spring onions

Foreword

by June Butler

In the NTMA we believe that delivering long-term value to the State requires a culture where inclusion and diversity (I&D) are embedded in our processes, behaviours and values. We recognise that a diverse and inclusive workplace contributes to better decision making, creative thinking, innovation and drives business performance. As an employer, we aim to ensure our workforce is representative of the community it serves and to attract and retain talented employees from a wide range of backgrounds with diverse skills and experience.

The International and Multicultural Awareness Team (IMAT), is the most recent addition to the established NTMA I&D groups Disability Advocacy Team, Gender Matters and LGBTQ+.

IMAT is an initiative to recognise and celebrate our increasingly diverse workforce. This initiative is run by colleagues, sponsored by leadership, and provides a forum for colleagues from all areas of the organisation to meet, learn from one another and to drive improvements at an organisational level.

One of the key objectives of the team is to raise awareness and to leverage the power of cultural and ethnic diversity among our workforce and communities. To enable us all to deliver on our mandates and our strategic goals, it is important to reflect the diversity of the society in which we operate, live and work.

Recognising the importance of food in our cultural identities, we have created an international cookbook, with recipes submitted by you, our colleagues from across the NTMA, to represent the diverse and international background of our colleagues allowing us to share some of the ”Flavours of the NTMA” with each other.

I hope you can make time to read it and try out something new!

June Butler CEO SBCI/Executive Sponsor IMAT

Introduction

Welcome to “Flavours of the NTMA”, a publication by the International and Multicultural Awareness Team (IMAT) to celebrate the diversity of our workforce, and share some favourite dishes from NTMA staff. All recipes were submitted by NTMA staff, and while some may be familiar to you we hope that you can take the opportunity to try something new!

The IMAT was set up in early 2022 and joined the other more well established Inclusion and Diversity groups – Disability Advocacy Team, Gender Matters, and LGBTQ+ – to continue the NTMA’s strategic objective of embedding Inclusion and Diversity into our processes, behaviours and values. We have successfully attracted a broad section of enthusiastic employees to the team to help us set up the group, develop a strategy, and create our branding and presence on the NTMA intranet. Some of our key initiatives in 2022 including:

Themed Lunch Days 5th of May (Mexico), 4th of July (USA), 14th July (France) 15th August (India), 12th October (Spain)

IMAT Book Club Held in September, we were encouraged by the positive response to our suggested book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. We gave out over 150 copies of this book, and we are really pleased that such a large section of the NTMA has now had an opportunity to learn more about how an organisation can benefit from multicultural teams, and some of the challenges that may arise along the way. The Book Club event was a great success, well attended both in person and hybrid, and a wonderful opportunity for us to start the conversation about multiculturalism in the NTMA, which we plan to continue into 2023 and beyond.

Celebrating our Diversity