How we work: Celebrating our team

Dublin City Council Culture Company has been running cultural initiatives, building connections with people and communities across the city and empowering them through cultural experiences. We prioritise sustainability and equality, both of opportunity and access in all that we do. This includes our team and our staff along with our audiences, artists and partners.

In the past six years since we were established, our staff has grown to 40+ employees who have been the driving force behind all of our success. Our staff are our greatest strength, they bring their passion and commitment as well as their expertise to all that they do. Our team is made up of people from a mixture of backgrounds and experience across community engagement; programming; history, arts and culture; curating and producing; project management and communications; policy and european projects; heritage, festivals and tour guiding; finance and project development. Find out more about our Staff and Team here.

Workplace Culture

We want our workplace environment to embody the values of the company as much as our programmes and events do, to foster a sense of community and support where knowledge and skills are shared to enable everyone to reach their full potential.

We are committed to taking care of our staff in the same way as they take care of our visitors and participants through fostering an open and supportive working environment that is open to all through our accessibility and inclusion strategy. We want to build a team that brings together people of different backgrounds, skills and experience. Diversity is a strength and is key in fulfilling our company goals. Our team is the most important resource we have. We want to make sure that they are supported and challenged to grow so we provide developmental opportunities and some of the most generous benefits in the cultural sector.

Connecting People

Connecting People through culture and conversation applies as equally to our staff as to our visitors and participants. We run regular staff outings bringing everyone together to try something or learn something new, relax, chat and have some fun. Our next staff outing is coming soon in June.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We want Dublin City Council Culture Company to be a workplace that is open to all. Operating two historical buildings does comes challenges to physical access but we are committed to doing all that we can to accommodate any needs our staff have through:

• Our recruitment process - it is designed to be open to all and all applicants are asked to inform us of any reasonable accommodations we can make to help them participate fully in the recruitment process. As part of this, all candidates receive the interview questions ahead of time to allow them to prepare and to ensure that there is a level playing field for all candidates.
  
  
• Offering staff the same care as we do our visitors and will endeavour to make any necessary adjustments to ensure that all can feel supported, from providing ISL translation for meetings to providing sensory kits.
  
  
• Providing any equipment needed to allow a staff member to do their job in a safe and comfortable manner from a back support to a left-handed mouse.
  
  
• Providing complimentary period products in all of our buildings and offices, for our team and visitors alike.
  
  
• Accommodating any specific ‘ways of working’ requests that might help staff to work productively.
  
  
• Providing regular training on a range of subjects including autism awareness and unconscious bias, so that we can foster an open and welcoming workspace to all.

Development

Helping our staff to develop their potential is absolutely essential for staff satisfaction and the success of the company. Our Performance Review Process offers clear, achievable goals and offers the opportunity for reflection and feedback particularly on any training that the employee feels would aid in their development going forward. Various training sessions are run by the company throughout the year including developmental sessions on subjects like line management. External training courses, mentorships and qualifications may also be funded as part of our continuous professional development policy. Everyone should have the chance to increase their knowledge, skills, responsibility and earnings and we empower this through our internal recruitment policy. Nine staff members have been part of an internal recruitment or promotion process in the last year.

Benefits

We offer some of the most generous and competitive benefits in the cultural sector. We want to make sure that all our employees are offered competitive financial packages. Salaries were increased at the start of this year and are benchmarked against the Public and Cultural sectors to ensure they are competitive. Through our pension scheme we match employee pension contributions up to 10% of Salary. We provide income protection in case of long-term sickness and life insurance to all employees upon joining the company. Our Performance Review Process allows for awards of salary uplifts, annual leave uplifts and professional development training budgets.

Wellbeing

We take the well-being of our employees seriously so our Employee Assistance Programme offers free advice on everything from finance and tax to health and consumer issues though a 24-hour free, confidential phone line. We know that our teams need to work and relax so we have a generous annual leave allowance beginning at 23 days ranging to 30 days depending on role or reward & recognition allocations. Hybrid working can help us all to balance work and home so we are pleased to accommodate it where possible and balanced against the needs of the specific job.

Supporting the wellbeing of our employees means acknowledging that sometimes we need a bit of extra support. We want all of our staff to be able to take the time they need to recover when ill without financial worries. As part of our commitment to this we will shortly be rolling out an updated Company Sick Pay Policy, with even greater benefits for employees. We also want to support staff through the happy times too, so we have recently rolled out new company paid Parental Leave allowances; paid Maternity Leave; paid Adoptive Leave and paid Co-parent Leave.

Sustainability

We operate a Green Office Policy to support our team in helping us to protect the environment for those who will come after us. Here are just some of the things we do:

• We reduce consumption: our guidelines encourage people to make sure lights, taps and equipment are turned off when not in use.
  
  
• We use sustainable products wherever possible and only work with suppliers who have made their own commitment to sustainable practices.
  
  
• We try to source products locally to avoid contributing to the high carbon footprint of international transport. This has the added benefit of supporting local businesses.
  
  
• We encourage all staff to use active and eco-friendly transport where possible, such as walking, cycling and public transport. We offer both Cycle to Work and Taxsaver Public Transport tickets, as well as bike racks at both our buildings to make this easier.
  
  
• We reuse and recycle. We encourage our team to reuse materials where possible. We provide on-site composting and recycling facilities for everything from paper to used batteries to old electronics.