Hugh Jones Solicitors

We encourage equality of opportunity and respect for diversity, seek to prevent unlawful discrimination in our relationships with each other, our clients, our suppliers and generally.

Our aim is to seek to avoid discrimination in relation to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

We expect every member of Hugh Jones Solicitors to contribute to compliance with these requirements, for example by treating each other and clients fairly and with respect, by embedding such values in our workplace and by challenging inappropriate behaviour and processes. Diversity and inclusion training has always been part of our training programme, based on real life challenges and situations, most recently on prevention and reporting of workplace harassment.

We will make sure that in delivering our services we will make adjustments to ensure that disabled clients, employees or managers are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to those who are not disabled, and we will not pass on the costs of these adjustments to these disabled clients, employees or managers. For example our premises are accessible at ground floor level, with parking immediately adjacent and we have disabled toilet facilities on the ground floor level and we often visit clients at home.

We will ensure that our recruitment and employment practices encourage equality of opportunity and respect for diversity. For example we welcome applications for flexible working and advertise our vacancies on a broad basis to encourage a wide range of applicants.

We will ensure that all employees have equal access to training and promotions, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We promote equality and diversity both for our clients and our employees including

• Special pages on our website for clients living with dementia.
• Our entire site can be read in large print.
• We have been involved for many years with the Dementia Friends movement and a member of our firm is a Dementia Champion and the majority of employees are Dementia Friends.
• We provide a regular programme of free talks and information for community groups.

During the pandemic we have surveyed our employees to understand their preferred working arrangements and the reasons behind these, e.g., to support mental health, improve work/life balance.

This feedback has been used to review our employee contracts, adding a right to work at home and to meet the requests of 50% of staff for flexible start and finish times. 90% of our staff have working arrangements which include working from home so that we can reap the benefits of homeworking discovered in lockdown - more family time, more time for sport or switching off - essential for physical and mental health.

The majority of employees including directors are female. Over the last year we have increased the proportion of our employees who are of non-white ethnic background, now 13% of the total as part of a proactive program to widen our application pool and offer an internal development programme which offers employees from all backgrounds and educational opportunity to reach highest levels in the firm.