Holistic parity: Achieving gender equality without targets or quotas

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Key takeaway points:

1. Ensure the management team buy into the firm’s values and are on board with inclusion

2. Create excellent role models at all levels whose promotions are respected due to their performance

3. Listen to your employees and act on their feedback

4. Create an environment in which all staff are unafraid to be themselves

5. Consider ways to create internal networking opportunities which promote cross-department collaboration and teamworking

6. Ensure that the value of a diverse workforce is understood at all levels 

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The subject of gender quotas on management boards and in law
firms has been a contentious
subject of debate. Our firm tops
gender diversity rankings without
having introduced targets or quotas.
This article looks at the underlying
culture of our firm, at which inclusion is key to our management strategy, staff engagement and business success.

Fifty per cent of our global offices
are headed by women and more than half of our other key managerial positions are held by women. In addition, 44 per cent of our London partners are female, positioning Withers in the top of the 2014 BSN Diversity League Table (DLT) for gender diversity. Over the past four years, we have consistently ranked in the top four, including coming first in 2011 (with
42 per cent).

We are not just topping the table for gender; we also score well for our high number of LGBT partners and solicitors, reaching third place in this category in the DLT this year. (We ranked first last year, but were knocked off the top spot this year by two US firms.) The combined results of the DLT indicate that our firm is hitting the mark in creating a diverse workforce. We have achieved this, over time, using the following methods.

Role models

Long before quotas and initiatives to attract and promote women became fashionable, we had a range of excellent role models for aspirational female lawyers. Back in 1999, a third of our partners were female (compared to an industry total of 18 per cent). In the same year, we became the first London law firm to appoint a female senior partner, Diana Parker. This was shortly followed by Margaret Robertson taking up the reins as managing partner in 2002 - a post she has now held for 12 years. The firm continues to break boundaries in its appointment of women to senior positions, more recently with Roberta Crivellaro becoming head of our Italian practice - a real rarity for Italy.

We have sustained strong promotion levels of female associates to partner in recent years, with female promotions at 57 per cent in 2013, 40 per cent in 2012 and 50 per cent in 2011. By comparison, women represented, on average, 28 per cent of partner promotions in the UK's top 30 law firms in 2013.

Our promotions are based solely on the individual being the right person for the job, with no consideration given to gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. There has been no conscious attempt to promote women in particular, no initiatives to attract women and no quotas put in place.

Many of our high-achieving female fee earners juggle family life and part time or flexible working, as well as being legal industry experts. Many of our female lawyers are also the main financial providers in their households, which of course provides its own impetus for success and ambition.

The firm has received external recognition for its approach to supporting and promoting women. In 2013, we won
the 30% Club/Financial Mail's 2013 Breaking the Mould Award.

Values and culture

The firm's focus is on providing a complete range of legal services to private clients on their business, personal and philanthropic interests. A great emphasis is placed on client focus and service, and our lawyers often have longstanding and close relationships with their clients, even when working on commercial matters. The work
we do and the way we do it is intrinsic to
our culture and naturally affects the type
of people that apply to and are employed
by the firm.

Since our merger with US law firm Bergman Horowitz & Reynolds in 2002,
our number of staff has grown by 90 per cent and an additional 10 international
offices have been opened. Our values
have remained largely unchanged and underpin the inclusive culture of which we are so proud. Teamwork ranks as the leading value, followed by respect for individuality and diversity, alongside client service and
a need for entrepreneurialism.

We have a strong underlying emphasis on teamwork, and our culture seeks to bring together the right knowledge and skills at the right level. To do this, we need our managers and leaders to have a really good understanding of the capabilities and drivers of each team member, as well as to have
the ability to ensure that the environment created is such that all staff feel that they
can contribute and be supported.

Our culture has changed slightly over recent years due to our substantial growth, procedurally becoming more akin to the workings of a larger firm but, importantly,
our approach to listening to and supporting staff has remained largely the same. In fact, as we have grown, we have had to work harder to listen to and support staff.

Engagement levels

Communicating with and listening to staff are key to understanding how best to support them, and we do this in a number of ways. The fact that we work in teams means that respect for individuals and their contributions is high and communication is valued.

An environment in which people can contribute is encouraged and helps staff to feel supported on a daily basis. Our chargeable hours target is lower than other City firms (1,400 per year), indicating that working long hours is not the sole measure of success.

We monitor engagement levels annually (through staff surveys), which both gives reassurance and identifies potential issues. For the past five years, overall engagement has been high at over 70 per cent, gaining the firm the accolade of one of the Sunday Times' Top 100 companies To Work For; we are also in the top five firms in Legal Week's Best Legal Employers rankings.

