Category: Features

Strategic benefits

These days, however, the landscape is not merely one of ‘greed is good’ and ‘may the best man win’. Increasingly, today’s companies have to show a good balance sheet aligned to ethical and fair business practices and policies which maximise their earning potential with all tenets of society. This is not only for investors and shareholders, for whom ethical and social responsibility issues are much more of a priority than previously, but for customers, who vote with their feet and wallets and for whom the power of social media can make unfair practices abundantly evident, as well as for existing and potential employees.

For our respondents and interviewees in this report, who constitute in-house lawyers and business people from a wide cross-section of leading global companies, diversity and inclusion simply makes good business sense. Internally it is about having access to the best range of talent. Externally it’s about being able to appeal to the widest customer base and reflect the personal reality of one’s customers. Both of these intersect quite heavily; Raphael Mokades, founder of Rare Recruitment, the first diversity-focused recruiter, summarises it thus:

‘There are four benefits, broadly speaking. One is the market: for example, if you are selling a hair product for black women, you wouldn’t have only white males on the team. That approach is no good, because you have to understand the market. Talent is another: if you think talent is evenly distributed and you don’t hire women, then you are missing out on 50% of the talent. Another benefit is reputational: it makes people feel good about the firm they work for, which is good for the company. It keeps people being productive and it makes people happy to procure from you, such as governments, clients and companies. The other is legal benefits, because you are much less likely to get sued by an aggrieved minority person if you can prove their being aggrieved has nothing to do with their minority status.’

Companies will express this in different ways depending on their business model and to what extent they are customer-facing versus B2B. The wider the potential customer base, the greater the imperative truly to embrace diversity. Multinational consumer goods company Unilever is a clear example of this. Its Gender Balance Plan is a key focus for the company, but the basic rationale goes back to the fundamentals of what the company does. As general counsel, Ritva Sotomaa explains: ‘Two billion people use our products every day but women are our main consumers as, in regards to our products, the majority of the buying decisions are made by women. It is business sense to make sure we reflect that.’

or media company ITV, the strategic imperatives have been there for a long time. As one of the main TV channels in the UK, there’s an imperative to reflect the cultural diversity of the UK. But for a number of years, media companies like ITV have also been trying to combat the perception of the media in general as a playground for the rich and privileged.

‘It was really like pushing an open door,’ explains legal director Barry Matthews, ‘because we are progressive in the field of diversity as a matter of course.’ Matthews has been instrumental in setting up the Legal Social Mobility Partnership (LSMP), an initiative which promotes social diversity and opportunities for less-privileged students to access careers in law and this fits in nicely with other initiatives already underway at ITV. ‘There has been the criticism of the media for a number of years that it is filled with those who can afford to intern for free. We have an award-winning apprenticeship programme across all of our business areas and have committed to diversity across the piece through our social partnership initiative and commitment to the living wage. Hence when we started the LSMP, there was already a strategic will to promote diversity.’

Diversity also has a solid strategic case from a legal point of view, as Michael Coates, head of UK legal at Shell, told us ‘The legal issues Shell comes up against cut across legal systems and jurisdictions, so we need people to understand how these systems operate over multiple countries. Having diversity… is a clear business driver for us.’

Part of what this means is taking diversity and inclusion away from the notion of ‘being nice’ and giving it some teeth that makes the stakes higher. For our interviewees focused on initiatives, what was driving their companies’ involvement was the fact it could come down to basic key performance indicators and profit and loss, as well as market perception. Those key issues for 21st century businesses make diversity and inclusion a fundamental issue and can therefore drive top-level engagement, which all interviewees agreed was pivotal to truly ensure the success of initiatives.

For Tim Hailes, Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and a long-time advocate of LGBT issues, this is the key driver for his own efforts and that of the banks.

‘I am keen to ensure that we focus on the fact that we firmly contextualise this in work, about the success of the bank, to help people fully contribute and succeed in their jobs, attracting talent; it is not about being especially “nice” to gay people or supporting worthy causes that have little to do with the day job. There are many things out there that people can support in their own time, but where this has a material impact for J.P. Morgan is in the context of the business.’

And that is not merely reflecting the reality of their consumer base, but increasingly for companies, it is about doing things differently and innovatively. To do that, ‘group think’ definitely has to be avoided to allow diverse experiences and diverse identities to become part of a creative and innovative drive. Funke Abimbola is general counsel for UK and Ireland at pharmaceutical company Roche. In an area like pharma which constantly pushes the boundaries, diversity of thought is the end game. ‘If you have more diverse thinkers, then you will be problem solving in a very different way, across all disciplines. We are a very innovative company at Roche and the challenge is to remain innovative, because this is a crucial part of drug discovery – we need innovation at every stage and innovation only happens if people look at a problem in a different way’.

