The intersection of climate change and inequality is reshaping the world, and the social contributions of private sector companies are increasingly part of the expectations and solutions to a just transition for investors, members of communities in which companies operate, and members of civil society. However, myths around the lack of measurement of social impact persist, despite well-known ways of doing so.

Tackling the “S” through investors’ eyes

Investors and the financial sector have been tackling how to account for, measure, and communicate companies’ social impact for a while, according to Bettina Reinboth, Director of Human Rights & Social Issues at Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a UN-supported network of institutional investors that promotes responsible investment through the use of sustainability practices. In a recent article, PRI clarified how the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights set expectations for investors to act on human rights.

Institutional investors, particularly those considered universal owners, maintain a long-term investment horizon. This takes a multi-decade view of how the transition to a sustainable global economy impacts people internally and externally, the main component of the social part of ESG.

Likewise, corporate directors are focusing on holistic employee well-being now in large part because of investors’ demands and the upcoming regulatory requirements to meet their fiduciary and oversight obligations. “Talent is a part of everything an organization does, and we see boards leaning into talent matters with management more than ever,” says Carey Oven, National Managing Partner at Deloitte’s Center for Board Effectiveness. “They are requesting more data around engagement and sentiment and exploring enriching ways to get feedback from the workforce in a much bigger way than they had before.”

Up until a few years ago, companies could get away with having a human rights policy with the expectation of adherence from the top of the organization to the bottom, including board oversight, as important foundational elements. More recently, however, investors’ savvy is increasingly on the rise, and investors are looking for more detailed information about measurement. Some of the more pointed questions on investors’ minds include: i) how actual and potential negative outcomes for people are identified; ii) what due diligence and verification of the adherence to policy and practices are performed; and iii) what is the process for dealing with effective grievance mechanisms.

In part, this is the reason for the spike in investors noting publicly when there is a gap between what a company says it does and what it actually does within ESG.

Culture & well-being as a key measurement of the “S”

The well-being of people is central to the social performance of firms. Investors and now corporate directors are looking for ways to capture social indicators as part of companies ESG strategies. Yet, in order to measure an organization’s social impact, a company must first define its stakeholders, which include employees, consumers, and local communities, including those that may be part of the company’s supply chain.

Because employee well-being is central to that of society, for companies to understand the full scope of how their actions and policies contribute to well-being is important. Critical elements of a comprehensive corporate approach to well-being include: i) aspects about the work itself, and the social interactions that employees have at work; ii) the skills each employee gains through employment; and iii) the sense of purpose from the job experienced by each employee.

In addition, measures of employee inequality, representation, pay, promotion, and overall working conditions are equally important. More specifically, there are many people well-being indicators organizations can use to measure their social impact, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These indicators include:

• • • • Employment — such as hiring, turnover, and promotion.
      • Earnings — wages, benefits, executive pay gap, and financial insecurity.
      • Learning & skills — skills obtained on the job and the intersection of work and personal development.
      • Health —absenteeism, mental health, and health & safety in working conditions.
      • Social support — manager effectiveness and trust between workers.
      • Work/life balance — annual leave, parental leave, and average working hours per employee.
      • Employees’ voices & feedback — trust in management, upward feedback of managers, and mechanisms to give employees a voice.

Further, to address the impact on the well-being of local communities and society as a whole, the OECD highlights the following indicators:

• • • • Economic — Taxes paid and revenue generated in each locality.
      • Human — strategic community investment, such as when a company brings its banking relationships to assist in small business funding for local entrepreneurs.
      • Social — board composition and compensation, political contributions, and fines paid.

Analyzing the social risks and impact through lens of well-being of employees and society is one of many ways to measure the “S,” but also a simple and logical one. The interplay between the social impacts during the climate transition will only grow.

Many assume that the expected global economic slow-down will stall sustainability efforts, but PRI’s Reinboth argues the opposite — that progress on sustainability will accelerate based on recent evidence of momentum because of the simultaneous, negative multiple shocks to the well-being of people and society during the global pandemic as the crisis shined a spotlight on the global vulnerabilities and how the social part of ESG intersects with the “E” and the “G” as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns and government closures changed the way we were allowed to communicate, limiting personal contact and requiring the use of all alternative means. Ultimately, this advanced our overall ability to communicate and interact remotely. More than 30 states suspended in-person court proceedings for weeks or months after the pandemic hit in March 2020. New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, and Alaska mandated their use; and states including New York, California, and Texas urged use of virtual proceedings while suspending conflicting court rules. The pandemic may have forced government’s hand, but many courts and related agencies rose to the challenge in understanding new ways to use technology to ensure that people’s rights were preserved and protected.

A failure to provide adequate protection of citizens’ rights leads to more than a clogged court. There are civil implications, such as allegations of civil rights violations and expensive court cases. For example, a lawsuit, brought by San Francisco’s public defender against the San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of nearly 400 remanded prisoners goes into details about how defendants’ constitutional rights to a speedy trial could be being violated by delays and backlogs due to an overburdened and technically-stagnant court system.

As pandemic restrictions are lifted, courts must balance the benefits of traditional means of adjudication against valuable opportunities to use more advanced means. Governments must evaluate the merits and protection of rights afforded in both the use of traditional communication and virtual appearances. The goal of the court is to preserve rights, and it has become obvious that a hybrid model (using virtual and in-person options) is the best way to make sure individuals have the most opportunities and options to exercise their rights.

