Collective conscious: Developing a firmwide approach to talent management

HR director Jill King shares Linklaters’ experiences in globalising firmwide approaches to talent management

Key takeaway points:

1. Identify the global ‘glue’ that differentiates your firm
2. Create a framework of global HR principles
3. Involve and enthuse your global HR team
4. Allow offices to self-assess against global goals
5. Be patient, but don’t be bound by the pace of the slowest
6. Build in aspiration and be prepared to seize opportunities

In a highly crowded legal market, there is increasing pressure to create competitive advantage. At the premium end of the market, having resources in all of the major business centres in the world is no longer competitively distinctive.

What will distinguish the new global elite is the ability to provide truly seamless global teamworking – where clients can be assured that the skills, expertise and motivation of individuals they work with are of a consistently high standard across every office and practice area in the firm.

While many firms have expanded internationally over the past ten years, many of them still operate as networks of offices rather than as truly integrated global organisations.

At Linklaters, we progressed over the years from a UK firm, to Linklaters and Alliance and, through a series of mergers, into a major international firm. We recognised, however, that we needed to take a step further to become a global organisation.

The firm was well placed to become a global organisation – we had a global governance structure, a ‘one firm’ lockstep remuneration system for partners and a single global IT platform. What we lacked however was the global ‘glue’ that would set us apart, with our people: 

• hired to the same global standards;
• trained, developed and evaluated by the same global criteria; and
• genuinely experiencing the same career ‘deal’ wherever they were based.

Initial steps

Our HR leadership team first discussed how we could support a shift towards a truly global firm at a meeting in Frankfurt in 2005. We asked:  

• What are the key ‘touchpoints’ that make the difference to our associates’ career experiences at the firm?
• What are the HR principles that are core to creating a consistent global career experience?
• What are the elements that should necessarily be approached differently on a local basis?

We recognised that each office had a number of HR policies and processes that were fiercely guarded – such as recruitment and performance management – and that each office was bound by different statutory legal systems with different cultures. We knew that one size would not fit all and that each office had a different starting point, depending on its history.

We also knew that it would take time to convince partners of the need for change towards a more globalised approach – we needed to set the direction and create the conditions for change, using the HR team as advocates of the business case for globalisation.

Establishing standards

Our HR leadership team set about developing a framework of global HR principles. The framework was designed to enable local HR teams to steer partners in their decision making in a consistent direction without compromising local requirements or cultural differences.

The framework was aspirational and provided challenges, but the principles were sufficiently (and deliberately) high level to allow local flexibility in their application.

The framework covered six key areas:

1. recruitment;
2. performance management;
3. career development and training;
4. remuneration and benefits;
5. flexibility and mobility; and
6. diversity and inclusion.

Against each area, the HR team discussed and agreed global principles and minimum requirements (see box: Performance management at Linklaters). We then asked each office, guided by its HR manager, to benchmark itself against the minimum standards using set categories (see Figure 1).

The process of self-evaluation helped local HR managers to engage partners with the process, without it being perceived as a centrally-driven exercise insensitive to local working practices and cultures. It also provided us with a picture of how advanced we were against the minimum standards in each office. This enabled us to support those with the most to do, and to learn from the experiences of those who were further ahead.

It was vital that the HR team believed in the benefits of a global approach and stood behind the principles. By involving local HR managers in the creation of the framework, we ensured they could see the business benefits and understood the essential role they had to play, but were not forced into one way of doing things or implementing change at a pace they could not sustain with the partners in their offices.

Performance management at Linklaters

Global principles

• We will foster a high-performance culture that promotes challenge and responsibility for everyone irrespective of location, position or background, and which is characterised by openness, trust, mutual respect and teamwork.
• We will provide an environment in which individuals understand what they need to do to develop their careers and provide learning opportunities that motivate and enable them to achieve their goals. This includes professional and personal development, work allocation and secondment opportunities.
• We will encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own personal development, with support from the firm.
• We will provide individuals with a clear, balanced and honest assessment about their current performance and future prospects. We will provide effective mentoring, coaching and career advice.
• Partners and managers will be expected to demonstrate that they are genuinely interested in the development of others. Quality two-way dialogue, including the setting of objectives and expectations, should take place on a regular basis.

 

Global minimum requirements

• The performance evaluation process should be understood by all and introduced to new hires within three months of joining.
• Common criteria based on the core competency framework are to be used to evaluate performance.
• One common evaluation rating scale is to be used worldwide.
• Each individual should receive at least one formal performance appraisal a year.
• Partners and managers should give feedback and informal progress reviews throughout the year.
• Clear and concise documentation is to be used covering core performance criteria.
• Performance reviews must contain a process for setting clearly-defined objectives that support business goals as well as identifying personal development needs.
• Moderation meetings must take place to achieve consistency of ratings.
• Performance appraisal training or one-to-one coaching should be available to partners and managers carrying out appraisals in each office.
• Training and development needs should be reviewed with each individual at least once a year.