This sentiment was echoed across our interviewees and respondents to our survey. To be truly competitive, creative and innovative, companies need to avoid group think. Companies need to stay relevant and to demonstrate that relevance in a global market place which is by default diverse and not homogenous. Channel 4’s Prash Naik points to the innovative and creative benefits diversity of thought produces:

‘By recruiting from a more diverse group you will get people who think in different ways and who challenge convention. That brings different commercial opportunities and, potentially, more innovative ways of working. That has to make long-term commercial sense.’

For those who are still not convinced, research shows that more diverse companies are more profitable; even if your motives are purely Gordon Gekko-like greed, it still makes strategic sense. A 2015 McKinsey survey showed that ethnically diverse companies, were 35% more likely to out-perform against their national industry median average than non-diverse companies and gender diverse companies were 15% more likely to outperform by the same metric. (McKinsey & Company: Why Diversity Matters, 2015).

Role models

While initiatives are obvious ways for companies to show their support for diversity and inclusion and to really drive it, some might argue the open visibility of role models and successful role models are just as vital and, in some cases, may be even more important.

Successful role models can be the first sign to diverse candidates that it is possible to succeed in their chosen industry and can therefore be important in allowing candidates to act on their dreams before they may even know about the existence of particular initiatives or schemes. Role models who are authentic and for whom their own identity is indivisible from their success in their career send a powerful message.

Tim Hailes was one of the first openly gay men in investment banking in the UK. For him the power of what role models do cannot be underestimated.

‘Visible role models communicate powerfully that you can be successful and that being who you are is a non-issue.’ In J.P. Morgan this fact is very powerfully driven home by the overall group general counsel Stacey Friedman being openly gay.

The very existence of role models may not be enough if role models are not achieving success. Miranda Brawn started her career in investment banking and then trained part time to be a barrister and now works in-house for Daiwa capital. ‘For myself, being a mixed-race female with a career in a male-dominated industry has definitely been inspiring for others from diverse groups to go out and strive to have a successful career.’ She continues: ‘It is important for people to see themselves reflected in the people who make decisions and have careers in occupations that may interest them. For some people, their role model will not be a person who looks like them, it will be someone completely different who inspires them.’

Sandie Okoro, general counsel at HSBC Global Asset Management, whose identity as black, female and working class, is inspiring on many fronts, says it is about ‘telling the truth of your story.’ For Okoro it is as much a sense of being true to yourself in not putting up barriers. ‘It’s hard to succeed in legal full stop. Ultimately there are as many barriers as you put up yourself; you can put up being female and black as an excuse or use it as a weapon of defiance.’

Interestingly, for a number of our interviewees, role models were seen as better than mentors due to the inspirational edge they give in inspiring people to live their dreams. Kristin McFetridge, chief counsel, portfolio products and standards at BT, runs the telecoms company’s mentoring programme in the legal team, but personally feels that role models play an even more crucial role than mentors. ‘I think they are critical. If you gave me a choice between a mentor or a role model, I’d have a role model. I don’t think anything can come close to looking at someone and saying, “I can be that person”.’

Lesley Wan, corporate counsel at Lloyds Bank, is the only lawyer on Lloyds’ inspiring role models programme. To her, role models build the blocks to get you to the place where mentoring can begin, but crucially, it is role models which allow you to make the most important initial steps into a new challenge. This is of personal as well as professional importance:

‘You can observe their traits and characteristics and decide which of those traits or characteristics you may want to embed and adapt to suit your needs and personality as you see fit. It’s like a form of informal mentoring without necessarily being mentored, and you get to pick and choose what you want to take away with you.’

But for many, role models equate champions, and having a visible figure at the helm is integral to truly embracing a culture of diversity in a way that is more meaningful than just box-ticking.

For all of our interviewees it is gaining profile and traction within organisational leadership that are key. Indeed, as exemplified by PageGroup, Channel 4 and Unilever, what can be most important is visible champions or role models who are not diverse. The UN’s HeForShe campaign is a high-profile example of this, recognising that gender inequality affects both genders and that change cannot be effected unless those who are perceived to be part of the problem also become the solution.

