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QA Jane Hodder Gender targets are a necessary part of our vision
In our latest Q&A, Herbert Smith Freehills partner and global co-head of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion committee Jane Hodder discusses ways to encourage diversity.
Herbert Smith Freehills has made conscious decisions to promote diversity in general and women’s advancement, in particular. What are some practical strategies that you and the firm have adopted to help the cause?
Earlier this year, the firm published a gender target of 30 per cent women in your partnership by May 2019, with an interim target of 25 per cent by May 2017. Why are such targets important?
“The evidence suggests that 30 per cent women in the partnership is the critical mass, or tipping point, at which the culture of the partnership would naturally become more inclusive and realise the benefits of greater diversity in terms of the contribution of diverse perspectives to decision-making, collaboration and innovation. We are not there yet, despite having recruited over 60 per cent female graduates for many years. So gender targets are a necessary part of our vision to be recognised as the leading global law firm for the attraction, promotion and retention of women.
I believe that our targets demonstrate our commitment to greater gender diversity, focus attention on the issue and enable us to measure progress. Far from disadvantaging men, targets aim to widen the talent pool to ensure that we are promoting the very best from a wider and deeper pool. In other words, targets are a way of challenging ourselves to make measurable progress in our objective to increase women in the partnership just as we measure many other aspects of the business.”
On a practical level, how do you ensure that these targets become meaningful within the firm?
“We have a global target, with each region of the firm setting its own target to support the overall target, but also taking into account the current state of play in that region. By scrutinising likely partner promotions and retirements over the next number of years, our Regional Heads of Practice have developed a sense of ownership for the gender targets – which gives weight to the adage of ‘what gets measured gets done’. We also have a matching target for our partner leadership roles such as Heads of Practice, members of the Global Council and the like. In other words, we are aiming for proportional representation of women in these key leadership roles.
It’s important to mention that the overall female partner statistic reflects historical factors and is impacted by retirements. For these reasons, we have a target that neither gender comprises more than 60 per cent of the global partnership intake over a three-year rolling period. In other words, this is a gender-neutral target which simply aims for gender balance in each partner intake group. I’m proud of this target, as I believe that it represents best practice in how we track progress against our targets.”
The firm prides itself on promoting diversity and states in its strategic plan that it wants to create “an environment of respect, involvement and reciprocity – where the breadth of differing perspectives is cultivated to create business value”. What benefits and value do you think this embrace of diversity has brought the firm?
“Harnessing diversity of thought through the creation of an inclusive workplace is important for overall firm performance as it improves our ability to solve complex problems and to innovate. When you think about it, employees are more highly motivated, more productive and less likely to leave when they are working in an inclusive culture. In such a workplace, people seek out and value different opinions and perspectives and feel safe to express their views. This gives us access to a broader range of perspectives and approaches to problem solving. Where people don’t feel included, they are less likely to take the interpersonal risks involved with offering a different approach – to query a view or offer a novel idea. This can impede innovation and problem solving.
Also, fostering a diverse and inclusive culture aligns us more closely with our clients and enables us to better reflect the greater diversity we often observe in their teams. We need to ensure that the team we assemble for a particular client matches the diversity we so often see in our clients. It’s important to stress that diversity is not a productive end in itself. It is the creation of an inclusive culture that enables us to harness the value of diversity. Fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, at an organisational level, can maximise talent and capability and thereby help us to develop closer relationships with our clients.”
What can law firm leaders do to create a more welcoming culture that enhances diversity and gender progress?
“This is an interesting question because, for me, it directly relates to our capacity to not only understand the importance of inclusive leadership, but to truly understand how to be an inclusive leader. As I mentioned before, diversity without inclusion does not get us very far and, in fact, may impede progress because it can lead to a lack of connection between people. This is why inclusive leadership sits across and provides the foundation for the three streams of diversity that we have identified as global priorities: gender, LGBTI* and multiculturalism. Over the course of the past year, we have held sessions with the senior partner leaders in our offices to build their awareness and gain their commitment to model inclusive leadership behaviours.”
Can you tell us more about these sessions?
“As a result of the sessions, which were facilitated by Heather Price of Symmetra Consulting, a group of senior partners are now leading teams working on five key areas which we identified as the key to the creation of an inclusive workplace. The first of these work streams is concerned with embedding the business case for diversity and inclusion – after all, our ability to achieve true culture change will only come about if we bring everyone along on the journey. The second work stream is concerned with the development of diversity and inclusion KPIs, and I’m very pleased that every member of our Australian executive has now set himself or herself some KPIs relating to diversity and inclusion.
Our third work stream is all about identifying the systemic changes required to support an inclusive workplace, such as addressing gender diversity in senior leadership; addressing unconscious bias in talent identification; and tracking and enhancing business development opportunities and practice sustainability for our women partners. The other two work streams are flexible work – no surprises here! – and psychological safety. That is, how we can lead inclusively by creating psychological safety in our meetings and other interactions, including with clients. So compelling were the inclusive leadership sessions that we have now run similar sessions for all partners and senior Business Services people in the firm – and what I love about this second set of sessions is that they have been co-facilitated by two or three members of the senior leadership group.
In other words, we are now seeing partners ‘own’ the work we are doing in relation to inclusion – it is no longer seen as an HR program but as a business-critical program. At our Sydney session, we were lucky enough to have the CEO of a major client join the session to talk about why diversity and inclusion is a key business imperative for his organisation. In 2015, we will move our focus from why inclusive leadership is a business imperative to how to lead for inclusion. This next stage will promote and support individual behaviours required to lead and manage inclusively.”
We understand that employee networking events and seminars within the firm are used to promote diversity. How effective has this been and are there any other programs that have proven particularly powerful?
“We have well-established Diversity Committees in each of our offices, whose role is to run events to engage and inform staff about issues relevant to diversity. They also provide important feedback to our Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee about issues or concerns relating to diversity and inclusion. These local Diversity Committees have been modelled on the employee resource group research published by the leading diversity think-tank, Catalyst, of which we are a global member, and they are particularly useful in developing future leaders and increasing employee engagement. The committees regularly run events such as ‘Pathways to Leadership’, ‘Lean In’ forums and cultural diversity panel discussions.
Role modelling is incredibly important to our diversity agenda. Jason Ricketts, our Australian managing partner, includes a profile from our Women Leaders in Profile series in each of his email updates to the Australian offices. In these profiles, our female partners and leaders answer the same five questions about their career progression, with the objective of increasing the visibility of our female role models. We also have an active LGBTI network in each of our Australian offices, with about 300 members. The network regularly holds events which are designed to celebrate LGBTI diversity and to raise awareness of LGBTI issues.”
What does the short-term future hold for these diversity initiatives?
“I am very excited by our program over the next few years, with particular focus on multiculturalism and women’s advancement. We have buy-in from CEOs, the board, executive and senior leaders on a global level, which sets the foundation for positive outcomes for HSF at an organisational level and its people.”
* LGBTI refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.