Case study: Enhancing inclusion

In April 2006 Herbert Smith appointed a dedicated diversity and inclusivity manager to provide clear direction on the firm’s diversity programme.

By Martina Asmar, partner, Herbert Smith

Diversity has been growing in importance in the legal sector over the past few years. While it is generally true to say UK law firms have been slower off the mark than US investment banks and global corporates, increasing emphasis on diversity from clients, staff and potential recruits has meant they have finally begun to take the issue seriously.

The business case for diversity

Diversity, quite simply, makes good business sense. The business environment and the demographics of the working population are both changing. If organisations do not keep pace, they will find it harder to win business. And if they fail to recruit and retain the best people, they will suffer as the marketplace becomes more competitive and employee-centred.

A demonstrable commitment to diversity is becoming an integral part of being a top-quality firm that people want to join. It embraces a way of dealing with people to a higher standard than before, and demonstrates a commitment to employer excellence. It is also an opportunity to differentiate. On the flip side, failing to recognise the need for change represents a sizeable business risk, as well as a blinkered approach to future demands on law firms.

At Herbert Smith the business case for diversity and inclusion includes the following key points:

· Recruitment. Like any professional-services organisation, the business is based on selling talent. We want to recruit the best people in a marketplace where there is increasing competition for the best people. To do this, we need to recruit from as broad a pool as possible. We need to move away from just recruiting the stereotypes – white, middle class, Oxbridge-educated – and find recruits from sections of society that have not traditionally pursued law as a career, including people who are black or minority ethnic (BME), who have studied at the new universities, or those who have perhaps taken a less traditional route into law;

· Retention. It is not enough to recruit the best people. We need to keep people for the long term, invest in their development, and be responsive to their needs as they change over time. For example, we need to consider whether they will stay when they have families or assume other caring responsibilities;

· Reduction of costs. Recruitment and training are costly. Failing to get a return on this investment is significantly more so. Good recruitment and retention strategies, where people we want to keep want to stay, will mean the cost of bringing in lateral hires is reduced, and money spent training people who might otherwise leave in their early years post-qualification is money well-spent;

· Winning business. Many of our clients are global, and see diversity as a given. They see it in their own teams and working environments on a daily basis. They want to work with people who have an understanding of different markets and cultures. It is commonly asked how a non-diverse team can understand the dynamics of a team that has diversity in its gender or ethnic make-up. There is also some evidence to show that diverse teams, when properly managed, can be more innovative and creative than teams of people who approach things from similar backgrounds or experiences;

· Leading from the front. Diversity is important in building brand. If we are known to be putting the principles of diversity and inclusion into practice in our organisation, we will have an opportunity to differentiate ourselves. At the same time, negative publicity, whether justified or not, has the potential to damage reputation;

· Risk management. Anti-discrimination laws place the responsibility for managing discrimination with employers. If the firm permits a culture where comments that can be construed as sexist, racist or homophobic prevail, even if in jest, it is exposing itself to potential lawsuits.

Diversity leadership

The inclusivity group set up by Herbert Smith in 2003 is made up of partners and senior support staff. I have chaired it since its inception, but the partners on the committee have changed over time to enable the introduction of fresh ideas and to involve more partners. There are a number of key objectives, namely to:

Heighten awareness of diversity and inclusion in the firm and embed it in the culture and infrastructure;
Research and review all areas of diversity and inclusion in the firm;
Recommend appropriate actions to be taken and oversee implementation of any agreed action plans;
Promote initiatives to address issues facing particular groups who are under-represented across the firm, or at certain levels;
Monitor compliance with the relevant regulations.

The inclusivity group has a wide remit. It was decided in 2005, however, that although good progress was being made, we should employ a dedicated diversity manager. This decision arose from recognition that the partners and support staff on the Inclusivity Group simply did not have the time or the depth of specialist knowledge to be able to roll out an in-depth, integrated and unified diversity programme across the firm. In order to build on success, we needed to employ someone with diversity experience that could drive the strategy forward.

Carolyn Lee started as our full-time, dedicated diversity and inclusion manager in April 2006. Her role covers all aspects of diversity, from visible diversity – including age, ethnicity, gender, and physical disability – to less visible aspects of diversity, which can include mental disability, religion, sexual orientation, class and educational background, as well as bullying and harassment issues. She works with the Inclusivity Group on a strategic level, developing the firm’s diversity agenda, researching and proposing new diversity initiatives and ensuring existing initiatives are working effectively on a day-to-day basis. She also works with external best-practice organisations, such as Opportunity Now, Race for Opportunity, Stonewall and the Employers’ Forums on Age and Disability, ensuring we keep abreast of current thinking in the various diversity strands, and to network and share experiences with other organisations from across the City.

Initiatives

In order to progress initiatives successfully, it was decided to start by identifying what mattered to the staff – developing a strategy that met these priorities while also moving towards best practice.

Flexible working

The firm first conducted an employee-opinion survey on diversity issues, which highlighted flexible working as a key priority. Although there are a number of people on very successful flexible-working arrangements, we recognised a need to update the policy, as well as to promote existing success stories more widely. We have since run discussion groups on flexible working with staff, involving them in the review and the relaunch of the flexible-working policy, and published case studies highlighting successful arrangements from part-time and working from home, to job-sharing and term-time working.

Graduate recruitment

We have also put particular emphasis on diversity in the context of graduate recruitment, recognising the desire to access a broader talent pool. We have worked with GTI Legal Chances to broaden our access to potential BME recruits, and have hosted events for the National Mentoring Consortium and the Black Solicitors Network.

In the past year, we have also participated in the National Mentoring Consortium’s ‘Next Steps’ mentoring programme, which involves pairing penultimate-year student mentees at a range of UK universities with people working in the City, in global corporates and in public-sector organisations. Our ten students have come from London universities and have been paired with mentors from both the fee-earning and business-support areas of Herbert Smith. The feedback from mentors and mentees has been very positive, while we plan to continue with the programme as part of our graduate-recruitment diversity strategy.

Our diversity work in graduate recruitment is not only focused on ethnicity though. In 2005 for instance, we held a successful open day in conjunction with the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities, which led to a number of participants seeking additional work experience. It is an initiative we are looking to repeat over the coming year. We work with Blind in Business, offering work placements to blind and partially-sighted students, and in 2006 we participated for the first time in the Stonewall recruitment guide, Starting Out, aimed at lesbian, gay and bisexual graduates and job-seekers.

Staff networks

The engagement of staff is integral to the success of the diversity and inclusion strategy. If diversity is something driven by HR and imposed on the business, it loses credibility and smacks of mere political correctness. One major new initiative to engage and involve staff is the creation of staff network groups.

In the corporate sector, staff networks are the norm. They are recognised as tools that can assist retention by establishing a sense of community and encouraging loyalty in an organisation. They also address difference, recognising that people from different backgrounds, cultures, sexual orientations etc. often have different needs. This is not positive discrimination, but a recognition that one size does not fit all. We can use staff networks to address personal and professional development needs, and to help develop mentors and role models across the organisation. The benefit is not all one-way, however. They also give us a diversity-aware group of people to use in policy changes and the development of strategy, as well as presenting opportunities for business development with client networks.

The women’s network, ‘Herbert Smith Women in Business’, launched in February 2007, and we believe it is one of the first internally-focused women’s networks in a City law firm. It is open to all staff across the firm, and is run by a committee of women from both the fee-earning and support areas. It is co-chaired by a partner and a senior associate, and is sponsored by two partners. At the launch event, former Speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd talked about building her career in the male-dominated world of politics. The event was attended by close to 200 internal attendees from across the firm, as well as a number of clients. The specific remit of the network includes recruitment, networking and career development. Speaker sessions, seminars, workshops and networking events are also planned for the coming year, alongside the development of an informal mentoring programme.

This network is only one of a number we are in the process of establishing. We are now in the formative stages of developing networks for family and work/life balance, sexual orientation, and ethnicity and multiculturalism, and we will establish more as the need requires.

Diversity training

Diversity-awareness training is also essential to our strategy, but it is a two-way process. It allows us to lead staff towards best practice in diversity, while also offering an opportunity to hear the concerns and priorities of the people we are training. The programme began in 2006, with the partners, senior support staff and sessions focused on behaviour and personal responsibility in the workplace. Using a combination of a facilitator and actors leading role-playing scenarios, we drew attention to overt and covert exclusionary behaviour, working with staff to understand the impact and encouraging them to think about best practice.

We are now rolling out a similar programme for the rest of the London staff. By the end of June, the majority will have undergone training in small groups using specialist diversity facilitators and forum theatre-style scenarios, working with trainers to establish best-practice behaviour.

Measuring success

Measuring success in a diversity strategy is notoriously difficult. Many of the seemingly obvious success measures (retention, winning new business, avoiding litigation) are attributable to more than just the successful implementation of the diversity agenda.

One way, of course, is through diversity monitoring and statistics, and we currently monitor employees for gender, ethnicity, disability and flexible working, and publish these statistics on our website. We also monitor applications for our vacation schemes and training contracts. Our forthcoming employee survey will monitor the spectrum of diversity represented in our workforce, and we will be introducing full diversity monitoring through our HR self-service portal later in 2007. It is dangerous to focus too much attention on statistics, however, and fail to recognise other measures of success. Most law firms have not been monitoring for long enough to generate meaningful statistics. Moreover, as diversity is relatively new to the UK legal sector, some strategies will take time to have an impact. Diversity is about changing culture and changing mindsets, which does not happen quickly.

Owning diversity is key. Any diversity strategy that relies entirely on a diversity committee or manager is only going to achieve limited success. Responsibility needs to be accepted by people at all levels in an organisation. When you have a firm with a growing number of people who can articulate the diversity agenda, contribute to the strategy, and demonstrate best practice, you have a strategy that is clearly achieving success.

Martina Asmar is chairman of Herbert Smith’s inclusivity group. She can be contacted at martina.asmar@herbertsmith.com