Growing and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce
Pamela O’Neill
Head of Dispute Resolution & Litigation, Chair of Diversity & Inclusion Group
With almost full employment in Ireland, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace are key factors for businesses. Not only for attracting top talent and providing equal opportunities so that under-represented groups can thrive but also for the future development of innovative solutions for clients and customers alike.
At Eversheds Sutherland, we recognise that D&I initiatives are crucial for sustainable success. Businesses that focus on D&I and have inclusive workplaces tend to foster a more innovative and productive workforce. They also achieve greater levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty and, in general, have higher employee engagement and retention levels.
However, to achieve high levels of employee retention and engagement, businesses need to have an overall strong commitment to their people. Then they can add measures and frameworks such as D&I strategies and active committees, so they can optimise the benefits of a diverse workplace and explore and address any challenges.
These can include areas such as unconscious biases, cultural differences or communication barriers. Businesses can mitigate many of the challenges related to building diverse teams by providing tailored and regular training, covering subjects including unconscious bias, cultural competency, inclusive leadership, etc.
Eversheds Sutherland is guided by our five core values of collaboration, inclusivity, openness, creativity and professionalism in all that we do as a firm. We have been proactive in promoting D&I and we have goals across all areas including LGBTQ+, ethnicity, race, faith, disability, neurodiversity, and socio-economic backgrounds.
In response to the changes happening in our society, the ongoing work of our D&I Committee has led us to achieve the Investors in Diversity Bronze Award from the Irish Centre for Diversity (ICFD) this year. Not only does this recognise the achievements in moving the D&I agenda forward, but our work with the ICFD gives us a clear pathway to gaining further accreditation.
A key component of our ongoing success is investing significantly in our people. We are dedicated to the career development of our employees, offering them a platform to achieve their personal goals and aspirations, as well as supporting their mental, social, and physical wellbeing.
This year we rolled out a mandatory Inclusive Leadership training module and highlighted inclusivity as a core theme of our overall leadership development programme, which was designed to support the career progression of all our employees. We also offer mentoring opportunities for our senior female associates and senior managers with plans to roll out new mentoring and coaching programmes. In addition, we have an exclusive legal partnership with IMAGE Media – this partnership is helping to support the personal and professional development of many of our people.
We are dedicated to the career development of our employees, offering them a platform to achieve their personal goals and aspirations, as well as supporting their mental, social, and physical wellbeing.
