Colleagues
Bank of Ireland supports the adoption of modern ways of working; enabling colleagues to work remotely, increasing flexibility of hours and all colleagues have been encouraged to sign a Team Wellbeing Pledge. Our new Colleague Wellbeing App is a vital resource for colleagues during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our Career Development Programme supports colleagues to take ownership of their professional wellbeing, through awareness, support and recognition. Our Career Portal provides colleagues with a wide range of resources to help them plan their career journey and access courses, articles and tutorials. In 2019, over 25,000 training hours were completed by employees in the UK.
New initiatives include our ‘You as a Manager’ programme for people managers and a pilot Female Leadership Programme, ‘Rise’.
Our Graduate Programme continues to attract high quality candidates from a variety of backgrounds.
We are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse place to work where colleagues can be themselves and perform to their full potential. We want to attract, promote and retain diverse talent at all levels, to create a more innovative and high-performing business that can enable customers, colleagues and communities to thrive.
Our Inclusion and Diversity strategy, ‘Many Voices: One Bank’, focuses on valuing and celebrating diversity within the workforce, reflecting the communities in which we operate, an inclusive culture, which values diverse talents and recognises the unique needs of colleagues, and an organisation that meets the needs of all customers. Many colleagues support our International Women’s Day events.
We signed the Women in Finance Charter in March 2018 to demonstrate our commitment to inclusion and diversity, and to help drive meaningful change in gender representation across financial services.
At the time of signing, women made up 36% of our Management and Leadership population. Since then, we’ve made steady progress:
- In 2024, we exceeded our interim target of 43%, reaching 44% female representation.
- In 2025, we raised our ambition further, setting a new target of 45% by December 2025.
As of September 2025, female representation remains at 44%. While we haven’t yet reached our revised target, we remain on track thanks to sustained action and focus.
We continue to embed inclusive practices across our organisation, including:
- Balanced interview panels and candidate shortlists
- Flexible working policies
- Targeted development programmes to support female progression
We also committed to ensuring that 50% of appointments to Management and Leadership roles are female. Between January and September 2025, we met this target, 50% of appointments were female. Management and Leadership appointments are reviewed monthly by our Executive Committee to ensure fairness and transparency. We remain committed to hiring the best candidate for every role while maintaining a strong focus on gender-balanced progression.
Our UK Gender Pay Gap report is published here.
The Bank of Ireland group-wide employee engagement survey ‘Openview’ is held annually. The current results show increased levels of employee engagement, along with heightened awareness, understanding and demonstration of the Group’s values. We also participate in the Banking Standard Board Survey annually, which had 29 participating UK banks and building societies in 2019.
Our Begin Together Fund for Colleagues aims to support colleague-nominated causes that positively impact the lives of vulnerable groups where we live and work. The Fund enables all colleagues in the UK to deliver practical, hands-on support to support local financial, physical and mental wellbeing initiatives suggested by them. It also supports and encourages volunteering activities.