However, for some, this produces a discomfort which could be described as appropriation, if, as one source commented, it just becomes about ‘the dominant groups once again giving their side of the story and leaving no room for the diverse voices.’

It seems that striking the balance between championing by non-diverse leaders and making sure there are diverse leaders to be role models needs to be the goal. This also means that companies need to ‘walk the talk’ and be seen as being authentic, which were two strong themes which came up in our interviews. The ‘box-ticking’ approach, on the other hand, is something our interviewees were all sensitive to and had first-hand experience of.

Initiatives

In our quantitive survey of 250 in-house lawyers in the UK, agile or flexible working was perceived to be the most effective tactic in increasing diversity and inclusion.

Interestingly, this is beginning to be seen as a more effective way of working for businesses overall because it is more focused on outcomes. Indeed, many of our interviewees spoke of a more outcome-focused point of view as being transformational across the business, not just for diverse employees.

Much of this is changing the way we conceptualise work. Joan C Williams argued in her 2010 book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate that there is a mismatch between the workforce and the workplace that is fuelled by out-of-date societal norms and is one that can disadvantage men as much as women. Increasingly, flexible or agile working is seen as a solution across the organisation, and not merely a panacea to working mothers.

Barclays offers ‘dynamic working’ programmes across the bank. The name itself has also been key in reflecting a focus on an outcome-based model and trying to dispense with the notion of different forms of working as a somewhat lesser variant of the accepted norm.

Indeed, companies are looking to redefine the normal in regards to working anyhow. Sandie Okoro’s London-based legal team in HSBC Asset Management works flexibly as a matter of course and in setting up the legal team it was one of the core building blocks that reflected the way the wider asset management team is working. Okoro explained to us that making this an issue for everyone, not just certain groups, was key: ‘I structured my team in such a way that everyone can work two days a week from home. Most people take up that flexibility, and men are as keen on it as the women – it helps with work/life balance issues. Interestingly, when I recruited for my team, men were very keen on flexibility and this was something they hadn’t seen elsewhere.’

Looking at work differently becomes an issue of talent management more generally and one that gels with the different way of working increasingly associated with millennials or Generation Y. It is also a part of the general realities for companies that need to cope within a global and technologically open economy where the 9-5 rules no longer apply and disaster can strike at any moment through a number of different channels.

Technology has had a transformative effect in this regard on working practices across the board. But this has obvious benefits for those with caring responsibilities, particularly parents. Early years childcare is still overwhelmingly the responsibility of women and it has therefore had a dramatic effect on women’s ability to work at all, let alone to advance within their professions. Despite more women than men entering the profession in the UK since 1993, according to The Law Society, women are still not advancing into partnership and leadership levels at law firms in anything like the same proportion.

Traditionally in-house legal teams have benefitted at a certain stage in lawyers’ careers from the ability to be more flexible around working hours. For that reason, many in-house teams have noticeably higher demographics of female lawyers, including in senior roles, than most law firms do.

The focus on different ways of working, which many of our in-house teams and the companies where they work are using, has meant that the statistics in-house for some companies are dramatically different from law firms. For many of the in-house lawyers we spoke to, this is because of the focus on outcomes not hours, as Kerry Phillip, legal director at Vodafone told us:

‘I concentrate on the output, which means where you’re doing your work is not important; what is important is what you are delivering. Vodafone’s technology really helps here because we all have laptops and we all have mobiles. We hot desk…in the UK you can print documents at any of our locations.’

This has had obvious results on who works for Phillip as she has 50% split between men and women in her team, which includes part-time workers, job sharers and remote workers. The team has had three listings in the Power Part Time run by Timewise and as she comments, ‘That’s just fantastic recognition that you can have a senior, responsible job while not working traditional full-time hours.’

Mentoring and sponsorship

In our range of interviews, mentoring is happening via both formal and informal channels to promote diversity. In fact, mentoring may be one of the easiest ways for an individual to get involved informally. In a 2010 survey for Harvard Business Review it was reported that 59% of companies that replied offered formal mentoring programmes, suggesting it is an initiative that has gained a lot of traction. It is also very impactful. A 2011 report by the Center for Work- Life Policy (CWLP) in the US stated that people who are mentored achieve more promotions, higher salaries, more career satisfaction and even report being less stressed than those who lack such guidance.

However, a number of our interviewees who were experienced mentors advise that setting definite boundaries and expectations is key in having a successful mentoring experience.

