxford-based company and managing director of the firm's Dublin office. Her career path to date has been blessed with a strong sense of direction and a sprinkling of good timing and good fortune. Born and reared in the seaside town of Bundoran, Co Donegal, a career in psychology was already on Ms Fullerton's mind once she transferred to the University of Ulster in Coleraine after completing only one year of a science degree in UCD.
Having completed a degree in psychology, she won a British Telecom postgraduate scholarship to do an MSc in occupational psychology at Sheffield University before responding to a Pearn Kandola advertisement for occupational psychologists to conduct and apply research sponsored by the company. She joined Pearn Kandola in 1991 and worked in Oxford as a research psychologist for nearly three years before moving to the consultancy side of things. Over time, the pull of her homeland became stronger for herself and her husband, Kevin, also from Bundoran. When the partners of the firm realised the only reason she wanted to leave the company was to go and work in Ireland, they made her an offer she couldn't resist: "They asked me to do a feasibility study on setting up an office in Ireland. I knew I was blessed to have employers who would do that. Not many people come back to Ireland like that, so I did." She became a full partner in 1997.
Pearn Kandola now has 40 staff between Dublin and Oxford, with five psychologists working for the Dublin office. She lives close to the city centre and walks to work in just five to 10 minutes. It's a measure of how much occupational psychology is becoming a part of the Irish organisational culture that the firm's clients here include Microsoft, Eircom, Bank of Ireland, Golden Vale, Andersen Consulting, and even Mountjoy Prison. But what do occupational psychologists actually do?
"Occupational psychologists do loads of things and in loads of different areas, but Pearn Kandola would specialise in the three areas of assessment, development and diversity.
"In terms of assessment, we work in terms of assessing talent for recruitment and how you assess talent in organisations. We would do a lot of work, for example, in analysing jobs and establishing what are the key skills and competencies required to do that job."
The firm's focus on development, she says, often involves one-to-one coaching exercises for managers at management development centres. They assess managers' strengths and weaknesses using interviews, simulations, personality profiles and questionnaires. At the end of this, participating companies get a tailored management development plan. On diversity in the workplace, Ms Fullerton is now one of Ireland's foremost authorities on the subject. She is the co-author with Rajvinder Kandola of Managing Diversity in Ireland, a management tome on best practices that can be adopted to ensure compliance with the 1998 Employment Equality Act.
"We wanted to make sure that people weren't just doing the right thing or ticking off a checklist, but actually looking at their own organisations and being more strategic," she says. "If you're just doing what everybody else is doing, you're not having an impact on your own organisation."
The authors decided to write the book after examining the concept of managing diversity as it was developing in the US to find out if it was more than just another "new label" and whether it could inform their business. The 1998 Act replaces the 1977 Equal Employment Act, under which the only grounds for discrimination prohibited were gender and marital status. However, Ms Fullerton is anxious to stress that the new Act and its broader remit does not downplay the importance of equal opportunities. The concept of managing diversity is not a replacement for equal opportunities, rather "an evolution of the way we deliver equality and equal opportunities", she argues. "The new Act encourages firms to look more carefully at the way they recruit people and how and why they promote people," Ms Fullerton explains, but adds that one of the real drivers of diversity is the current labour shortage. "If companies are biased towards certain types, they won't get the kind of people they're looking for."
We are talking just over one year since the signing into law of the new legislation and one day after the signing of the Equal Status Act, which prohibits discrimination in the market place. Has the Employment Equality Act changed anything? "I think it's made a real difference in terms of what the client base is actually doing in terms of human resources practices." Ms Fullerton adds that the Equal Status Act will be complementary to the Employment Equality Act in that it will encourage companies to look more carefully at issues relating to customer service.
It is also hoped that the new equality legislation will help avoid the considerable pitfalls of positive discrimination. Ms Fullerton explains that there is a downside to positive discrimination in that it labels people with the "stigma of incompetence" because they are hired to fill certain quotas and not because of the skills and abilities required for the job. "You should hire the best people for the job regardless of their differences, not because of them."
The message of Managing Diversity in Ireland, says Ms Fullerton, is that employers need not fear the law. "We want to enlighten them that the [Employment Equality] Act is really a pro-active and positive step and that you can actually stay within the law and go way beyond in terms of how you run your business."
Pearn Kandola does seem to practice what it preaches regarding the importance of employee flexibility and in nurturing its employees' mental and physical well-being while at work. The office on Dublin's Harcourt Street even has what Ms Fullerton calls a "chill out" room, where employees can go to relax, listen to CDs, play games or read. Once a year, employees have a "community day", where they do voluntary or charity work, and an "enrichment day", for which the company pays for them to indulge in any kind of pampering or activity they desire.
Although Ms Fullerton loves her job, she admits to combating its stresses and strains with a personal trainer, who coaches her each week on aspects of physical fitness and well-being. So far, she says, it seems to be working. She certainly looks and sounds relaxed; maybe she's getting that Friday feeling everyday.