Participation & access are key

One of the major hurdles to access to justice, of course, is participation in the process, which can include transportation issues, childcare, time off of work, and many other issues that some people can afford to take for granted. The use of the courts’ time to issue bench warrants, dismiss for want of prosecution, and entering default judgements only to have to appeal and re-address the same issues, is an inefficient use of the limited funds allocated to the judicial system. Texas Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht clearly explained this as the “new normal”, saying: “We really are determined to take what we learned in the pandemic and build on it.”

In Arizona, judges and other state court officials reported increases in case participation rates in 2020, which they attributed to the move toward remote proceedings. For example, there was an 8% drop year-over-year in June 2020 in the rate of default, or automatic judgments indicating an increase in participation. In Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, the failure-to-appear rate for eviction cases decreased from nearly 40% in 2019 to approximately 13% in February 2021.

It is a critical net step for the courts and access-to-justice advocates to evaluate each change that was made in an effort to get through the period of crisis and determine which changes are critical to maintaining a properly functioning court system. While this answer will inevitable be complex, it will ultimately make the justice system better and save time and money. In many states this process has already begun.

In June 2020, the state of New York created the Commission to Reimagine the Future of New York’s Courts, a group of judges, lawyers, academics, and technology experts that is studying how courts operated during the pandemic. In April 2021, the group issued technology recommendations to “improve the efficiency and quality of justice services during the ongoing health crisis and beyond.”

As the nation enters a period of post-pandemic recovery, all government agencies have an obligation to grab hold of the lessons and technological advancements that were brought on by the pandemic and subsequent crisis. Using these lessons to create a more just court system is one way to not waste that crisis and struggle it caused.

The discussion came during The Independent Director Initiative, a two-day program designed to help individuals from under-represented backgrounds land board directorships in venture-backed private companies.

During the session, panelists warned CEOs not to rely solely on their networks or to strictly target C-suite credentials to staff a board. Company leaders need to reevaluate their criteria and methods for filling board seats and broaden their pool of candidates.

“It’s a loss for the companies that can’t see these candidates, and it’s a loss for the prospective candidates who don’t get to bring their expertise into the boardroom,” said Ann Shepherd, co-founder of Him for Her, an organization aimed at addressing women’s under-representation on corporate boards. It’s also a loss, Shepherd noted, for all those stakeholders who are invested in the company.

Search and reach beyond personal networks

Before starting Him for Her, founder Jocelyn Mangan interviewed more than 90 CEOs and sitting directors — all of them men — and found that all filled their last board appointment with someone from their personal network. “It makes sense if you’re filling a board seat to go to people you know and trust,” Shepherd explained, cautioning that such an approach often excludes potential talent, especially among people of color.

The key to disrupting this approach is to “teach boards and teach the people seeking board positions to fish where the fish are,” said panelist Keith Dorsey, an executive recruiter at global search firm Boyden. “There is rarely malice behind executives’ process for filling board seats — it’s just that people don’t know where to find a pipeline of candidates.”

Members of the panel on board diversity, held during the recent “Independent Director Initiative”

Executive search firms can help bridge the gaps between these networks and the diverse candidates that corporations hope to reach, said Dorsey, warning, however, that search firms also need to consider making changes to how they work with aspiring board members. His research showed that women in particular felt some reticence in dealing with old-line executive search firms, where they sometimes felt unheard.

“The talent is out there,” said Ozzie Gromada Meza, vice president of member and talent services at the Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA). Meza highlighted the work the LCDA has done amplifying the talents of those pescados — or fish, in Spanish — in the Latino community. When working with potential board candidates, Meza said it’s important that the individual’s mission and values match those of his organization.

Panelist Josh Green, a former venture capitalist and corporate director, said he believes those corporations that are genuinely committed to serving stakeholders are naturally motivated to pursue board diversity. “The principles of stakeholder capitalism give guidance to making that happen,” Green said, explaining that in stakeholder capitalism, companies orient their activities to satisfying the needs of shareholders, employees, customers, and the community in which they operate.

Too often, however, organizations mistake diversity goals for embracing representation — so-called “board washing,” Green noted. And in those situations, diversity candidates must be prepared to ask the hard questions of the interview panel and even step away, if necessary, he added. “If you truly see a focus and devotion to stakeholder capitalism principles, then I think it becomes of interest.”

Find your “you-sized” hole on a board

Seeking out diversity also means considering candidates with experience and skills outside of the CEO and CFO to other executives in the C-suite, panelists explained. “What we have to do a little bit differently right now is challenge those boards as to why they’re seeking yet another CEO or CFO,” said Dorsey. “If you have nine [board] slots and you currently have eight CEOs or CFOs today, what are you hoping to get from a ninth?”

Companies must look to other executives to find the skills that today’s rapidly changing business world demands, Shepherd said. She urged board hopefuls to evaluate and highlight their competency in a few key areas — such as functional and industry expertise, customer and business model experience, and scale — and then explain their specific value to boards.

Overall, panelists said that board seekers should do their homework and determine which of their favorite companies would be the best fit for their own skill set. “Clean up your LinkedIn, do your homework, and develop your value proposition by looking at the skills needed on several of your favorite boards,” Meza explained.

Beyond that, candidates should “know that you have a story to tell,” he added. Relying too heavily on the resumé gives short shrift to human elements that can make certain candidates more relatable. “How you deliver your message is going to be super-key,” he said. “It’s a brand thing that you’re trying to build, so just be very cognizant of that.”