Sandie Okoro, who mentors both formally and informally, feels that it’s important to let the mentee set the pace of the relationship but to also make sure it works for the mentor. Setting out limits, such as an initial time frame for the relationship, ensures the mentoring does not become too draining.

Interestingly, she also feels that as a mentor, highlighting failures and what can be learned from these is as important as highlighting the successes:

‘You have to be as open and honest about things that didn’t work for you as much as things that have worked. What makes a success sometimes is the ability to pick yourself up and keep going on.’

Getting the match right between mentor and mentee can be one of the biggest pitfalls and something that needs care and consideration as with any significant relationship. Kristin McFetridge, who runs BT’s legal mentoring programme, told us: ‘The hardest part is matching someone with the right mentor. We’re revamping the questions we used originally, because they didn’t ask the right things and a lot of matching came down to gut feel. As a company-wide initiative we’re looking at a mentoring-matching programme, which will work like a dating app. If someone doesn’t connect with their mentor, despite all the will in the world, it will be fruitless.’

In our survey of in-house lawyers, mentoring and sponsorship were seen as less impactful than role models or championing of diversity initiatives from management. However, with sponsoring in particular, there was a high level of respondents who stated they had not seen this initiative in action. Conversely the amount of respondents who stated the importance of management buy-in and the need for targeting candidates was much higher.

Formal sponsorship seems to be less advanced in the UK than the US. However, research undertaken there by groups such as CWLP, Harvard Business School and Catalyst does suggest that sponsorship is much more effective than mentoring in producing long-term engagement and satisfaction via recognition and promotion which were often inspired by sponsorship or advocacy from more senior colleagues or managers. An interesting consideration though is whether in some cases, the championing of diversity and inclusion by senior managers and mentoring initiatives may be informally blending in the UK into something more akin to advocacy.

Networks and ally groups

Networks are used by a number of companies we interviewed to provide a tangible platform within which those groups can raise issues that are important to them and via which the company can demonstrate how serious it is about the initiatives pertaining to that group. The existence of official networks and also the related ally groups are a tangible awareness- raising tool within corporates to show that these are demographics that matters and need to have a voice.

That inclusive aspect is key to the power of networks but it is a two-way street allowing voices at the grassroots to be heard, but also showing that those who need to are listening. As Alison Gaskins at Barclays explains in regards to their very active network programmes: ‘It is not about the job title because everyone needs to feel responsible. That’s where employee networks step in, because people are deciding for themselves what works. It becomes an inclusive approach.’

The pipeline

One of the issues that many companies struggle with is ensuring the pipeline of credible diverse candidates. For many in-house teams the pipeline is still mostly private practice law firms and the issue can be trying to fix someone else’s problem. While arguably many law firms are making sterling efforts in promoting diversity and inclusion, the viewpoint from the in-house lawyers we spoke to was that it was at best a mixed bag and at worst, merely lip-service without credibility.

This means that for in-house legal teams there are two major solutions, neither of which are short on effort. Firstly, teams can try and bring on their own in-house legal trainees. This is often seen as a good way for diverse and non-traditional candidates to enter the profession. Our in-depth interviews with BT, ITV and The Guardian, all of which have legal teams of varying sizes, showed they have done this successfully. However, it still relies on the goodwill and co-operation of law firms to provide some of the training seats.

The other route is via lobbying law firms to be more proactive around their pipelines and working with them on initiatives that do that, and a number of the companies we spoke to for this report are involved in this. ITV and BT both work on the PRIME social mobility initiative alongside a number of large law firms with the aim of encouraging more social mobility in the profession.

Social mobility remains a significant issue in the UK legal profession. According to our research this is due to a range of factors, such as an inadequate pipeline of viable candidates and the issue of self-deselection from the career path before application for training contract or even before university.

There has been a habit of focusing on particular universities and grades in the selection of candidates, and traditionally most candidates who did not attend The Russell Group or Oxbridge were deselected for any law firms’ criteria automatically. Another factor has been the lack of visibility of social mobility role models. In some cases, people have had to make a tangible choice to identify as socially mobile as it may not be outwardly visible or identifiable. This issue has historically been further compounded by the fact that by the time socially mobile candidates ‘make it’ they may feel the pressure, either actual or perceived, to fit in and hide their roots.

One of the recent significant advances in this area is the adoption of contextual recruitment by many law firms to avoid the arbitrary list of diverse talent via a fixed set of criteria of grades and university choice. Instead, contextual recruitment looks more holistically at the candidate’s achievements via the context of both personal and educational factors.

A huge issue in regards to pipelines is making sure that candidates don’t self-select themselves out. As Barry Matthews of ITV comments, in the cohort of young people in the Legal Social Mobility Partnership (LSMP), a significant amount of focus has been developed to consider issues of confidence and resilience, often via the use of sports and performance psychology training.

As Matthews told us, if a socially mobile candidate is unsure of their career choice anyhow, and then receives a rejection from a training contract application, they may consider it just proof they should not pursue a career in law. A more socially affluent candidate who knows people in the legal sector will probably know that this is part of the process and just move into the next application. This is where, as pointed out by Sandie Okoro in regards to mentoring, teaching about failure is as important as teaching about success.

Most of us agree that there is a clear business case for embedding diversity and inclusion deeper in our business. It stimulates creativity, helps to meet the needs of our diverse customer base and delivers better overall performance.

Continue reading “A CEO’s perspective on diversity and inclusion”

The role of the in-house lawyer

One thing which interested us in this research is how much the lawyer in a company is uniquely placed to be a driving force for diversity and inclusion. A number of interviewees, who are highly visible advocates for diversity and inclusion, do feel that lawyers are particularly well-placed to drive this agenda forward. On a conceptual level this is partly because, ‘it is fundamental to the DNA of a lawyer’, according to Tim Hailes of J.P. Morgan. ‘There is just an inherent dislike of injustice, discrimination and unfairness that speaks very powerfully to equality of opportunity and fair treatment of all people.’

Kristin McFetridge at BT echoes this, bringing the perspective of the importance of lawyers in realising change in the US in regards to civil rights.‘I think back to the US case [Brown v Board of Education, concerning segregation in education] where it was decided that ‘separate but equal’ was no longer binding law. The judiciary really needed to bring about change. Lawyers need to be critical thinkers about what is right and fair and just, and so personally I think we do need to set a standard.’

In practical terms the in-house lawyer often has a good oversight of the entirety of the company and can bring the perspective of what is legal and ethical to bear. The in-house legal function can also assist proactively with training initiatives by situating this very firmly in the context of inclusivity not only being desirable but that it is illegal to discriminate. As Jorge Roche at PageGroup describes: ‘We have successfully delivered a number of legal workshops to the business on D&I, equal opportunities training and actively support our different networks… my team supports many different regions where policy and legislation regarding equal opportunities differ. We have helped the business understand policy context and to develop the attitudes and beliefs that will allow them to see the value of working with people who are different to themselves.’

Sandie Okoro at HSBC Asset Management describes the lawyer’s ability to put theory into practice: ‘Lawyers have a skillset of seeing what’s not there; we can see the gaps and draw the necessary threads together. In a group situation, we may be more attuned to unconscious bias because we are simply used to looking for the gaps. You can ask lawyers those very simple questions about how to embed something and take it from the theory to the practice. We’re good at that because that’s our everyday job − we can help organisations get to a better place.’

One of the main ways in which in-house lawyers are potentially effecting change via their roles is in their capacity as purchasers of legal services. Our interviewees point to the fact that this imperative is currently less developed in the UK than it is in the US but that, nonetheless, it remains a key way in which clients can force change and engagement whether that is explicit or implicit. It’s a tactic that some are embracing. As Funke Abimbola told us: ‘a significant proportion [of law firms] won’t [change] unless it hits them in the pocket. On one level, we should set aside the business case and things that the McKinsey report have found and focus on the fact that this is the right thing to do, bringing a broader mix of talent. Clients are more diverse anyway, and you could be missing out on the top talent.’

This view was echoed by respondents to our survey, of which 61% felt fielding a diverse team was important for legal suppliers.

Avoiding box-ticking

Authenticity is a term that came up again and again during our interviews and is seen as being crucial to the success of diversity and inclusion in companies. This cuts two ways, in regards to how seriously organisations take D&I and the resources of those who work for them.

A common theme in our research was that diverse candidates also need to be the best candidates for the job, and prioritising diverse access over quality will ultimately move the case for diversity and inclusion backwards. As Raphael Mokades of Rare Recruitment comments: ‘People have to get in on their own merit but if the system to hire them is broken then they won’t get in at all.’ Tim Hailes at J.P. Morgan expands on this, saying professional credibility and achievement comes first. ‘That then makes the diversity conversation resonate more effectively and more strategically within an organisation.’

Getting in is only part of the process; a variety of research suggests that unless minorities progress then there is a lack of engagement and retention, as Lesley Wan of Lloyds remarks: ‘If diverse colleagues are not making it through the ranks, then business leaders should reflect on why this is happening and provide training to upskill those colleagues so they can proceed on an equal footing.’

This is really where diversity becomes inclusion. The variety of initiatives we consider in this report become meaningless if diverse candidates enter through the front door and exit through the back.

An implicit and, in some cases, explicit finding was that unless there is true ownership and engagement from leadership, then it’s hard to make diversity and inclusion really become a cultural imperative and part of the company’s DNA. As Patrick Rowe of Accenture summarises it:

‘Demonstrate and promote the right things, because diversity isn’t soft and fluffy, or an adjunct to HR, but it is an essential business priority. Someone very senior has to own it. We have someone who is responsible for it in the executive committee, not in HR, but a senior business leader, in addition to her day job, but then all executive members are accountable for tracking and measuring “what are you doing differently, how are you making a step change?”’

Where next?

In our quantitative survey we asked what in-house lawyers in the UK thought was the future challenge for diversity and inclusion in their organisations, and the responses broke down thus:

Interestingly, despite a lot of focus on gender, the majority of our respondents still feel there is work that needs to be done.

The focus on social mobility also echoes a range of recent studies which show this is a pertinent issue for the legal industry in Britain. A 2015 study by The Sutton Trust and PRIME showed that about half of partners at top law firms were privately educated, compared with 7% of the population as a whole. Indeed, the research also confirmed that social mobility hasn’t improved substantially within the law since the 1980s.

The picture in-house according to our research seems a little rosier, with a number of our interviewees working on initiatives to bring socially disadvantaged young people into the industry, via work experience, mentoring and even in-house training contracts. But in many cases it’s a question of making sure these efforts are started early enough to ensure the pipeline is there and candidates do not self-censor. A further consideration is that the increasing cost of higher education is making it more and more challenging for candidates from a working class background to consider this pathway and face years of debt.

While we feature a number of examples of companies proactively looking at social mobility, disability (including mental health) is something that was on the radar of many of the companies we spoke to, but is an area where work and focus is still developing. National Grid has had an initiative running for some years and group GC Alison Kay is now looking at ways to extend this to legal:

‘Within National Grid, we have been bringing in people with learning disabilities as part of an initiative called EmployAbility. We have partnered with local schools and taken young people who would have possibly gone into unemployment when finishing school, and instead have given them the opportunity to intern with us. We have kept the vast majority on full-time and are looking at how we can use these interns most effectively. We can and should bring them into our legal team and I’m convinced they would add richness and diversity to our work. The transformation of these people is absolutely outstanding; they come to us very shy, very nervous, unable to make eye contact, and they “graduate” with a vastly improved skillset and a growing confidence.’

It’s a focus that is significant for a number of companies – PageGroup plans to roll out its Ability@Page initiative at the end of this year which will include a focus on mental health and wellbeing.

It’s a focus that is prescient – certainly according to our survey and also corroborated by external studies. An oft-cited 1990 study by John Hopkins University found that lawyers were nearly four times more likely to suffer from depression than the general population. The continuing focus on the issue of well being in the legal profession suggest this demographic may not have significantly changed.

Inclusion

Really the most significant challenge is inclusivity, and changing culture so that none of this matters.

Our work in this report suggests that making sure there is a truly viable pipeline of candidates, and that the barrier for entry is not stacked against them, is vital. Barriers to entry may include implicit bias, self-censorship by the candidates themselves, or hiring practices which fail adequately to judge potential to actually perform as a lawyer versus past academic performance.

We discuss both initiatives and in the final section of this report consider the practical building blocks which are needed to make these work. We also, via our interviews, consider the importance of viable authentic role models and true consistent championship of diversity at leadership level. Also fundamental is the retention and upward movement of diverse candidates into leadership positions.

What all of these things essentially speak to is a truly fundamental cultural shift. That then becomes the litmus test of an inclusive company. As diversity consultant Vernå Myers puts it:

‘Diversity is being asked to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.’

The people in any business are the critical element in providing a competitive edge. As you will see in this report which contains excellent examples of best practice, a diverse workforce does not just make good business sense, it makes societal sense as well. It’s the smart thing to do.

Continue reading “Diversity – the external counsel perspective”

One aspect we felt was key in approaching this project was to have a certain amount of practical guidance. We asked all of our interviewees for some tips when we spoke to them.

