At CluneTech, we have an extensive Milestone Recognition Program that rewards employees that choose to build a long and successful career with us. As part of this programme, we love celebrating and sharing the stories of those reaching major milestones with the company.
This month we caught up withs5 years.
The people! Having the opportunity to work with such a knowledgeable, supportive and passionate group of people from all corners of the world is something I never take for granted. We truly are #OneTeam!
There have been so many highlights during my five years here, but my biggest achievement would have to be when we wererecognized as Ireland’s Best Great Place to Work Team at the 2023 Great Place to Work Awards. We take part in Ireland’s Best Workplaces every year, and this year was our 8th consecutive year being recognised. The Great Place to Work Team Award recognises the team that has gone above and beyond and for our team to be chosen out of 100 companies was a feeling I’ll never forget.
Our Great Place to Work Team consists of volunteers from all areas across the group, with members coming from allcorners of the globe. Our Team acts as the voice of CluneTech’s employees, ensuring that their views are brought to management. Our aim is to promote positive change through a happier work environment, both now and in the future. Over the last number of years, both our culture and the way that we work hasevolved immensely and this recognition truly demonstrated the positive impact we have had to date.
Our journey towards a culture of flexibility! Pre-Covid, we were fully office based and had very little flexibility and no remote working capabilities. Ironically, in the months before the Covid-19 pandemic, my team and I had just gotten approval for a remote working pilot which commenced in December 2019. This was very quickly and unexpectedly ramped up due to Covid-19 and I must give recognition to our incredible leadership team who acted without hesitation when moving our global workforce to working from home. One really important point that often gets overlooked is the fact that as a company in the financial services industry, we would have been considered ‘essential services’ and thus, could have continued to work on-site. Instead, our leadership team embraced this opportunity and put our people and their safety first and were one of the first employers here in Ireland to move to remote.
Since then, our leadership team have continued to improve our flexibility offering and CluneTech now continues to offer remote working among a range of unique benefits including Lifework Days (a half day every quarter to get your life work done), Summer Flexi-Time and more. To see how we have gone from a company that offered little to no flexibility to one that has truly embraced a culture of flexibility, with a clear emphasis on the importance of work-life balance, is truly inspiring.
Funnily enough, although I now love working remotely, the greatest challenge I faced in my time here was back in the early days of the pandemic when we first moved to remote. I am a very social person and I found going from seeing all of my colleagues daily, to not seeing anyone in-person at all really difficult. I would definitely say my mental health suffered at the time as I adapted to these changes.
With that being said, it’s important to remember that the whole world was facing so much uncertainty at the time, and global lockdowns meant that I certainly wasn’t alone in suffering from the lack of social interaction. I have definitely found my groove now and love the flexibility of being able to work remotely. Now, instead of spending 2 hours in the car each day, I can go to the gym, call to my nanny on my lunch break, walk my dogs after work while it’s still bright, etc. Having this flexibility means so much to me and I wouldn’t change it for the world!
In my role, no two days are the same and I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to work with a broad range of teams across different departments. One of my favourite projects was implementing Workvivo, our internal communications platform, way back in 2019. At the time, it was a huge change from our previous intranet and while it was a really intense project, seeing the platform go live to our global workforce was incredible. Workvivo has transformed the way we communicate with our people and there are so many fun projects I’ve rolled out through the platform.
Another project that comes to mind was our global end of year event in 2020. It had been such a strange year and we really wanted to end it on a high. Myself and our Head of Design at the time collaborated with Catapult, an event production agency, and transformed our Kilkenny HQ into a full production studio. We coordinated a live broadcast to our 1,500+ employees which featured highlights from the year, interviews with each of our CEOs and our employee all stars. I hosted the event and will never forget the panic when the countdown to go live started! Thankfully, the event was a huge hit, but I think for me, the bit that stands out the most is that it really marked the time when we knew the world had changed forever. Following that event, we really focused on video as a form of communication and the following year was when our flexible offering really started to take shape.
Take every opportunity that comes your way! CluneTech is an incredible place to work, and I truly believe that there are very few companies that afford their people the opportunities that CluneTech does. Terry and the leadership team place a huge emphasis on the importance of career development and when you look at our leadership teams across the group, there are so many examples of people who have progressed through the ranks right here at CluneTech.
The amazing thing is that, as a suite of global companies, there is an abundance of opportunities across each of our businesses, meaning our people have the opportunity to change their role, function or company, but remain in the group! Our unrivaled ability to adapt is at the heart of our success and innovation, and when an employee shows that same level of adaptability, they will go far.
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