When it comes to the mechanics of securing a board position and serving as a director, the panelists offered advice on everything from advisory roles to knowing the right time to leave. Fit is important, panelists advised, especially in the areas where boards typically focus — management, service, and governance.

In the end, “it’s all about serendipity… and finding the board with the you-sized hole in it,” Shepherd observed.

The issue of toxic behavior in law firms, tax & accounting firms, and corporations is a cause for concern among diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) advocates and other professionals because it means that roughly one-third of employees within these organizations are experiencing a lack of inclusion and belonging.

However, some believe the current paradigm of DEI with its top-down approach and its priority on individuals with a single underrepresented identity will not adequately address this type of systemic exclusion, while others believe in an integrated strategy of all three components with an increased focused on belonging.

Problems with the current ways DEI is framed

Stephanie Felder, Director of Professional Development and Diversity at Groom Law, is a proponent of the combined approach. “I don’t think it’s quite that black & white as the need to focus on diversity versus belonging,” says Felder. “Both are important, but until you level the playing field and eliminate the exclusionary practices, processes, and systems within your organization, you can’t actually build diversity or belonging.”

Helen May, Director of Belonging@Work, is one of those who calls for an overhaul in assessing and addressing issues of belonging and inclusion based on the human experience. Organizations and human resources in the years leading up to the pandemic evolved to emerge as “bureaucratically diluted of the human element, including diversity and inclusion,” she explains, adding that the current DEI paradigm causes greater division because of the prevalence on setting and achieving targets and too much focus on “othering” large sets of people.

By focusing on a single underrepresented identity, many white men feel othered even as those with underrepresented identities already feel othered in the current environment. In addition, the current DEI approach does not sufficiently address intersectional needs of those with more than one underrepresented identity.

Another challenge concerning the current DEI paradigm is that it is driven mainly in a top-down manner rather than from the bottom upward though the organization. When approached primarily through a top-down perspective, the root causes of what is driving a sense of exclusion are difficult to identify, says May. Because a lack of belonging tends to stem from exclusive behaviors by individuals from both majority and minority groups, it is hard to work out exactly where within management the sources of the issues are occurring, she argues.

Pursuing inclusion through a belonging lens

May advocates for a revised approach to inclusion through the lens of belonging and well-being that uses human-focused questions as a starting point. These questions include:

• • • What is going to make people perform at their very best?
    • What is going to make everybody create that psychological safety they need?
    • What is going to protect well-being and foster a sense of belonging?

Working through the lens of belonging by default is intersectional because it is human-focused, she explains. “We live in a very intersectional world, and it disincentivizes people with other identities to participate, despite many efforts in the current DEI paradigm to invite ‘allies.’”

Using the belonging and inclusion lens, small networking groups within the overall firm or company are created as a safe place for people to have discussions that focus on people empowering themselves and empowering others. Curiosity is used to explore individuals’ unique qualities and experiences as a way of being within the organization and community that has a responsibility to protect the well-being of everyone, regardless of who they are or into what demographic they fit.

How to execute a belonging strategy

Using belonging and well-being as a fundamental context, May says organizations should start with a future vision of culture that defines a framework to attract the right sort of talent at the board level. Then, once the board is in place, it should then in turn focus on identifying individuals who display these culture framework attributes as part of the board’s succession plan. The board also needs to partner with future board members to outline how to empower employees based on activities and behaviors. Along the way, existing systems of promotion and performance evaluation are left alone.

To demonstrate the positive results from this approach, May describes how one client emerged through this process as an employee-owned business with a four-day work week and unlimited paid time off because it asked employees what they wanted. Those next-in-line for the board have evolved into a hub of the community rather than being seen at the top, directing down.

She says that a key part of the solution is to have first-line and middle managers appoint someone to ask the following questions “until it becomes a habit to ensure inclusion is weaved into every process, including performance evaluation, promotion, recruitment, training, and onboarding system.” These questions include:

• • • Who have we forgot to consider while we’re making this decision?
    • Who might we have disadvantaged with the action we’ve just decided upon?
    • Is there anybody else that we should ask about this decision who may be able to give us an alternative perspective?

The result allows law firms, tax & accounting firms, and corporations to build their culture through behavior and habit because people will start skewing their decisions in the in the right way by default without it having to be a formal process.

Indeed, a few men believe that DEI efforts at their firms and companies disadvantage them and voice some real concerns about it. To learn how best to respond to these concerns, the Thomson Reuters Institute consulted with its Equity, Diversity & Inclusion advisory board to gain the experience of members and learn their thoughts on effective responses.

3 ways to address concerns about specific initiatives being unfair

Employee resource groups (ERGs) and targeted leadership programs have been part of the DEI fabric for a while. In fact, ERGs started off being a group for support, networking, and mentoring; however, as the need for increased representation of diverse individuals at senior levels within organizations has expanded, there is a growing perception that ERGs are providing an advantage to under-represented talent.

Here are some of the best ways to respond to concerns around ERGs and other internal efforts that white men may see as more advantageous to minority talent:

1. Collect more information and listen for common ground — Seek to understand what men are perceiving as unfair by saying, “Tell me more about what you see as unfair…”

Then, perhaps explain to those concerned that some communities — such as first-gen college and law students — don’t have access to family and friend networks of white-collar professionals. Therefore, they have a need for mentors and sponsors who can help them navigate the unwritten rules and norms for success. And that’s why forward-thinking employers have put together targeted programs as part of their offer.