Figure 1: Benchmarking firmwide standards  

 

Not in place

The activity is not currently in place.

Under consideration

The issue has been recognised at a senior level and an approach is being developed/formulated.

Just introduced

The activity is newly introduced. Not yet able to determine impact/effectiveness.

In place

The activity is in place but needs to be expanded/improved in order to be fully effective.

Established practice

A system or course of action is consistently implemented and is working effectively.

 

Making progress

Out of the six key areas, we made the most rapid progress in recruitment and in career development and training.

We introduced global key messages to our entry-level recruitment that set out the career deal for potential candidates wherever they joined the firm. We also introduced global criteria for the personal qualities we were looking to identify.

These were supplemented by local key messages and local academic/technical criteria, demonstrating a balance between essential global ‘glue’ and necessary local practices, which was well received by partners and candidates alike.

In the area of career development and training, we established global learning curricula for every job category across the firm (The Linklaters Law & Business School), bringing people together to learn in a way that reinforced global teamwork and furthered cultural understanding. These core mandated global programmes were supplemented by local workshops, striking an appropriate balance between global and local learning.

The area in which we have the most progress still to make is in diversity and inclusion. Given the sensitivities and widely-differing cultural starting points involved, it is perhaps not surprising that this is the area that has proved the most challenging. Our framework, however, has given us a shared ambition and the ability to measure our progress against agreed global principles on an office-by-office basis.

Globalising approaches

The effective management of performance directly relates to the quality of work we deliver as well as to levels of motivation and job satisfaction – which are crucial to the way we interact with our clients.

The HR team considered globalising our approach to performance management as a vital part of creating a truly consistent career experience and as a way of enabling the firm to identify its best performers and those with prospects for the future (rather than those most visible to key opinion formers).

In reality, we had inherited a wide range of approaches. Some offices had a common rating scale and shared core capabilities; in other countries the concept of performance appraisal was either underdeveloped or non-existent.

We used the global principles as a way of convincing partners of the value of performance management and of the business benefits of applying a consistent global approach. Where offices were looking to introduce or change elements of their current approach, we seized opportunities to use the global principles to guide the approach taken.

We deliberately set our sights high in the knowledge that it would take time to bring every office to the level of our minimum standards and that some would be harder to achieve than others.

From the benchmarking exercise, we knew which elements needed most focus and which would more easily be achieved. We shared experiences across offices to help those with most to do to accelerate their progress. We also made it clear that there was room for local adaptation – in the timing of the annual process and the documentation used, for example.

Some elements, such as ensuring that new joiners understood the process and that each individual received at least one formal performance appraisal a year, were easier to globalise. Others, like ensuring each performance review includes clearly defined objectives and introducing a global rating scale, took longer to achieve.

By 2009, however, we had successfully globalised all elements and, having consulted widely with partners, were finally ready to introduce a new common rating scale for everyone in the firm for the first time.

Managing talent across borders

• Involve and enthuse the global HR team to take the lead. For us, having a collaborative and globally-minded HR team with a shared goal made a real difference. In fact, the HR team was sometimes ahead of the curve in adopting a global perspective. The framework gave the team direction and support to achieve change and its reputation was enhanced as a consequence.
• Some countries will be more receptive to a global approach – or a different way of doing things – than others. Don’t allow yourself to change at the pace of the slowest; use the momentum of those receptive to change to force the pace.
• Be very clear about what will be global and what can stay local. Don’t try to coerce change when it’s not important, but focus on those things that will make the biggest difference to a genuinely global approach.
• Be prepared to seize opportunities as they arise and continue to adapt and stretch your global standards as progress is made.
• Find ways of reporting on the business benefits of globalising your talent strategy in terms of client feedback, teamwork and the flexibility of your resourcing model.

Transparency and consistency

Partners can now rely upon a common approach to assessing capabilities and can trust that we are all using the same language and criteria (a common currency) to evaluate performance when associates are assigned to cross-border matters or seconded to different offices.

This is already paying dividends in terms of allocating our best people to key matters or clients and in planning succession on a global practice basis, rather than on an office-by-office basis.

It has also resulted in greater transparency for our associates in terms of what is expected of them across practice and geographic boundaries, and created a level playing field for associates to access career opportunities on a global basis.

The approach has also underpinned our talent programme for business services (which identities high-potential professionals in finance, marketing, HR, risk and know-how) and supports active succession planning and career development for this key group.

The investment we made in globalising our people strategy has enabled us to attract talented individuals and to provide a world-class career experience that creates competitive advantage in the consistency and quality of the client service we deliver.

Equally importantly, the flexibility that comes from a globally consistent approach to hiring, training and motivating associates has given us organisational agility in adapting to rapidly changing economic circumstances.

We may not have fully completed our quest to globalise all aspects of talent management at Linklaters, but our approach and success so far enables us to respond effectively to changing markets and client demands and to push the boundaries of globalisation even further.

jillking1@virginmedia.com