Measuring and Driving Diversity and Inclusion in Professional Services Firms

Professional Practices Alliance (PPA)

Over the last year the issue of workplace inequalities and under-representation of minority groups has been reignited or come to the fore on the agenda of many businesses, including professional services firms. Such firms may now be looking afresh at how to drive and measure diversity and inclusion within their partnerships and wider staff constituency. In this panel discussion, you can hear Chair Sarah Chilton (CM Murray LLP, Partner), Emma Bartlett (CM Murray LLP, Partner), David Shufflebotham (Founder of PEP Up Consulting), Corinne Staves (Partner & Head of Professional Practices, Maurice Turnor Gardner LLP) and excellent Guest Speakers, Mouhssin Ismail (Principal of Newham Collegiate Sixth Form) and Ray Berg (UK Managing Partner of Osborne Clarke LLP) explore some of the vital diversity and inclusion issues with which firms will need to engage, including: - The moral, economic and regulatory importance of partnerships driving and embedding a sustainable culture of diversity and inclusion. - The impact on business innovation and people strategy and how to get partnership ‘buy in’, wider engagement and accountability. - Broadening the firm’s approach to diversity to include social mobility, cultural diversity and neurodiversity and addressing the intersection with legally protected characteristics like age, gender and race. - Measuring diversity and inclusion through quantitative and qualitative data tools as “what gets valued, gets measured and what gets measured gets done”. - The critical need for firms to assess inclusion distinct from diversity and the approaches firms can take to tackling homogeneous replica cultures at all levels. As one speaker put it “you can get asked to the party but if no one asks you to dance, what’s the point of going to the party”, so it is necessary for firms to not only have diversity in the staff and partners, but to also cultivate supportive environments for them to flourish at all levels. - Key challenges to creating a more diverse and inclusive environment in professional practices. - Recruiting a diverse equity partnership and senior leadership, nurturing the pipeline and addressing the challenges of diversity attrition, including through collaboration with educational establishments, effective communication, role models and coaches, implementing proper systems and process and equipping staff with diversity and equality skills and training. - The benefits, limitations and practical tips for using equality legislation and constitutional partnership documents to address under-representation and inclusion in professional services partnerships. The Professional Practices Alliance is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between leading UK independent legal, accounting and law firm management specialist advisers, CM Murray LLP, Buzzacott LLP, Maurice Turnor Gardner LLP, Pep Up Consulting and Cambridge Strategy Group. Join the Conversation We are delighted to launch the Professional Practices Alliance LinkedIn group, a collaborative networking and information sharing space for professional services firms. Join our LinkedIn group here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13930936/ Follow us on Twitter: @PartnershipAlln