2. Point out that diverse talent is good for business — Explain to them that clients want diverse perspectives in their supply chain. There are hundreds of in-house counsel and corporate accounting and tax functions that are looking for diversity on the teams that staff their engagements because they see the value of having different perspectives — such as gaining new insights or avoiding blind spots. Failure to adhere to these requirements means that law and accounting firms run the risk of losing work, which hurts everyone.

In addition, all employees benefit from having diverse teammates, supervisors, and stakeholders because leaders are consistently working on and stress-testing key cross-cultural skills like cultural fluency, delivering and receiving feedback, effectively addressing conflict, and learning how to grow and support the development of diverse teams.

3. Make it personal about legacy — Ask those who have concerns, “Wouldn’t you want your daughter (or wife, mother, niece, or LGBTQ cousin) to be in an environment where their perspective is valued, and they can thrive?”

Then, emphasize that white men may also identify as members of under-represented or marginalized groups at times. All communities are multidimensional, including people with disabilities, veterans, first-gen college students, and LGBTQ+ individuals, among others. In this way, white men may be members of an under-represented group as well.

How to respond to concerns about lack of future job opportunities because of DEI

One of the default, yet problematic, criticisms around DEI is that it is a zero-sum game. While this is an alluring belief where someone wins and someone loses, it is exactly the opposite. If the organization is stronger and performs better, more opportunity is created for all. Here are a couple of ways to deal with this “zero sum” game mentality:

Use an analogy, such as the “curb-cut effect”  — Shane Lloyd, Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Baker Tilly US, points out that one way to think about DEI efforts is with the example of installing curb-cuts on sidewalks to make it easier for people in wheelchairs to cross the street. Yet, it had unintended benefits for others, including people pushing strollers, cyclists, and people with temporary injuries.

Workplace DEI efforts similarly contribute to the curb-cut phenomenon by establishing policies that benefit a broader group. For example, while flexible work arrangements are typically considered women’s issue, men benefit from flexible work arrangements too, allowing them to balance the demands of caregiving or pursuing other interests outside of work.

Highlight what can be gained in terms of leadership — Explain how the most effective leaders are those who can lead diverse teams. Opportunities are expanded when this competency is demonstrated and consistently stress-tested. To lead and actively demonstrate respect from others who are different, it is imperative for leaders to hone these skills by working in normal and challenging conditions.

Today’s business environment requires leaders not only to run an effective operation but also speak to a broader set of issues. An organization with a strong DEI focus will provide opportunities to frame polarizing or highly political issues in a manner that allows for focus on how these dynamics impact people. Framing issues in this way allows leaders to develop an invaluable long-term skill.

In addition, as many companies invest in DEI, it becomes important that leaders have experience playing an active role in DEI efforts. Serving in a leadership role of an affinity group, working towards increasing representation for under-represented talent, or fostering an inclusive culture are competencies and skills that strengthen candidacy for promotion or stretch assignments.

In order for every individual within an organization to have a sense of belonging, to feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work, and to engage in friendly debate about work and other issues, everyone needs to be able to engage in healthy dialogue around different understandings and perspectives around DEI.

The workplace is one of the most meaningful environments in which people are engaging across differences. It is important to ensure leaders can enable all team members to have the skills to engage cross-culturally in order to help the business thrive and support an inclusive culture throughout the organization.

Guidance for employers

Hispanic and Latinx leaders continue to be underrepresented at the executive ranks within the accounting and legal industries. Collaboration with the National Association of Latino Professionals for America, which serves more than 100,000 professionals, and the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) are helping employers make progress, but conversations with Hispanic executives suggest additional effort is necessary.

Compare your internal Hispanic/Latinx representation and that of your customer base — More than 18% of US consumers are from Hispanic backgrounds, according to the US census. Dumitrache Martinez, chief financial officer at Kind and Nature’s Bakery, advises corporations — particularly retail companies — to have similar ranges of representation between their Latino employees and their customers.

If there is a big gap between the countries and cultures from which your customers come and internal representation at the executive level, then there is some work to do. This gap, if left unaddressed, could impact business performance and how marketing messages are created and delivered to Hispanic customers based on different uses and habits, explains Martinez.

Formally sponsor Hispanic and Latinx talent — Intentional effort to develop executive talent from Hispanic and Latinx backgrounds is required by those organizations that have a very large majority presence in the executive suites. The careers of both Martinez and Gerardo Casahonda, Senior Director for International and Indirect Tax at Thomson Reuters, both benefitted from sponsorship by non-Hispanic executives. The HNBA’s PODER25, which seeks to increase the number of Hispanic attorneys occupying senior positions within corporate legal departments, is one example of the type of partnership in which employers can seek to partner with advocacy groups in this area.

Without intentionality, affinity bias, which causes people to gravitate toward others who appear to be like them, kicks in more often than not. Therefore, formally matching Hispanic and Latinx rising stars with executives for sponsorship helps to build bonds across differences that are not so obvious without a formal opportunity to forge a personal connection with someone from another function.

Invest in pools of talent from countries in Latin America — Casahonda indicates that the fact multiple activities of his business is done in Mexico and Costa Rica signals to employees that the company is vested in the development and advancement of talent in these locations and the communities in which these businesses operate.

Moreover, people in the US who work with people from other jurisdictions help to hone cross-cultural skills and develop future potential leaders. Indeed, all employees benefit from having diverse teammates, supervisors, and stakeholders because they are consistently working on and stress-testing key cross-cultural skills like cultural fluency, delivering and receiving feedback, effectively addressing conflict, and learning how to grow and support the development of diverse teams. These conditions are exceptional for building competent leaders of all backgrounds.

