We strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone at DWF feels valued and supported, can fulfil their potential, and contribute to the success and sustainable growth of the business regardless of background, circumstances or characteristics through:
- Culture: Create fair representation at all levels, empower collaboration, and build a sense of belonging for all.
- Career and development: Ensure equity and equality of opportunity across the colleague lifecycle, from recruitment to progression, ensuring outcomes – not just processes – are fair.
- Reward and benefits: Embed responsibility for inclusion in how contributions are recognised and ensure that reward structures reinforce fairness and inclusion.
- Work environment: Create a supportive, safe environment that challenges barriers, enables colleagues to thrive, and encourages positive health and wellbeing committed to support and advocacy on inclusion and in times of crisis.
Building an inclusive workplace
Our employee-led networks provide the opportunity for our people to build an inclusive workplace, connect like-minded colleagues and create a space where they feel safe voicing their experiences.
Our networks include:
- Wellbeing: Supporting the wellbeing of colleagues across the organisation including mental, physical, financial and relationship wellbeing support.
- Out Front: our company wide network for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer colleagues, and any ally colleagues.
- This is Me: our company wide network for progressing gender parity. This also includes are Family Support, Men at Work and Menopause networks.
- Race and Ethnicity Network: our group focused on increasing ethnic diversity and promoting cultural diversity across the business.
- Diverse Ability: our network for those with hidden and visible disabilities plus carers and allies. This also includes a dedicated network for neurodivergent colleagues as well as a network for carers.
Our people and inclusion campaigns
Each year all of our locations come together to celebrate and champion diversity, equity and inclusion, here are some of our campaigns we've been involved in.
- International Women's Day involves initiatives that give voice to the importance of creating a gender-equal world, and sessions where we inspire the next generation of women and colleagues who share their stories in photos, quotes and blogs.
- Global Goals Week provides an opportunity to reflect on our achievements, showcase our inclusion initiatives and take the time to gain new perspectives on our lives and others around us.
- International Men's Day encourages our male colleagues to become champions and sponsors for gender equality. It provides an opportunity to address issues facing men including working flexibly, men's mental health, and boys in education.
- International Day of Person’s with Disabilities and Neurodiversity Celebration Week
- Pride Month: providing opportunities for global colleagues to understand more about LGBTQIA+ discrimination and how to create greater inclusion whilst showcasing DWF role models.
- World Menopause Day giving global colleagues an opportunity to share their experience and raise awareness for menopause as global workplace issue.
- Black History Month and cultural inclusion campaigns such as Ramadan support
Tracking our achievements
- Implementing divisional DE&I plans, owned by divisional CEO.
- Focusing on divisional talent pipelines and succession planning to increase the representation of women and ethnic minority talent throughout our organisation.
- Reporting on workforce diversity shared with Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at DWF Leadership Group and Executive Board quarterly.
- Mentoring programme including race and ethnicity, two way mentoring and women's peer to peer mentoring.
- Ethnic Minority and Social Mobility Programme for aspiring lawyers.
- Collaborating with DE&I experts, sector peers and clients to advance DE&I.
- Diversity reviews of client teams championed by our CEO to establish to increase representation of global, female and ethnic minority colleagues, and emerging talent.
- Showcasing diverse role models & talent across our global business.
- Utilising contextual recruitment within our Emerging Talent process.
- Delivering mandatory DE&I training and Prevention of Sexual Harassment, plus complementary training on DE&I topics such as menopause, and Inclusive Leadership training for our leaders.
- Improving how we recruit by introducing anonymous CV's for early careers recruitment, inclusive hiring training and increasing recruitment of underrepresented groups.
Awards and partners
It is important to us and our stakeholders that we continually improve our approaches, and strive to implement best practice. We therefore engage in regular benchmarking and we are proud of the recognition we have received for our ongoing commitment to DE&I:
