Category: Interviews

Alison Gaskins (AG): As Chair of the Legal Diversity and Inclusion Council, I am ultimately responsible for fostering a culture in legal in which we can share and appreciate our perspectives and differences, and where colleagues can properly express who they are. My predecessors, Judith Shepherd and Erica Handling, did an outstanding job running D&I in the past and so it makes me think that there is something in the lawyer role that shares kinship with this effort, possibly because in the classic sense, lawyers have to operate without prejudice, taking a big picture view in all we do.

 

Bob Hoyt, Barclays Group General Counsel, is very passionate about collaboration. He sees legal as being uniquely placed to work across all boundaries and siloes within an organisation, and diversity is a great place to see this in practice.

GC: Is your diversity and inclusion strategy primarily driven by internal factors, external pressures or both?

AG: Definitely both. We want people to feel very comfortable working at Barclays. The same is true within legal – we want people to thrive, whoever they are and whatever they feel.

We have the aspiration and objective to be the employer of choice for D&I. It is not an HR-driven agenda; instead it comes right from the Barclays Executive Committee and is prevalent through our culture, activities, communities and as part of our day-to-day narrative.

Internally, we have five global agendas covering Gender, Disability, Multigenerational, Multicultural and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) and we have internal employee networks assigned to these five agendas. These are each sponsored by a member of the Executive Committee, so we have very senior sponsorship and leadership, which gives them a profile.

Externally, ultimately we are a customer-facing organisation, and one key thing you want to present back to your customer is a mirror image of local communities and themselves. Is there connectivity, sameness, a rapport… and is it felt? Even with our products and client services we try to bring in D&I. We think about vulnerable customers with innovations like talking ATMs and Skype-based banking using sign language. Our UK branch network is very innovative from a D&I perspective. We also launched a Barclays card mobile capability at Gay Pride in London.

GC: What is the impact of diversity on perceptions of the company?

AG: We try and engage with external organisations such as Stonewall and Working Mother. Where there are opportunities to actually seek recognition from them, we actively pursue this.

We offer a lot of in-house training and we take opportunities to get that externally referenced as well because it is important to validate our progress without it becoming a numerical exercise. External affirmations help endorse what we are already doing.

GC: What is the role of the in-house Legal team in creating diversity and inclusion initiatives? Can the Legal team have an effect on the identity of the organisation?

AG: My predecessors Judith Shepherd and Erica Handling were hugely influential in this space, and created a connection in the mind of the organisation regarding the effectiveness of legal in this whole agenda, primarily (but not exclusively) from a gender perspective. If you think about the role lawyers play as custodians of managing risk, there is a sense that what legal takes seriously is a mark of what Barclays takes seriously – a connection of influence there.

We think about our functional role in two ways: one is ensuring that lawyers feel part of the central agenda of the organisation and are not working in isolation. That goes back to there being a natural affinity of value here – legal working without boundaries across Barclays.

The other is our commitment in Barclays and in legal to dynamic working. Dynamic working can be defined as a method of making sure that all colleagues can structure and balance their work and life successfully. Flexible working often constitutes a change in your working hours, while dynamic working may be just doing the same hours from a different place. It becomes about the value of outputs, not where and how. People associate flexible working with the working mothers agenda, so dynamic working pushes it to a broader meaning and audience.

With our dynamic working and multigenerational working (responsibility for elderly parents can be a big factor), we try to acknowledge that people are both parents and carers. These discussions can start with our well-funded employee networks, which are driving that agenda for change.

GC: Multigenerational working sounds interesting. What are the specific challenges involved in introducing a commitment to this?

AG: Our multigenerational agenda has been part of Barclays’ diversity strategy for years. The core of the agenda is to support colleagues through each stage of their lives and careers. We do this in many different ways. Through our employee network groups; for instance, the Working Family network (which supports working parents and caregivers), the Emerge network (colleagues who are in the early stages of their careers, primarily Generations X and Y) and our Military network (colleagues who are typically entering banking as a second or third career). Or through the dynamic working campaign, which is about helping people manage their working lives.

And then also through various other programmes and initiatives, like our ‘Be Well’ campaign, which supports good health and wellbeing, and Barclays’ ‘Bolder Apprenticeships’ programme, which aims to address the increasing rate of older – generation unemployment.

We’re soon going to have five generations working together in the workplace and so I think you will see a keener focus on how we foster more intergenerational understanding. This will certainly be one of our focus areas at Barclays.

GC: What are the key challenges you face around getting buy-in across departments?

AG: One challenge we face at Barclays is trying to remain impactful within a very complex, global organisation and operating structure. We have colleagues with multifaceted roles in Barclays and it is, at times, challenging for global diversity campaigns to touch different individuals in a real and authentic way.

However, the biggest challenge is not the buy-in, it’s getting people to figure out what to do. We don’t have an army of people behind the employee networks – it is astonishingly small in terms of people driving the agenda. But it needs to be led from the top down and embedded in every part, irrespective of how big or small you are. It is about whether people feel accountable at all levels and all areas. It is not about the job title – 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.

A really big part of all this is that anyone can be a part of the network group. You just need to be sympathetic.

GC: What are the future challenges for Barclays in regards to D&I?

AG: D&I takes time to permeate, and part of it is not knowing what’s on the horizon: you can’t always anticipate huge societal changes. Our multigenerational programme is a really good example of that − increased retirement age and longer working lives were there far earlier than anyone actually started thinking about them as an employer. It is about seeing those societal shifts happening, and ideally pre-empting them. In our Emerge network (with millennials), we talk a lot about what it means to be a millennial, and then a large, 325-year-old organisation like Barclays looks at that and thinks ‘What do we do? We aren’t geared up for that type of employee!’ But the reality is that they are coming, they are here. We are trying to plan for the unexpected.

The other question is how you keep momentum going. You have to keep your nerve. You need someone at the helm who is senior enough to carry clout and credibility, but if that figurehead leaves, you have to keep on. It needs to be about more than one person.

The first thing to say about the LGBT dimension of diversity is that it is the one ‘strand’ that can choose to be invisible. The importance of role models is probably therefore even more pronounced because people can come into work and choose to be ‘invisible’ in a way you cannot if you are a woman, or if you are from a particular ethnic background, or if you are disabled. Some types of disability are not visible, of course, but it seems to me that role models become even more important in these contexts, especially high profile and successful role models who address that issue of invisibility.

People may recall what that meant for J. P. Morgan; in 2002 we addressed the issue very tangibly with a cross campus poster campaign which subsequently got wide coverage in the legal press: ‘The Only Gay In The City?’ and ‘Let’s Get One Thing Straight’ and it was enormously impactful. We put it everywhere, across the trading floors, etc (taking it a step further from the usual internal communication areas), and things snowballed from there.

Back in mid-2000, we, along with a number of the other investment banks, were involved in ‘Out In The City’, which was an annual evening event involving panels of employees from various functional groups with a Q&A and presentations. We collectively put money into a pot and brought together a cadre of 60/70 high calibre students, who just happened to be LGBT. We held the event at a neutral venue and gave an opportunity for each of the graduate recruitment teams to have a stand, as well as formal and informal networking with staff. I would often chair the Q&A panels. I can remember talking to students who said ‘I never thought I would meet a gay MD at an investment bank’. Time has moved on, of course, but I believe experiences like this could be invaluable for some aspiring lawyers.

Although there is an element of truth in the statement that you have to be ‘counted in order to count’, I am generally quite skeptical of statistics. I know it is a component of many RFPs, but I have always said that statistics are only one element of the toolkit you could use to assess progress on inclusive workplace environments. I am a greater advocate of ‘soft cultural indicia’ – the messaging you are sending out in your corporate DNA – which are somewhat subjective relative to hard numbers. Clear signals of these are employee networking groups and other support structures including workplace benefits. I can remember a conversation at the establishment of the Joint Associations Committee on Retail Structured Products (which I chair): ‘Well, we are going to comply with the law and regulation so why do we need industry principles or best practices?’ Law firms have made leaps and bounds on this and there has been some very creative thinking in firms about leveraging diverse networks of lawyers across the spectrum of business relationships with clients – for example the annual Art Exhibition that Clifford Chance organises for LGBT clients and counsel.

Fundamentally though, I think it all comes down to professional credibility – to competence, commitment and character. I am keen to be the managing director of J.P. Morgan who is gay – not a gay MD at J.P. Morgan. And one ambition is to be the first Lord Mayor of the City of London who is openly gay – not The Gay Lord Mayor. Professional credibility and achievement comes first (being really good at your job), not diversity as some sort of predefining label – because that is just the wrong way around. That then makes the diversity conversation resonate more effectively and more strategically within an organisation, otherwise it can rapidly generate the perception of a clique with its own set of terms, which is rather ironic when it is supposed to be about inclusion not exclusiveness. If there is a credible business outcome on talent, on organisational effectiveness and performance, then that gets more traction with decision-makers than someone who is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as only advancing a self-interested agenda, however ‘worthy’ it might be at face value.

I am also 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, and 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.

J.P. Morgan is rightly proud to have been a front runner in LBGT initiatives, but it has been an iterative process. There was an element of nervousness at first: partly people were unfamiliar with the issues, and also there was just a degree of ignorance. I genuinely don’t mean that at all pejoratively. I think there was perhaps a bit of hesitation about asking the questions, but a great deal of goodwill. I can remember we had a successful networking event at the V&A which leveraged an exhibition of Kylie Minogue’s costumes. We threw an event there off the back of this and I wrote a briefing paper to Bill Winters, our former CEO, and other senior colleagues. It was an aide memoir of the different vocabulary used in the LGBT community (such as ‘Why is Stonewall important?’ and ‘What’s the “T” in LGBT?), trying to answer some of the questions not asked before that point. There was an element of a learning curve but there was no resistance or hostility at all. In a sense we were pushing at an open door – it just had to be articulated. This was in 2003/2004, and I would be very surprised if that was necessary in most organisations now. Society has moved on, but the private sector’s paradigm has definitely shifted too, certainly in professional and financial services. I suppose it is valid to ask whether you are actually affecting change or harnessing the undercurrent of change that is already flowing under the surface? I think there has been a bit of the ‘right place, right time’ here, but someone had to edge it constructively forward.

We are confident that LGBT candidates have applied to J.P. Morgan in part because they see the legal department as a welcoming and inclusive place. I have people in my own group who are LGBT and if you asked them whether that was relevant in their deciding to come to us, I think they would say yes. There has also been academic research that demonstrates that places that are welcoming to LGBT are also generally welcoming to women, and that women were looking at that material and basing judgments on where they wanted to work based on that information. Visible role models communicate powerfully that you can be successful, and that being who you are is a non-issue.

What are the strategic imperatives and benefits for J.P. Morgan? Well, I think a balance of different perspectives and the way in which that informs an individual’s approach to an issue, from who they are and what their life experiences have been, can only be of benefit to a franchise which is fundamentally about people and service. The classic example is law firms. You assume a basic technical competence in the law, so beyond that, what are the differentiators? How creatively do they think? Who sees the different angle to the obvious? This is also true for financial services to an extent. If are homogeneous in your recruiting, you do yourself, your clients and your shareholders a disservice, because the creative energy comes from difference. This is an incredibly vibrant and healthy thing and it ultimately contributes to the bottom line.

I think the ‘buzzwords’ that get knocked around are ‘talent’, ‘people development’, etc, but the plain fact of the matter is that the best people come in all shapes, sizes, colours, sexualities and so forth, and any firm premised on people capital that fails to get that fundamental fact won’t succeed in the face of the competition that does. So do I think I personally approach things in a way that is informed by my own professional and personal experiences, that it is different than the way, for example, a heterosexual man or a woman might approach things? Yes, I do – though it doesn’t make me anymore right or wrong with the answers!

I think lawyers are in a unique position on this topic, being potentially powerful advocates and respected and trusted advisers. However, one of the differences between a lawyer in a bank and a lawyer in a law firm is that in a law firm you are the ‘front office’ – the revenue generators – and when you go in-house you reverse that and become a cost (!). What both law firm and in-house counsel have in common is an inherent sense of equity, fairness and justice, as well as the intellectual rigour of the discipline. Most lawyers I know have a basic instinct to do the right thing irrespective of their practice area. It is fundamental to the DNA of a lawyer, even when it isn’t necessarily popular or what people want to hear on a particular issue. There is just an inherent dislike of injustice, discrimination, unfairness, that speaks very powerfully to equality of opportunity and fair treatment of all people.

Carolyn Jameson (CJ): We try to address diversity in everything we do. For instance, we adopt flexible working hours. We don’t really have core hours and essentially we say to people, ‘you work to suit you’. It really helps personally for me − I’ve got three kids.

Continue reading “Interview: Carolyn Jameson, chief legal officer, Skyscanner”

I think there is something about risk aversion within the legal profession, and I think there is this notion that if you widen your intake, to diversify your staff base, you might somehow lower standards or you might compromise excellence. There’s no evidence for this whatsoever – and there’s partly no evidence because they’re not hiring these people in the first place!

Continue reading “Interview: David Johnston, chief executive, Social Mobility Foundation”

Diversity and inclusion within National Grid and the legal team has been a priority over the last 12 years. We have an aim to mirror the populations we serve. National Grid does a lot of work in communities; we are involved with work on power lines and digging up streets – we are out there and people expect to see a diverse workforce.

Continue reading “Interview: Alison Kay, chief legal officer, National Grid”

Do lawyers have a key part to play in diversity and inclusion (D&I)? My gut says yes, we have elevated responsibilities in terms of fiduciary duties and as regulated professionals, so I believe we should hold ourselves to a heightened standard, but everyone has a role to play. I wouldn’t want to say that legal has an obligation to do anything different to the rest of our colleagues, but the fact is we are often, as a profession, at the forefront of things. I don’t think anyone should abdicate their responsibility towards D&I – because it is ultimately about doing the right thing.

Continue reading “Interview: Kristin McFetridge, chief counsel, portfolio products and standards, BT”

GC: Can you give me an idea of how and why you started Rare Recruitment?

Continue reading “Interview: Raphael Mokades, founder, Rare Recruitment”

GC: Is your diversity and inclusion approach primarily driven by internal factors or external pressures?

Continue reading “Interview: Sandie Okoro, general counsel, HSBC Global Asset Management”

Vodafone as a whole has a D&I strategy, which covers the three Cs: colleagues, customers and communities. ‘Colleagues’ is what we do for employees. We work hard to make sure there’s a talent and gender balance in every team, we look at career life stages, and then we look at making sure there’s an inclusive culture.

Continue reading “Interview: Kerry Phillip, legal director, Vodafone Group Enterprise”