We actively seek input from our staff on a range of issues. For example, our sponsored charity each year is decided by staff. Numerous benefits (such as maternity provisions) have also been introduced or amended in line with staff feedback.

Focus on L&D

We take learning and development (L&D) seriously. It's central to empowering staff to achieve their career aspirations, as well as being crucial to reinforcing the firm's values and strategy. Our activity and commitment to L&D is at its highest level ever.

The L&D team has increased from zero to four members in four years. During that time, a full suite of development centres has been established for lawyers at all stages of their careers, alongside a range of development programmes for support staff and the rollout of the firm's first leadership development programme.

Putting all of our partners worldwide through a leadership development programme has made good business sense. Raising our partners' awareness of what it means to be a good leader has led to greater efforts to create positive team environments for associates and business support staff. We have been able to demonstrate that positive leadership scores correlate with higher levels of engagement, productivity and, ultimately, profitability.

Flexible working

Establishing a work/life balance through the use of flexible and part-time working has long been cited as being on the wishlist of staff. In 2013, 83 per cent of our staff said that having a range of lifestyle options
and opportunities available to them was highly important.

We have also heard this message constantly over the past five years via engagement surveys and from our women's networking group (where flexible working dominated a roundtable discussion on women's issues in 2013). As a result, we have been working to create more flexible working structures.

When I joined the firm in 1997, I remember being pleasantly surprised
to see that there were several people working on a part-time basis. From 2005, I also benefited from being able to work from home regularly following the birth of my first son. The firm's increase in size means that we've had to formalise processes and communication approaches more, and dispel myths about what working flexibly or part time might mean to career progression, but the idea is still there: if it's achievable and makes business sense, we'll do it.

A 2010 internal survey into increasing flexible working arrangements gave us a clear indication that some issues had to be resolved before some staff felt comfortable with making a request for a more flexible work pattern. Clear and transparent promotion criteria, greater development support and better communication processes have since been put in place to ensure the firm embraces flexible working fully.

This year, we started the rollout of Windows 8 on a virtual desktop infrastructure - the ultimate in a flexible
IT infrastructure. This has enabled people
to work from home - or anywhere else where they have an internet connection - and have exactly the same applications as they do while sitting at their desk, including desktop videoconferencing and instant messaging (using Lync).

We believe we are the first law firm
to offer such a comprehensive remote working system and feel certain that we
have created the right environment to
ensure staff are not reluctant to take advantage of it. At present, 13 per cent of our male and female partners are working part time or flexibly and, recently, our partner Elaine Aarons featured in Timewise's Power Part Timers listing. We're demonstrating at the highest level that it is possible to work part time and be a successful lawyer.

The firm's flexible benefits scheme has also been designed to allow staff to choose the benefits which are appropriate to their lifestyle. The cost effectiveness of such a scheme means that a greater range of benefits (incorporating many more family-friendly benefits) can be offered.

Each year, we seek staff views on our benefits package to ensure it remains relevant to their needs. Following feedback in 2014, we introduced a new range of services designed to meet the needs of working parents and carers. Emergency childcare, back-up adult and eldercare, alongside a host of downloadable information, aims to take away some
of the burdens that women (mainly) face.

Networking groups

In 2012, our diversity steering committee set up three internal networking groups for parents, women and LGBT employees. These groups are proving to be instrumental in advising management on the current challenges facing their members, which has resulted in action being taken to maintain a positive working environment for these groups, as well as providing both internal and external networking opportunities.

Since our women's networking group was established, many of the issues raised (such as flexible working) have become priorities for our HR team. We also have a series of seminars in place on topics ranging from parenting advice to healthcare advice for both men and women.

The future

It should be clear from the above that we aim to create an inclusive environment for
all staff, rather than any specific groups.
This is not to say that we will not plan further initiatives in the future that aid our diversity strategy. In the short term, these may not be for women or LGBT employees.

In line with the rest of the industry, we have struggled to attract black lawyers and those from ethnic minorities. We continue to work on this in partnership with a number of charities to increase awareness of careers in the legal profession as a whole. We believe that these minority groups could thrive in an environment such as ours (in the same way that female and LGBT employees seem to) but, in the meantime, we will do all we can to increase these numbers in our profession as a whole - and fight for the best candidates when the time comes along.

As for quotas, these are not for Withers, and our managing partner is adamant that quotas would not work here. We need leaders to be respected on their merits.
We are a relatively small partnership and
all of our partners need to be accountable and respected for what they do - there can be no undertones that they are here to make up the numbers.

Suzanne Todd is a family partner and head of the women's networking group at Withers (www.withersworldwide.com).
She gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Simon Luckett,
HR director, to this article.