Allstate NI ‘Embraces’ the LGBTQ+ Community

Allstate NI is Northern Ireland’s largest IT Company with 2,400 employees across three sites in Belfast, L’Derry and Strabane. Allstate is a major center for innovative software development, covering the full software lifecycle of design, development, maintenance and support.

The company pride their commitment to ensuring a Diverse and Inclusive culture and believe that diversity is crucial to creating a culture of mutual respect where the strengths and talents of each individual are recognised.

As part of this, the company have several Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) that provide support and education to their employees. One of their groups is Embrace.

Embrace is an Employee Resource Group designed to highlight the company’s commitment to Diversity and Inclusion, with a particular focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Embrace is a member of two LGBTQ+ Corporate Networks, belonging to both the ‘Diversity Champions’ Network and the ‘Working with Pride’ Network.

Embrace launched in Allstate NI in 2016 with just a handful of members, since then its grown from strength to strength. Allstate recently achieved a Gold award from the Stonewall benchmarking group of which the Embrace team is extremely proud of.

Their mission is clear; to bring as much awareness as possible to the challenges the LGBTQ+ community face. They do this through a marriage of educational talks on issues such as trans rights and information sessions on the use of pronouns and by bringing awareness through the medium of fun and laughter by hosting events where they invite local queer artists into to do drag shows, quizzes, bingo and more. The company always ensures a large presence at Belfast Pride, and this year was no exception, with over 70 employees taking part in the first in person parade since 2019.

One of the committee’s members, Ethan Devlin quoted “we are always hoping to educate people but also to brighten their day if we can.”

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