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Awards

Advancing Women In Business

Addleshaw Goddard - Implementation of Flexible Working

Outline

This case study looks at how Addleshaw Goddard has embedded a culture which supports flexible working.

Addleshaw Goddard identifies its biggest asset as its people and that their knowledge and expertise is central to the success of its business. Attracting and retaining talented people, especially women, is a challenge – the legal profession is associated with long hours and traditionally with male dominated environments, especially at senior levels. To overcome this in both perception and (where applicable) reality, the firm has been working hard over the past two years at positioning itself as an "employer of choice" by not only actively supporting, but positively encouraging, flexible working for all.

The firm believes that flexible working offers it a business advantage. Flexibility is valued by its people (confirmed in the latest staff survey) and helps the firm in a competitive recruitment marketplace, ensuring it has talented individuals providing innovative, practical solutions to clients.

Flexibility is available to all people within the firm. 14% of staff now have a formal flexible working arrangement - its flexible workers include trainee solicitors and board members - and many more are adopting an informal flexible approach to their work.

In encouraging and supporting flexible working, the firm considers the needs of all stakeholders - the client, the team, the firm and the individual - to ensure that it achieves optimum productivity and client service. All flexible working arrangements, whether formal or informal, are regularly reviewed to ensure that the needs of all stakeholders are being met.

Openly supporting this different way of working is having an impact on many female colleagues. The firm can cite examples of successful working arrangements which are encouraging talented women to join the firm and helping them to continue their careers.

Aims

Addleshaw Goddard has identified the following aims:

to promote a working environment which concentrates on the work product not on the place of work;
to assess, reward and promote each individual on merit;
to recognise that individuals have a life outside work which does not mean their contribution or dynamism within work is diminished;
whilst providing the best possible service to clients.

Business case

The firm identified that some women were leaving around 3 years post qualification, many citing family reasons. This was potentially costing up to £200,000 per person.

Another key aspect of this work is around attraction of talent. Flexibility gives competitive advantage in recruitment. An example is Elizabeth Robertson who joined as a partner in September 2007, one of the pull factors was flexibility. Elizabeth comments "I was surprised to find flexibility so deeply embedded within a law firm and in such a commercially minded way."

Senior management commitment

Progress on the take up of flexible working is reported quarterly and discussed at board and management meetings. Communication is from the top down. 9% of partners work flexibly, including 3 men. The two women members of its board both work flexibly. In 2006 40% of internal promotions to partner were women who worked flexibly. It is one of the first law firms to have trainees working flexibly.

Management accountability

Flexible working is the responsibility of all managers. In considering formal flexible working requests, robust and challenging debate is encouraged. Decisions are sense checked by members of the flexible working programme for consistency across divisions.

Innovation

Long hours servicing demanding clients and a hard road to partnership can be the reality of a career in law. Taking a proactive approach to flexibility, which is not common in this sector, is in itself innovative.

Taking this approach one step further, it has consciously adopted a wide definition of flexibility. The firm has put in place career paths which allow greater flexibility whilst still performing a meaningful role. Its Legal Director role was recognised as innovative and can be particularly attractive to women – 35% are female.

The "pathfinder " was instigated to extensively assess the practical aspects of flexible working within the firm. 15 people took part, from various roles, were provided with full IT support and spent more time working from home or at clients offices. Feedback has contributing significantly to the firms understanding about what flexibility means within their workplace.

Mainstreaming

The firm has made a substantial investment in developing its IT infrastructure with laptops, blackberries and other necessary equipment widely available. It has also encouraged those with roles are dependant on office location to think more creatively. For example the Information Services team have established flexible working practices without any compromise to client service by creatively looking at working hours.

Communication

Addleshaw Goddard uses its intranet site extensively to promote initiatives and update on progress. Flexibility is discussed at team meetings, quarterly briefings and via various network groups. Promotion of flexibility runs through its recruitment material, on its website and is a key part of its diversity programme.

Members of its diversity team have undertaken speaking opportunities and published articles around flexible working.

Impact

More people, in more roles, are now working flexibly. The reasons given in flexible working requests have started to be for other than carer responsibilities.

Talented women are attracted to and staying with the firm – for many because of its approach to flexible working. 4 out of the last 6 lateral partner recruits have been female. Over 80% of female employees return to work after maternity leave, and 85% of that number do so on a flexible working arrangement – the national average is 40%. The legal profession average is anecdotally much lower.

Sustainability

The pathfinder initiative which has been successfully running for over a year and has been recently widened to two further departments. Over the last 18 months the firms approach to flexible working has been awarded various external awards and recognition.

Learning

The firm acknowledges that there is no "one size" fits all with flexible working. Each individual or department is unique – what works in one area will not necessarily fit in another. Equally the firm recognises the need to creatively think about supervision and team working to get the best from everyone.