Train executives to embrace differing cultures — It is important for leaders and executives to signal proactively that different perspectives are appreciated. They can do this by proactively seeking the thoughts of others from underrepresented backgrounds. In fact, Casahonda says that individuals come to him for his views and insights because of his international work experience and his heritage outside of the US.

Advice for ambitious Latinx and Hispanic employees

In addition to investments made by employers, there are actions for both Hispanic/Latinx professionals. In fact, both Martinez and Casahonda share ways that they got ahead in their own experience and career journeys.

Hone cross-cultural leadership skills by working with others from different backgrounds — Martinez sought to work with a global company with locations in different countries to better expand his breadth of experience working with colleagues across regions. It forced him to work on his cross-cultural communication skills daily.

Improve mindset by reframing thought limitations on English as a second language — Casahonda says he once received feedback from a job interviewer that he needed to stop thinking that English was his second language. The interviewer emphasized that Casahonda should change his mindset and have confidence that he earned the interview because of his talent and be confident that his communication skills would improve over time.

Make ambitions known and seek feedback — One way to proactively communicate the desire to advance within an organization is to ask for management’s advice on what individuals need to do to get their moved up to other jobs. Casahonda sought guidance on how to get his manager’s job and followed the advice.

Of course, there is no magic formula to rise through the ranks of an organization today. It takes both the efforts of the individual and the guidance of mentors, sponsors, and managers in addition to organizational investments to advocate for rising stars and help them get the necessary experience and skills to advance. Employers taking these actions in combination with proactive action on the part of ambitious individuals increase the likelihood of improving representation of Hispanic/Latinx employees at the senior levels within the finance, accounting, and legal industries.

To date, most employers had used a gentle nudge approach for RTO because of the need to retain employees. Even now, flight risk among accountants and lawyers continues to remain at 30% and above and is even higher for those professionals from underrepresented groups. Indeed, the flight risk for lawyers of color in most cases was at least five percentage points higher, according to a survey of 1,500 legal associates, and in the case of Black lawyers, it was 12 percentage points higher.

Further, the process for returning to the office for employees, in particular those from underrepresented backgrounds, also is tricky. Working remotely provided a huge relief and improved mental health to employees with diverse identities because many did not encounter microaggressions as frequently as when they were in the office, pre-pandemic.

This means, however, that many employees are facing a potentially lose-lose situation. They might have to sacrifice their mental health to return to office; or if they seek to continue working remotely, potentially sacrifice their career progression because of management’s tendency to favor those people who are closer to us in time and space. This is known as distance bias or the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” concept.

Without effective awareness and proactive tactics on the part of management to mitigate distance bias, those professionals who the most vocal, most visible, and present in person may inadvertently be regarded as “high-potential” over others who are more introverted and prefer to work virtually — yet, work just as hard with better results.

Here are some ways to reduce the impact of distance bias:

1. Conduct “stay” interviews regularly

Managers who proactively initiating conversations to get to know team members on a deep level are laying the groundwork for better retention of these employees. Managers may not feel comfortable with doing this at first; so, it is best practice to provide managers with a template and guidance on how to effectively administer these kind of stay interviews.

Bill Bradshaw, head of Diversity & Inclusion at Withum, said managers conducting such interviews with employees should include three questions:

• • • How are you really doing?
    • What can I do to support you?
    • What can I do to ensure you have a rewarding career here?

Consistently asking these questions builds trust, helps the employee to feel appreciated, and assists the manager in supporting the employee in exploring career opportunities. Remember, however, it is important to note that employees may have different timescales on trust-building — some may take months, while others just days.

2. Brainstorm “inclusive” norms and behaviors within teams

Another exercise is to crowd-source inclusive ways of behaviors and expectations within the team for those in the office and also for those working remotely. Start with these questions:

• • • What does an inclusive team look like at the firm?
    • What would be some of the observable behaviors to demonstrate inclusivity?
    • What are one or two things that people should be doing to show inclusivity?

For those managers who may be hesitant, Shane Lloyd, Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Baker Tilly, recommends posing additional questions to the team that bring in the “client lens” to give more focused insight for managers, partners, and executives.

• • • Start with the question, “If our team were known as the most inclusive in our organization, what behaviors would we observe?”
    • Follow that with, “If we were known as the most inclusive organization among its clients, what would our clients be saying?”
    • Next ask, “What belonging challenges are we likely to encounter?”
    • Finally, engage in a group discussion on the question, “What behaviors resolve these belonging challenges?”

Questions such as these provide direct insights for leaders on how they can effectively foster the conditions that bring to life the responses provided by employees while offering a kaleidoscope approach to viewing efforts of inclusion. “We want to understand these important dynamics from a variety of vantage points — individual contributors, groups, leaders, and clients,” Lloyd adds. Additionally, normalizing conversations about belonging challenges and discussing them openly allows teams to think about how to effectively address those experiences when they arise. Although it seems counterintuitive, openness around discussing belonging challenges is an evidence-based practice that contributes to fostering an inclusive climate.

3. Have an on-call “belonging” coach for executive leaders

This service allows managers to have a resource available to learn more about microaggressions or help them navigate among the different managerial challenges they are facing. These coaches can also help managers shore up their vital personal communication skills. Based on the “warmLine” service implemented by Intel in 2016, Baker Tilly used a similar approach for employees and now plans to do so for managers soon, according to Lloyd.

