UNUM (Carlow)

Colette Lane, Chief Administration Officer, Unum

Unum’s Carlow operation is the IT Centre of Excellence for the Unum Group and we chose to locate here to draw on the wide pool of talent across the South East that wanted to avoid a lengthy commute to Dublin, and the advantage of having the Institute of Technology, Carlow on our doorstep.

The collaboration with IT Carlow has been truly excellent. Around 30 per cent of the workforce joined as graduates of the Institute and we have also secured former graduates who were working in Dublin and were keen to return home and settle here. Each year, we hire in 10-12 interns whom we set up in a software lab in the college and they are terrific strategic partners for Unum.

While we are able to secure strong graduate talent, more senior positions and highly specialised tech roles take a little longer to fill. However, this year we have had great success attracting overseas talent to work in Unum who love the cost-effective renting options and hasslefree commuting compared to the larger cities, enabling us to build a strong diverse inclusive workforce.

Unum is very fortunate to have access to so many great regional clusters on its doorstep, including Crystal Valley Tech, the South East Regional Skills Forum, Skillnet Carlow which has an ICT sector, and most importantly the Institute of Technology in Carlow and its recently established Insurtech Network Centre. Unum is partnering closely with its Business Development Manager Aidan Mahon on a number of initiatives in the data analytics space that are relevant to both Unum and other insurance companies in the South East.