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How LearnUpon Puts Women’s Voices, Health, and Allyship at the Heart of Company Culture
At LearnUpon, we’re not ones for box-ticking just for the sake of it. And when it comes to gender equality and inclusion, we believe real change doesn’t come from a single day of posts or panels.
So this year, when International Women’s Day came around, we asked ourselves: What if we didn’t stop there? What if we kept the momentum going and made a safe, open space for the stories that don’t always get told?
To do this, we set out to make the second half of Q1 all about empowering women in a way that felt honest, meaningful, and most importantly sustainable to our team.
Getting Real: A Live Session That Hit Home
We kicked things off with a live DIB discussion for the entire LearnUpon team to join, centered around the theme of (yep, you guessed it!) how to empower women and become a true ally.
Our team mate Léan Hannigan led the way, speaking courageously about her personal health challenges and the impact they’ve had on both her life and career. Derek Cavanagh, our CFO, then spoke about the steps he took as Léan’s manager—educating himself on how best to support her as she progressed through treatment.
This wasn’t your typical company webinar. We didn’t have scripts or surface-level talk. Instead, it was real people sharing heartfelt stories about what it means to show up for women—especially when the challenges they face are not only personal, but often invisible.
Learning to Be Better Allies, Every Day
From that live session, the whole LearnUpon team learned a valuable lesson: being an ally isn’t about being loud or performative. It’s about doing better in everyday situations as well as more complex ones.
Whether it’s learning the facts about women’s health, tackling bias in meetings, or simply asking, ‘How can I help?’, allyship means consistently offering support… whether people are watching or not.
With this concept in mind, we created an on-demand microlearning course and published it on Spark, our internal learning academy. Through a blended learning approach, every member of our team had the opportunity to explore new ways to support women—not just at work, but in all aspects of life.
By truly listening, speaking up with care, staying open to what we might not yet see, and continually learning about the challenges women face, we can all show up better, both as individuals and together.
Our dedicated course helped reinforce that mindset across our company culture. And because it’s easily updatable and available to new hires, everyone can get involved!
Stickers, Backgrounds & Keeping the Conversation Visible
Workplace inclusion isn’t just a policy or a statement on a website; it’s what you do when someone needs support, understanding, or simply someone to say, “I see you”.
But of course, every DIB campaign needs some fun along the way…
Just like our celebration of Diversity at the start of Q1, our design team got involved with women’s empowerment-themed Zoom backgrounds, laptop stickers, and visual reminders that made our team stop and say “how can I get involved?”. It kept the theme front of mind and showed that we’re not afraid to make this visible, because we believe when it comes to empowering women, visibility is everything.
We also made a point to give back to causes supporting women in our local communities. Donations from our SKO Karaoke Challenge went to charities focused on women’s wellbeing, and our Belgrade team sourced their LUPDate food from a business that supports women who are survivors of abuse.
Empowering Women at LearnUpon: We’re Not Done Yet!
We don’t see empowering women as a campaign with a deadline, it’s ongoing work. And at LearnUpon, that work is (we hope!) increasingly embedded in how we approach each day. From sharing stories and creating inclusive spaces to supporting women’s health at work and building stronger allyship practices, this is how we grow.
Interested in joining a team that shows up, speaks up, and puts people first?
Our careers page has plenty to offer!