Withum took a different approach and hired a full-time coaching team to serve the entire organization, which included the option of offering full-time roles from the business teams that sit within the talent management function of the firm. Specifically for managers and senior managers, the coaches helped executives increase their effectiveness in managing a team of people from diverse backgrounds, while delivering superior business outcomes for clients and helping to fulfill outside-of-work commitments.

Remember that different engagement strategies are necessary to manage employees who work in-person, hybrid, or remotely, and for many managers those differing strategies are not intuitive. On way managers could engage remote workers would be, for example, to create the virtual equivalent of “water cooler” chats by hosting open hours for employees to drop in.

4. Enhance performance evaluation documentation requirements

Keeping quality records on performance over the course of the working relationship (not just during performance evaluation time) is also key. Adding and aligning all of the critical work that employees do for leading employee resource groups, or for vital endeavors like coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship are important investments to recognize as part of the overall value that each individual brings to the organization every year.

At the same time, managers should encourage employees to keep track of their own performance successes and other feedback regularly. This is important ingredient when it comes to performance evaluation time. Then, the manager and employee can compare records, and this action helps to reconcile differing recollections of events and mitigate distance bias.

Overall, the best way to retain all employees is to equip leaders with the tools they need to ensure their own accountability for keeping their finger on the pulse of all team members. Following these aforementioned steps can help guarantee that this happens.

In a new blog series, Legal Talent Deep Dives, we will examine the data that points to several strategies that law firms can pursue to increase their bottom line

In today’s legal environment, as law firms try to move through the post-pandemic environment and navigate to something they see as closer to normal, the issue of legal talent remains a hot button topic for firms of all sizes.

Indeed, the number of lawyers considering leaving their current firm is eye-opening. Our research indicates that 21% of those lawyers (mostly partners) that have been nominated as stand-out lawyers by their clients, and 46% of associates are either unsure, somewhat likely, or highly likely to leave their current firm within the next two years.

Not surprisingly, when law firm managing partners get together, the talk is about why their lawyers are leaving — either to competitors, in-house positions, or most troubling, to no position or plan at all. These leaders also discuss how the time and process to replace lawyers that leave has become much longer, more expensive, and more complex.

What is becoming clear in this scenario is that law firms need to find a way to create workplace environments from which lawyers won’t want to leave — an increasingly complex endeavor, that involves addressing issues that are removed from the compensation picture altogether.

To help provide an answer to this dilemma, Thomson Reuters’ recent legal talent research illuminated several pathways that law firms can follow to arrive at a successful talent strategy in the post-pandemic era, including what can be done to retain their stand-out lawyers, and how a focus on engagement and culture — rather than just matching compensation — can make a great deal of difference in firms’ retention efforts.

Our Stellar Performance market research study took an in-depth look at more than 2,400 stand-out lawyers — those nominated as such by clients in Thomson Reuters’ ongoing, randomly sampled global Sharplegal survey — and what can push them to leave their current firms and what can be done about it. Previously in this series, we saw how having just three stand-out lawyers on a firm’s roster can make a great deal of difference to clients and can lead to a four-fold increase in the portion of clients’ legal spend the firm might gain; and what stand-out lawyers see as value within themselves. Now, we turn our attention to the part of our research that detailed how lawyer retention strategies are becoming a much bigger piece of law firms’ profitability puzzle.

Strategies to retain the best lawyers in your firm

During this time of stiff competition for in-demand legal talent, it is more important than ever for firms to guard against high lawyer turnover. Our research underscores the fact that associates are at especially high flight risk right now; and while they themselves told us that compensation is their main concern, our research shows that a host of other factors also contribute to better associate retention. Indeed, these factors are typically cultural, such as flexible working schedules, better communication and engagement, and support for mental well-being — all of which were impacted by the pandemic’s forced pivot to remote working.

For example, remote work meant that mentoring had to be addressed differently and became much more challenging. Without the chance for partners to more regularly have those difficult questions and conversations that can help shape a younger lawyer’s career, law firm leaders had to struggle to sell the idea of becoming a partner more than ever before. There may be two main reasons for this. First, given the lessons of the pandemic, many lawyers (of all ages and status) are more circumspect in how they spend their working hours, whether they’re willing to endure long commutes, and how they balance their work with their life outside of work. And second, the rise and growing reputation of new roles within many law firms involving technology, legal operations, talent management, and more have offered side steps off the partnership ladder that now also can provide different kinds of rewards and recognition.

The power of firm culture

As we looked more widely at stand-out lawyer retention in our research, it appears that many law firms overlook the role their own leadership and strategy-setting plays in either pushing lawyers away or keeping them within their firms. Firms need to genuinely engage and communicate with lawyers at all levels to ensure firms don’t leak great talent.

As the research shows, those lawyers that regarded themselves as most satisfied in their current roles at the firm felt that cultural issues were much more important than did those lawyers who considered themselves least satisfied with their jobs. In fact, the most satisfied lawyers cited people and colleagues, workplace culture, and the quality of work they’re given as the top three areas that give them the most satisfaction.

Least satisfied lawyers, on the other hand, cited people and colleagues, independence or freedom, flexibility, and quality of their team or practice as top areas of satisfaction.

Building toward an inclusive culture

Given that firms’ efforts toward creating this more accommodating work culture for their lawyers can pay dividends in retention and — just as importantly — curb the hiring cost of recruiting, hiring, and on-boarding new talent, the key question becomes one of how can firms create an atmosphere in which their top lawyers want to remain?

