On Thursday, October 10th, Gas Networks Ireland received the highly prestigious Engineers Ireland CPD employer of the year award for the organisation’s female development programme. In the same week, the organisation was recognised at the Menopause Workplace Excellence Awards for its work in that space and was shortlisted in the health and wellbeing strategy of the year category at the HR Leadership and Management Awards.
The female development programme is designed to increase the percentage of women within the organisation’s senior management team, explains Nicola McSweeney, director of people at Gas Networks Ireland. “We have lots of fantastic female colleagues in the organisation, but we do see a drop-off in female representation at senior management levels,” she says.
“Lack of confidence can come into it. There is research evidence to show that females are less willing to go for roles than men if they don’t fulfil all the criteria, for example. We are trying to understand and address issues like that in the programme.”
Open to employees at all levels, the programme applies best practice learning and development methodologies and approaches to support women across the company to develop their leadership competences.
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“We now have a network of female colleagues that can provide guidance and support across the business,” McSweeney points out. “The Engineers Ireland award recognising the programme is massive for us. It is fantastic to be able to showcase our work in this critically important area.”
We want Gas Networks Ireland to be a supportive environment for everyone from the moment they join
This is just one element of the organisation’s energised people strategy. “People are at the heart of our business, and we need to continue to attract, retain and develop the best people if we are to realise a fully decarbonised network by 2045 as envisaged in our Pathways to a Net Zero Carbon Network document,” says McSweeney.
“We are always keen to bring in fresh talent and showcase the opportunities across the gas industry, through the transition from natural gas to renewable gases such as biomethane and green hydrogen. The latest round of our apprenticeship programme, which was rolled out earlier this year, was heavily oversubscribed, attracting more than 500 applicants. Our graduate programme is currently under way and, with all the infrastructure required to develop these renewable gases, the opportunities for future graduates are very exciting.”
Encouraging more young women to join the organisation is also important. “We know that there is a challenge around girls taking Stem [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] subjects and career opportunities in Ireland. We are working with the universities and, through our corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, we are active in early education programmes aimed at encouraging more females to study Stem. We are starting to see more female apprentices coming through. That’s very positive.”
McSweeney is justifiably proud of the company’s retention record. “We have a significant number of people that stay with us for a very long time,” she says. “The average tenure is 17 years and some of our people have been with us for over 45 years. We have a family culture here and people take huge pride in the organisation and the job that we do.
“We have transitioned the organisation numerous times, moving from town gas, to natural gas and are now moving on to renewables gases including biomethane and green hydrogen. We have retained that sense of pride throughout.
“Ultimately, it is our strong culture that makes us stand out. We make sure everyone’s career journey is a positive experience, wherever the person is in their career. We are always looking for opportunities to get feedback from our employees on their experience. We carry out workforce surveys twice a year, for example.”
Recruitment efforts are aimed at both experienced and early career hires. “We have a number of other early career initiatives including internships, summer placements for students, and our graduate recruitment programme,” McSweeney notes. “We have a large cohort of employees retiring each year and we need to replace them with a mix of more experienced hires and a pipeline of graduates, apprentices and interns.
“When people join us, we explain and demonstrate career pathways for them. We like to showcase the opportunities and that they can have several roles during their time with us. Career mobility is strong, with about 18 per cent of our people changing roles every year. We have some lovely stories of people who started with us as apprentices and are now in senior leadership positions, as an example.”
We need to continue to attract, retain and develop the best people if we are to realise a fully decarbonised network by 2045
That mobility is supported by extensive learning and development programmes. “We run more than 2,000 training days a year,” says McSweeney. “We have a learning calendar for people to pick and choose courses from, in things like communications skills, people management, gas appreciation courses and so on. We also provide support for people to take further education courses.”
The company operates a hybrid working model, with two days in the office and three at home. “That’s been an interesting journey,” McSweeney notes. “We have done some nice work around supporting this new way of working. We repurposed our office buildings in Cork and Dublin to have more collaboration spaces and drop-in areas, and so on.
“We have adjusted to the new world of work. Hybrid working works really well for us, and it allows us to come together in the office for collaboration and teamwork when we need to.”
The organisation’s diversity equality and inclusion (DEI) programme, ibelong, dates back to 2018. “It has gone from strength to strength,” McSweeney says. “It is about consciously making our place of work more diverse, inclusive and equal, enabling everyone to be their true selves at work. It has driven changes to recruitment and selection processes and learning initiatives which include unconscious bias and targeted development programmes.”
“The programme has also seen the establishment of employee resources groups, including our family, rainbow, women’s, neurodiversity and ability, ethnicity and cultural and the recently launched NextGen group supporting our younger colleagues. These groups have made such a positive impact on our organisation and continue to highlight areas that we may need to change our thinking or conversations in the future.
“The world is very different for younger staff. It’s not a five-day week in the office any more, and [the] NextGen group seeks to develop a networking platform and social outlet for younger employees to engage with their peers. It aims to bridge the gap between generations, bringing fresh perspectives to the table and empowering every voice to be heard.”
We now have a network of female colleagues that can provide guidance and support across the business
In recent months, McSweeney and her team have worked with the ibelong programme to develop a number of highly progressive policies. One of the new policies introduced in 2024 addresses menopause, and is applicable to all staff going through perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause. Employees are entitled to five menopause leave days in the calendar year. Domestic violence and IVF and fertility treatment policies have also been introduced to offer paid leave to people dealing with those issues.
Another innovative policy covers holiday swaps. “To recognise the diversity in our organisation, this policy allows employees to request that a company day be swapped for another date, which may be of more cultural significance,” McSweeney explains. “We have also introduced a piece of software called ‘hear my name’. People’s names can be really difficult to pronounce so people can record the pronunciation of their name and a link to it appears on the signature line in their email.”
These policies were developed because of feedback from employees as well as conversations with the organisation’s DEI Council, McSweeney adds. “We want Gas Networks Ireland to be a supportive environment for everyone from the moment they join. We are building the workforce of the future, and we want our people to stay with us, so we support them through their different life stages.
“We talk an awful lot about pipes and what goes through them. But our people are at the very heart of what we do and how we deliver. We invest in our people to ensure they have the very best experience possible. Our net zero ambitions will not be achieved without having the right people strategy in place.”