See the Possibility
30 May 23
The Possibility in Everything & Everyone: A Culture of Seeing the Possibilities
Helen Taylor
Weightmans was recently awarded Top Employer accreditation for the 16th year.
The firm scored so high that it ranked in the top ten UK employers for 2023.
Here are ten reasons why we are a top ten employer:
1. Multiple routes into the legal profession and top-class training
We have offered apprenticeships since 2013, and in 2020 launched the solicitor degree apprenticeship, allowing candidates to qualify as a solicitor without going to university.
Our award-winning in-house training team delivers hundreds of sessions on personal and professional development to our people. Our flagship Leadership Academy — a programme to develop future leaders which also aligns with commercial objectives and generates an income stream for the business along the way.
2. Inclusive and award-winning policies and procedures
We are constantly reviewing our policies to ensure they are considerate and inclusive, adding new ones where we feel more representation is needed, with our most recent additions being menopause, fertility and baby loss awareness.
From our parental leave offering through to our work to make our workplace and literature gender neutral, we work hard to ensure our people feel supported and happy at work.
3. Wellbeing strategy and counselling support
Staff wellbeing is of paramount importance to us, we are very proud of our wellbeing strategy, with a dedicated Disability and Mental Wellbeing Lead who ensures we are ahead of the game when it comes to looking after the wellbeing of our people.
Our Employee Assistance Programme is a confidential and free service available to Weightmans colleagues and their family members 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. The service also provides access to 6 short-term telephone/face-to-face counselling sessions for emotional issues, funded and authorised by the firm.
We often invite experts from the mental and physical wellbeing sector to host sessions for free for our people. These are delivered in person and online for ease. Some examples of the sessions we have held are mental health first aid training (including youth mental health), suicide awareness, menopause awareness and resilience training, where the feedback from our colleagues has been extremely positive.
4. Reward & Recognition platform
Our Employee Recognition Scheme encourages an environment of recognition through peer to peer nominations and a culture of celebrating success. Our state-of-the-art online platform allows our people to publicly acknowledge each other for great work, with spot bonuses given for outstanding contributions. The recognition forum is a board of appreciation, where messages of thanks are recorded and viewable by colleagues across the firm.
5. We champion diversity
Diversity and inclusion is a crucial part of Weightmans’ purpose. The firm’s goal is to improve attraction of diverse talent, provide opportunities for progression, eliminate barriers and improve the diversity profile across the firm. It is imperative that organisations keep striving for equality of opportunity and foster a workforce that is representative of the communities they serve — and Weightmans believes it is leading the way.
A Weightmans D&I steering group oversees the creation and implementation of the firm’s D&I plan, supported by champions in each office. Champions act as representatives and are available to employees for guidance or support in issues relating to the protected characteristics.
6. Generous benefits package
We offer a competitive range of benefits to our colleagues which include 28 days holiday, hybrid working, healthcare cover and dental scheme, pension plan, life insurance, travel loan and cycle to work scheme and more.
7. Hybrid working
We operate a hybrid working system for most roles at the firm, with our people able to split their working time between the office and home. All hybrid workers receive equipment to ensure they can work effectively from anywhere.
8. Innovative thinkers
Innovation at Weightmans is a problem-solving mindset that runs through our organisation, bringing our expertise together with emerging technology to yield greater, even unexpected, results.
Our dedicated Product and Innovation team is at the forefront of this mindset, encouraging everyone to think a little differently about the problems they are trying to solve.
We’re always focused on delivering real, measurable benefits to our business and our clients’ businesses, creating frictionless working practices with a host of targeted, smart solutions that help us become more agile and realise our full potential.
9. CSR, volunteering & ESG
CSR is extremely important to us and we raise thousands of pounds a year to charities close to our heart. We are proud to have a thriving Corporate Social Responsibility programme and our people are actively encouraged to participate in CSR initiatives.
From partnering with local charities, to raise awareness and funds, to working with young people of all ages in our communities to enhance their vocational and personal development, we are dedicated to ensuring we use our abilities and resources in a way that helps others.
Our national volunteer programme also offers staff two paid days of leave per year to volunteer for a cause of their choice — that’s almost 2800 days a year!
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors are becoming increasingly important and attracting a huge focus when it comes to the deliverability of business activity. Stakeholders ranging from colleagues, clients and suppliers are placing higher consideration on ESG performance & commitment of firms before partnering with them. Weightmans is truly committed to ESG and we have welcomed to the firm our first ESG Lead who is supporting us with our ESG strategy, focus and plans and working with our business leaders and colleagues to ensure we deliver our ESG objectives.
10. A culture we build together
Our regular staff engagement surveys, conducted by an independent body, allow for honest and constructive feedback from our people. The results translate into an action plan, where this feedback is distilled into tangible changes we make to our business in order to ensure that the culture at Weightmans is one that we build together. Our most recent engagement survey showed improvements in key areas such as personal development and growth; sense of accomplishment and offering an inclusive environment.