Focusing on several aspects of culture — such as enhancing the overall tenor of working life, making all lawyers feel included and visible, and ensuring that all lawyers and staff are being treated in a manner that’s friendly and respectful — is a great place to begin. Couple that effort with clearly articulated opportunities for career progression, advancement, and professional growth, and firms will have significantly contributed to higher employee engagement among stand-out lawyers and others.

These efforts will require, of course, a dedicated initiative that enlists management, offers management training, and instills more flexibility than firms may be used to offering. However, firms must ensure these foundations are in place to maintain an engaged workforce and defend against other firms poaching their stand-out talent. Indeed, our findings indicate that, almost one-half of lateral moves of top lawyers are instigated by the hiring firm — and this figure is even higher among recruits who were not actively considering a move.

Today, no law firm can pursue strategies to enhance profitability or ensure stability if they do not have a strategy in place to retain their best lawyers and avoid the cost and disruption of new hires and constant turnover. Keeping their best lawyers satisfied and engaged within a welcoming workplace culture is the surest way law firms can keep that talent at the firm.

You can learn more about how your firm can better understand the value of its stand-out lawyers as part of its overall talent and client service strategies, here.

Right now, local governments have about 1 million fewer employees than they did in 2019, and they need to hire 928,000 people into current open positions, according to the Rockefeller Institute.

To address the preferences of current workers around flexibility, morale, and compensation, public sector employers must leg go of the current operating model of incentivizing longevity, which includes increased pay for time served and accruing benefits over time rather basing compensation adjustments and benefits on performance or relevant professional and educational experience. It is outdated because it is based on a mid-20^th century economy where job stability and longer tenures were valued by members of the Baby Boomer and Silent generations.

Embracing flexibility in terms of when, how, and where work gets done is critical if public sector employers at the local level want to attract and keep high-performing workers. This means giving workers the autonomy to determine what hours work best for their schedule within a framework of core hours and required work days. It also includes allowing some flexibility as to where the work gets done.

“Once you throw out the idea that local government services are only available between 8 am and 4:30 pm inside City Hall, you can rethink everything,” says Allyson Brunette, a former local government employee who left the industry last year to start her own local government consulting firm with a focus on adapting culture and workforce models to attract top talent. “Are there hours when almost nobody comes into City Hall? Maybe you can rethink your core service hours. Do you maintain and operate a large building to house 100-plus onsite employees? Maybe you can downsize to a smaller facility that holds 20 employees that need to be onsite and invest in building a remote workforce.”

Addressing the need for change

Local governments may be resistant or fearful of changing their service delivery model for fear of upsetting taxpayers. “I often hear in working with local government clients from elected officials that their top priority is delivering great customer service to their constituents,” says Brunette. “This is a noble goal, but their definition of great customer service does not align with contemporary expectations for service delivery. Indeed, if the service delivery model requires people to come into City Hall either as employees or customers, it could be based on a 1980s-style service that is deficient to a growing percentage of your customers.”

There is no doubt that some roles can be done off-site full time, giving employers the added benefit of hiring from a larger pool of candidates outside of their geographic area for these jobs. However, public sector leaders must proceed with caution.

Implementing a remote work policy for an organization requires investment in a management model that is designed for remote work, not in spite of it, Brunette explains. You can’t just operate your organization the same way you always have, but insist that employees who work remotely fit in to that in-office culture.

Brunette advises government employers to reimagine their on-boarding, communications, meetings, and engagement from the ground up, building it around a remote workforce. “Organizations that skip this effort will likely see higher turnover and lower engagement from remote workers who feel that they are a secondary priority to in-office peers,” she adds.

One small step toward determining what functions could be done remotely or in a hybrid way are one-team experiments conducted within a defined period of time. For example, employers could select one or two objectives to test, such as making core hours between 9 am and 3 pm, local time. Then they could allow half of their team members to work these hours for a period of two weeks, with a rotating responsibility of one person being “on call” to address any critical issues that occur outside core hours. After the two-week time frame passes, employers should conduct a lessons-learned discussion to determine what, if any, important services or tasks failed to get done and see if there is a solution to ensure that this does not happen again.

Offering flexible benefits

Another element of flexibility that will attract high performance is adaptable benefits. Flex benefits offer people variable options based on their life stage — for example, parental leave won’t be of interest to empty nesters, but time off for elder care for aging parents might be. Or, subsidized pet insurance may be more attractive to people who are single and without children at the early stages of their careers when income levels tend to be lower.

Job sharing also can be an attractive flexible way of working for seasoned people who want to downshift their careers and work schedules, for working parents who seek part-time work while also being able to spend time in the early years of their child’s life, or for those who want to pursue side interests and have the benefit of a steady source of income to cover major expenses.

Contract work is another attractive alternative to full-time hours. Local government workers can participate in the gig economy for busy seasonal work or for work tasks that tend to be more inconsistent. Local governments have long used the request for proposal (RFP) process to hire contracted service providers for short-term project engagements. This could be extended to contracting hyper-specific functions within an organization, like graphic design work or social media content generation.

To address the morale issue, local public sector employers need to emphasize their strengths, and one of the key ones is the opportunity for meaningful work. Indeed, 84% of NES respondents feel positive about working for local governments, and 86% said their values align with their work.

Empowering and incentivizing leaders to consistently connect how each employee’s job is providing a valuable public service and helping to achieve the mission of the organization is vital to fixing the issue of low employee morale.

To change this paradigm over Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, it will require data, explained panelists at the 2022 International Legal Technology Association Conference (ILTACON). However, not only does that data need to be collected in a sound and privacy-centric way, but organizations need to learn how to actually transform that data into meaningful action.

The collection question

For panelist Kim Hulsey, chief diversity & inclusion officer at Locke Lord, data serves two primary purposes. The first is rather simple: knowing “who’s in the building”, which means combing HR data to identify the level of diversity across different communities, including gender, ethnic & racial minorities, disability communities, and LGBTQ+ communities.

From there, organizations are now looking to take the next step, she said. “Now that we know who’s in the building, 1) how can we keep you there; and 2) how can we give you the best experience?” By experience, Hulsey said she wants to know what type of assignments diverse attorneys are receiving and how they are being selected for matters — essentially “how well are we delivering the promise that we made to you.”

You are never going to see change unless you know exactly what you’re trying to do.

Collecting that sort of data isn’t easy, however; and Hulsey noted that currently, the collection of data concerning employee experience is often a qualitative process that includes interviews and conversations, which naturally “takes a lot of time, both my time as a diversity leader and the time of the people that I’m speaking to.” Hulsey says she’s looking at integrating more quantitative data into the equation, considering not only surveys, but also internal data such as work allocation systems.

It’s a path that another panelist, Yolanda Hawkins-Bautista, has recently traveled, although not without some bumps. Hawkins-Bautista was recently named Principal and Director of Litigation and Investigations at Accenture Federal Services, but before that, she worked at Freddie Mac. It was there that she helped build a program called Engage Excellence — originally started by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and then adapted by Freddie Mac’s legal department — which was aimed at applying specific guidelines for increasing diversity at outside counsel partners.

Following an initial survey to establish a data baseline, Hawkins-Bautista noted that the next step was to make the data actionable. “We actually sat down, we graded them, we had full discussions back and forth, and then we met with each law firm for about two hours telling them what we like, what we don’t like, and changes we wanted them to make,” she noted.

Freddie Mac’s then-general counsel would then spearhead a development plan for these outside firms, at which after a year, if they “have a plan we’ll continue working together, if not we’ll begin cycling the firm off our matters,” Hawkins-Bautista said. “You have to first identify where the problem lies, and then address it.”

Indeed, planning up front is a crucial piece to the data collection and implementation process, added panelist Dr. Juliet Aiken, chief science officer at Thine and head of consulting at Conducere. Aiken stressed that the letters in DEI are often conflated, but just because an organization is bringing in diverse talent doesn’t necessarily mean they’re committing to their inclusion. A firmwide plan at the beginning of the process can help avoid that pitfall.

“You are never going to see change unless you know exactly what you’re trying to do,” Aiken added.

Of course, this planning can take time. Hulsey noted that she often gets tons of emails about tech products that can possibly help, but with so much work, her biggest challenge is simply “getting to a place where I can articulate what the need is, then easily understand the products that are available and map the need to the product.”

However, this is where technologists and IT professionals can play a crucial role, Hawkins-Bautista added. With so much help needed for chief diversity officers and similar roles, IT professionals who help develop the DEI data systems “will be in the executive meetings.” In addition to helping the organization, finding success with these tech innovations can be a useful resume booster as well.

Data as strategy

Once the data is collected and integrated into the organization, it can then become not only a useful internal tool for engagement and recruitment, but a way to transform external processes as well. For example, Freddie Mac had a problem with both supplier spend and supplier diversity. Following a conversation with her then-GC, Hawkins-Bautista implemented a policy that would make it mandatory for Freddie Mac’s in-house attorneys to consider diverse attorneys and diverse-owned firms when engaging outside counsel. Once in-house attorneys identified outside counsel, they had to submit a request for approval through a system created by IT that sent an automatic notification to the firm’s DEI Council leadership to evaluate the proposed outside counsel.

What Hawkins-Bautista found was a change in the legal department’s mindset as well, recalling that she had conversations where attorneys would tell her, “If we had not had this program in place, I wouldn’t have considered somebody else. I would have just continued working with the firm that we’ve worked with for 40 years.” The new process, however, made the legal team realize that there’s a lot of talent out there. Oftentimes, “we found that when they considered other folks, they went ahead and hired them.”

On the outside counsel side, Hulsey said her firm is working to build out diversity dashboards, which integrate disparate sources of data into one place for the firm. Rather than simply a technology problem, she said, the firm views this dashboard as a strategic initiative.

All of this stuff is meaningful for two reasons, Hulsey explained: One, because clients are asking about it; and two, because of the Mansfield Rule reporting, that information is necessary. And while the process is manual right now, the plan is “to have a much more automated process that is less subject to human error,” she said.

Panelist Omar Sweiss, founder and CEO of diversity analytics company JusticeBid, added that in his conversations with clients, “data is only one piece of the equation.” Although DEI metrics are largely poor across the board, he said, talking about strategies to increase diversity can also have the effect of encouraging more disclosure in the first place.

“It’s progress over punishment. The entire ecosystem has to get better,” Sweiss added. “So, what can we do to collaborate better and work together to push this forward?”

Hawkins-Bautista agreed, noting that in her conversations with outside counsel, she encourages firms to be transparent. “Don’t hide the numbers. Find a way to embrace them and move forward.”

Plus, Aiken explained, a holistic strategy can help organizations avoid the “checked box” problem, in which organization leaders can collect data, and perhaps even reach their preferred diversity metrics, then put the problem aside.

“Do not take these metrics as hurdles that can be passed,” Aiken said. “They are ways for us to monitor our progress in work that should continue over many lifetimes.”