Aflac Northern Ireland

As we start to think about 😎 summer holidays and utilizing our generous annual leave allowance here at Aflac Northern Ireland, we’ve taken a look back at what #ourbrood have been up to since the start of the year. Safe to say we’re a busy bunch of #quackers and we certainly adhere to the notion that variety is the spice of life! So far in 2024: 🦆 We’ve welcomed our CEO and Chairman of the board, Dan Amos who officially opened our office alongside his wife and President of the Aflac Foundation Kathelen. 🌎 We’ve had visitors to and from the US enjoying the #quack on both sides of the Atlantic. 📢 We’ve been busy attending conferences from Kilkenny to London to events right in here Belfast. 📢 We’ve spoken at AWS events, Women in Tech events, guest lectured at universities and we’ve even taken part in a trans-Atlantic AWS Deep Racer event. 🤝 We’ve hosted some events in our world-class offices: from Low Code Meetups, to CyberFirst breakfasts, to Autism awareness workshops, to panel discussions, to private dining events. 🎱 We got a pool table – and yes, it even has the Aflac duck on it! 🎽 We keep #ourbrood active through wellness walks, cycle to work days, Tag ruby, golf days, movement initiatives including Yoga and dancing lessons. 🙌 We’ve used our volunteer day to help various councils and charities across Northern Ireland. 🌟 We’ve won some awards – shout outs to Victoria Logan and Catherine Maguire at the recent Women in Tech awards. Victoria as Tech Advocate of the Year and Catherine for Team of the Year. 🎉 We were the headline sponsor for the first ever Empower Girls alongside CyberFirst promoting careers in tech and cyber to over 250 girls from 12 schools across NI 😎 The rain held off for our annual Summer Social - with garden games and of course, plenty of #quack! And that's just the first half of this year – watch this space, lots more to come! #ourbrood #somequack #werehalfwaythere

Good luck from the Aflac Duck and the rest of #ourbrood to our 3 nominees at this week’s Women in Tech Awards 🏆 : 📣 Tech Advocate of the Year Victoria Logan 📣 Male advocate of the Year Graeme Stuart 📣 Tech Team of the Year led by Catherine Maguire Wishing all of the other nominees the best of luck. It’s an amazing achievement to be shortlisted in such a competitive sector and speaks to the fantastic talent we have. It’s sure to be a #quacking night!

What an incredible day at the CyberFirst EmPower Girls event, hosted at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park! We were thrilled to be a part of this groundbreaking event as headline sponsors, alongside 250 girls aged 11-12 from 12 schools across Northern Ireland. The energy and enthusiasm in the various zones, from the inspo zone to the interactive zone to the demo zone, was simply electrifying! With special guest appearances from the First Minister Michelle O'Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly BL MLA which underscored the significance of events like these in showcasing the career paths available in our sector. This landmark event marks the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, but this certainly won't be the last! To everyone who contributed to making this day truly unforgettable, from the teachers and students, to industry supporters and a team of helpers from #ourbrood a massive thank you! Let's continue to nurture and support the talents of our future leaders. Together, we're shaping a brighter, more inclusive future for tech and cyber security. 💫 #EmpowerGirls #FutureLeaders #OurBrood

What a visit! We were honoured to welcome Aflac's CEO and Chairman Dan Amos and his wife Kathelen to Belfast, along with US executives Tim Callahan and Keith Farley. It was a jam-packed agenda – some of the many highlights of the visit: 🌟 First and foremost - meeting #ourbrood. Getting time to hear from our amazing team (yes, we are biased!), about the work we are doing to put our customer at the heart of everything we do. 🎯 Hearing about the ambition for Belfast and the wider region, meeting with the NI Executive, First and Deputy First Ministers at Stormont, supported by Invest Northern Ireland; followed by a great discussion at City Hall with the High Sheriff of Belfast, Chief Executive of Belfast City Council, and the US Consul General. 🎓 Showcasing our commitment to innovation, philanthropy and home-grown talent by visiting Queen's University Belfast. 🙏 Meeting with our charity partner, The Children's Cancer Unit Charity along with a Play Specialist from the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast to hear first-hand about the impact My Special Aflac Duck™ is having in the community. 👔 Visiting Bogart to meet the team who helped to suit and boot our executives during one of their early visits to Northern Ireland. ✂ Officially opening our amazing offices at City Quays 3 with a ribbon cutting ceremony. 🎉 And finally... a fantastic celebratory team event at the stunning Orpheus Ballroom, right in the heart of the cathedral quarter was the perfect way to end a phenomenal visit!   Here's to continued success, ongoing partnerships and of course having a bit of #quack along the way! 

Good luck to all of the runners, including 20 of #ourbrood running in the Spar 10k Craic around Belfast on Sunday! ☘ It's sure to be a great event.

We're very excited to sponsor the first ever CyberFirst Empower Girls event to be held in Northern Ireland! With 250 year 8 girls in attendance and 30 companies registered, it’s going to be an amazing way to showcase and highlight the opportunities to our future talent. It’s also going to be great #quack too! https://lnkd.in/e7WKYWuB

An inspiring day at Women in Business NI Women in Tech conference. Amazing speakers, brilliant energy and a great turnout from #ourbrood. Fantastic hosting duties from Emer Maguire keeping the show rolling! Delighted to be a sponsor of such a key event for our sector. #womenintech #aflacni

At Aflac NI looking beyond our core deliverables to see how we can #support and improve the #wellbeing of #ourbrood, play our part in supporting the #community we operate in and minimise any harm to our #environment as a result of our business activities has been and will continue to be a focus for us.   Some of the ways we are doing this:     🤝 Formally established our ESG committee and officially launched our ESG Commitments to our team – an important step to outline our intent and retain focus on all things ESG in 2024 and beyond  🌟 Retained our Responsible Plastic Management certification in 2023 and facilitated Carbon Literacy training thanks to Business in the Community Northern Ireland 🌊 Reducing our usage of harmful plastics. With an estimated 14 million tonnes of plastic entering our oceans each year now, at least 10% of products in our vending machines use compostable packaging and we have updated our soft drinks selection to use only glass and aluminum packaging  ♻ Using Terracycle we estimate 100gks of material being recovered for recycling this year  🎋 As part of Tree Aid we buy every employee a tree on their birthday. These trees are planted in the Great Green Wall in Africa, increasing biodiversity, restoring and protecting land, growing nutritious food, and creating green jobs for people living in the surrounding areas  👩🎓 Working with our local universities Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University we fund bursary programmes to widen access to higher education   💞 We provide a CSR day for all of #ourbrood to give back to the community    And for 2024, we have a whole host of events and initiatives planned which we are confident will continue to have a positive impact on #ourbrood, our partnerships and the world around us!    #esg #ourbrood  

Reflecting back on Aflac NI Conference ’23 and what a phenomenal day we had! With predominantly employee curated content, Aflac NI Con ’23 was an opportunity for #ourbrood to pause, listen, reflect, learn and of course have lots of #quack. Key highlights of the day: 🎙 Our Head of Operations, Antoinette Bradley's incredible opening and hosting duties  🥊 Many a boxing reference from our MD, Mark McCormack as he talked strategy 💡 A reflective and insightful presentation from our Head of QA Morne Rooschuz entitled ‘Hello Failure, my Old Friend.’ 🚀 An amazing keynote from our external guest, Sinéad O'Sullivan who talked passionately about planning a mission to Mars 🛩 Watching our teams battle it out for ultimate bragging rights in building and flying their paper aeroplanes equipped with marshmallow cargo – side note, we are a competitive bunch! ♻ Our D, E & I and Green committee teams educational, informative and fun filled presentations 🎓 Learning about Stability, Phishing, Pipelines & Digital Hub ⏳ Hearing from our L&D Partner Diane Morrow about our 5,400 hours of completed L&D and the impact this had across all of our teams 💛 And finally, welcoming Jane Hoare Chief Executive of our charity partner The Children's Cancer Unit Charity to the stage along with Eva Royal who delivered an awe-inspiring speech about the impact the charity has had on her. We were so very proud to present the CCUC with a cheque for over £35,000 raised through our teams fantastic fundraising efforts! This was an incredible way to close out what was an unbelievable day. A HUGE thank you goes to the conference committee for getting involved and making it happen, our AV team Revolution Productions for delivering a flawless production, Dillon Osborne for capturing pictures and videos throughout the day and of course our fantastic presenters, it’s not easy getting up on stage but you did it superbly. Feel free to have a watch of some of the highlights below and get a sense of what we say about ourselves at Aflac NI “we do serious work, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously!”   #ourbrood #aflacnicon23 #somequack 

Always great #quack when future talent comes to visit! Glad you enjoyed your tour and of course, no visit is complete without your very own #aflacduck.