We have synthesised these into some thoughts and frameworks for approaching the different aspects of diversity and inclusion.

Diversity is more than what can be seen

It’s easy to think of diversity and inclusion as something about ‘them’ – but the reality is, diversity is all about you. Diversity is a much broader issue and will impact the vast majority of people in their careers.

Top Tip: Start with you. Why is this important to you? If you can clearly articulate that and make that central to your message, it will be easier to convince others.

Ask yourself if you have the time, energy and commitment to make your idea a reality.

Lesley Wan from Lloyds Bank has run a number of D&I projects, including some independently of her organisation. Her advice is: ‘Be agile in your thinking and flexible as to how you structure your project.’

Set a clear vision

Think – what does a diverse and inclusive workplace look like?

Approach other thought leaders, think tanks or charities to help define and refine your vision and understand what best practice really is.

Understand what best practice might look like for your company.

It’s not about building quotas or hitting numbers, but rather, creating an environment where the message is embedded in your corporate DNA. Tim Hailes of J.P. Morgan advised to keep thinking about the ‘soft cultural indica.’

Targets and measures can be helpful but are often more effective when approached as a product of, or in tandem with, cultural change.

Top Tip: Start with one definable project such as a networking group, mentoring programme or work experience project.

Getting strategic buy in

If diversity is truly to take root within an organisation, it has to be a core business initiative – not an addendum tacked onto the tail end of a human resources policy. To achieve that, strategic buy-in from the top table is essential.

Knowing the touch points for your industry and business is crucial here. Decide what will be more compelling – internal or external drivers.

From an internal perspective, embracing diversity and inclusion in the workplace has been proven to improve employee engagement, creativity and innovation.

Ask yourself:

Do you need sponsorship for your project? Will this be internal or include external sponsorship? External sponsorship can assist in helping to gain traction with internal buy-in. Look at your current network and make a target list of potential sponsors/supporters who can help you.

Do you need funding? Be clear in what you need to start and what it will be being used for before you make approaches. Be prepared to show potential return on investment even if this is only hypothetical. Figures from consultants such as McKinsey (see below) can be helpful with this.

Top Tip: What tends to be universally convincing – regardless of the business and industry – is the overall effect on the bottom line. When McKinsey & Co investigated the effect of diversity on the composition of boardrooms in Europe, those which ranked in the top quartile for executive diversity handily outperformed their less-diverse peers, earning on average 53% higher ROE (return on equity) and 14% higher EBIT (earnings before interest and tax).

Take stock of where you stand now

How do your current policies operate in practice – both soft and hard rules? There is sometimes a gap between policy and practice so be aware of both sides when evaluating the picture.

Consider all policies which relate to the employee life cycle; recruitment and attraction, on-boarding, performance assessment, training and development, and career advancement. Think – how do these align with the organisation we are now and the diverse and inclusive organisation we want to be?

Surveys and focus groups may help with this process of evaluation.

Top Tip: Set limits and rules for this evaluation process so it does not spiral out of control.

Track, monitor and re-evaluate

It’s an old management cliché, but ‘what gets measured, gets done.’ Start with a baseline level to work from and goals for the organisation in place – both aspirational and tangible.

Remember though, you have to be counted to count, and diversity goes far beyond our visible differences. While characteristics like race and gender are more outwardly evident, factors like sexuality, socio-economic background and disability are not necessarily obvious.

Be prepared to engage in a constant process of evaluation, re-evaluation and repositioning the goal posts. Diversity is a fluid process and it will take time to adjust.

Top Tip: Don’t let the measurements obscure the importance of more subjective indicators and the need for cultural change. The numbers can be good but the experience can be awful if cultural change has not really taken root.

Creating an inclusive workplace

When people don’t feel comfortable being their true self, they’re investing emotional energy into censoring themselves and adjusting their behavior to fit in. That energy and thought power could be harnessed far more effectively into productive areas, once those barriers are removed.

Top Tip: Role models are key here. Role models show the possibility of success and are a fantastic way to inspire hope.

Network groups are a good means of creating a dialogue with key identity groups.

But remember network groups don’t just have to talk about diversity and inclusion. Some companies use their networks as a great way to get employees’ perspectives on key strategic issues and approach problems in a different way. This can then be a clear example of the strategic benefits of diversity in avoiding ‘group think.’

Ally programmes show that the initiatives are about everyone and are fundamental in promoting the idea of a safe workplace. This can be especially key in jurisdictions where for legal or cultural reasons, certain identity groups have to be less visible.

Develop strong role models

Are there any obvious role models already within the organisation?

According to Sandie Okoro of HSBC Asset Management, telling the story from a place of authenticity is the real crux of being a role model. This can be done on a small scale initially and then potentially used as part of a larger project down the line.

Top Tip: To get strategic buy-in and make any D&I project truly meaningful it’s got to be seen to be about merit – highlighting role models that are good at their job first, and who happen to be diverse second.

Discover the different paths to leadership in the management of your organisation. There may be interesting stories you don’t know as not all diversity is visible.

Role models don’t necessarily have to be part of the community or group they are championing – in fact, sometimes the opposite can be even more powerful. For example, at PageGroup the champion of Pride@Page, their LGBT network, is a straight man.

But be sensitive as to how non-community role models are presented. Best practice advice from internal sources, network groups, other organisations and think tanks for example can all be helpful here.

The pipeline

It’s not you, it’s me…

Start with yourself. If you are responsible for hiring, make sure you are always asking for or considering a diverse pool.

If your company sees diverse candidates but they don’t make it though the interview process, consider unconscious bias training to assess whether there are factors with how candidates are viewed.

If you cannot find diverse candidates, ask why?

Are your criteria wrong?

Interrogate the criteria in place – is a 2:1 from a Russell Group university essential or nice to have?

Try and think laterally in terms of what skills the roles require outside of academic qualifications.

Top Tip: Consider techniques such as blind CVs and contextual hiring.

Are you looking in the wrong places?

Outreach programmes and work experience programmes with schools can be key here. Support is available from organisations such as The Sutton Trust, PRIME and LSMP.

Our interviewees who run work experience all counsel that it is less work than you may think. Once you develop a programme it can be re-used year on year and refined each time. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every intake.

The infrastructure and CSR capability of law firms you use can be a significant help.

What is your messaging like? Is there a photo of a white man in a suit on all job adverts? A picture can speak a thousand words.

Agility – changing the way we work

Often we don’t think about how we are working and make assumptions that this is just how it has always been and how it will always be. Consider how traditional working practices may be impacting your attraction and retention of talent.

What is needed to get your job done – what’s the optimum mix working on a computer versus face-to-face interaction?

Technology is crucial for this, so evaluate whether your workplace is currently set up to allow for truly agile or flexible working.

Thinking about jobs in terms of hours worked over a week or a month, rather than on a daily basis can be liberating in determining what is needed to do a job; as can focusing more on projects or outcomes.

How much does it come down to outcomes versus time? Increasingly companies are focusing on outcome-based approaches versus time in the workplace.

Top Tip: Agile working can be a way of being truly inclusive, as most successful companies we spoke to use it on a universal basis. These include Barclays, Unilever and Accenture. This can have other benefits such as impacting space needed in the workplace, as well as real estate costs.

Mentoring

Top Tip: Individual fit between the mentor and mentee is the most significant aspect. Don’t skimp on the time and energy invested in this part of the process. Kristin McFetridge of BT tells us: ‘If someone doesn’t connect with their mentor, despite all the will in the world, it will be fruitless.’ Talk to architects of successful mentoring programmes to find out what works.

Think laterally, as mentors don’t have to be in the same business line as their mentees. In certain cases, going outside of the organisation may even be best.

Make sure you set really clear boundaries for both time and outcomes. As Sandie Okoro cautions: ‘People come to you because you have been successful and they want to share that success. Being a mentor is not the same as being a sponsor, so make sure they are very clear that they are your mentee.’

Don’t come with preconceived ideas as a mentor or assume that the only right way is the way you have chosen.

Be prepared to talk about failure as well as success as a mentor.

Let the mentee set the pace of communication but also be aware of your own limitations in regards to time.

Be aware of cultural differences in communication styles when mentoring. Double check that the other person has understood you and that there is no misunderstanding by checking in with neutral questions.

Setting a reasonable but finite time boundary for the relationship can be helpful in terms of both manageability and measuring effectiveness. Most of our interviewees found a year worked well as an initial starting point.

Don’t go it alone

Use your own network and beyond; reach out to other companies who have programmes you admire and think could work within your own organisation.

Remember that diversity is all about inclusion – so don’t be afraid to engage one of the multitude of external organisations which exist to support diversity. Whether it’s looking for the facts, figures and metrics that help build a strong strategic case for management, or support with implementing diversity initiatives within your business – there is no shortage of organisations willing to provide assistance and resources to help get diversity across the line.