If you weren’t able to catch this webinar live you can watch it on youtube (with automated captions) here. I’ve also summarised the transcript/slides below (this has been edited to make it read better/make more sense given the errors in the automated transcript and to incorporate the information presented in the slides).
SRA: Disability
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) collect data every two years of firm diversity data and that information tells us that 3% of solicitors declare that they have a disability and that figure hasn’t changed in the last ten years. When you compare this to 13% of the workforce in the UK and you look at the Equality Act definition there’s an estimated 19% of the working age population that is disabled there’s a massive under-representation of disabled people and massive underreporting. In the SRA engagement with firms and the work that they have been doing on disability and with individuals that work in firms it shows us that there is less being done around disability than there is for some of the other protected characteristics.
The SRA has sent out a questionnaire to 3,000 law firms to survey them about their policies and practices on disability inclusion. They received 420 completed responses and to our questionnaire. They found that there’s no one single factor that firms needed to do to put in place and to promote disability inclusivity and actually what is needed is to consider disability equality across all areas of the business to make sure that staff can thrive and be their best selves at work.
SRA Survey Findings
Some firms are beginning to do more to promote disability. For example they found that some firms were signing up to initiatives promoting disability inclusivity such as the valuable 500 and have engaged with disability experts and disabled solicitors and law firms and asked them for their information and what what they feel could be improved in law firms for disabled people.
Finally the SRA did a review of existing research because there isn’t a lot of research out there on disabled professionals in the legal profession and it was important to see what was being said, how individuals were being supported and what that research was saying.
What we found was that there was some good practice and firms did want to take positive steps in this area and some of the things that we did find was while the disability community has been unfortunately largely absent from initiatives and programs in law firms, many firms have been making progress – to recruit and to support and to promote disabled lawyers. Some law firms have set targets and others have published their disability pay gap and there were some firms which excelled in some areas. For example having really positive support and good continuity support from senior leaders. The SRA are working with them to identify and put in place and utilise examples of good practice. They are trying to encourage firms to use these good practice examples and want to help and support and inspire change and promote new ways of doing things based on what is already working to enable real change. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we know that the things that disabled lawyers are saying and can be put in place and have been put in place as if this is what we’re trying to support and to push those elements forward so that law firms can take that on board.
So our engagement with firms through the survey and we’ve done workshops with individuals as well as firms, has really helped us to identify what good practice exists in law firms and take on their experience and challenges that exist and we’ve themed them into a few areas and we’ll talk about this as we go on further – but these themes are leadership and culture, [monitoring and evaluation, reasonable adjustments, recruitment retention and progression, role models and networks, training and learning, policies and practices.
Leadership and Culture
Ultimately leaders are responsible and accountable for ensuring that their firm is diverse and inclusive. They really do set the tone and culture of an organisation and this is what individuals have told us and firms and we know this is not just true for diversity or disability inclusion.
Reasonable Adjustments
The other theme that we focused on is reasonable adjustments and this was an area that brought about a lot of discussion. There was some misunderstanding about reasonable adjustments, there were some frustrations around reasonable adjustments and there are also some real good examples on what firms are doing on reasonable adjustments to support their disabled employees and of course reasonable adjustments are a legal requirement under the Equality Act.
Recruitment, Retention and Progression
Another area was recruitment retention and progression. So individuals talked about some of the barriers that they face and in regards to this. Firms talked about some of the challenges but they also talked about some of their initiatives. We know from discussions and working in the area of diversity and inclusion that there are some really good initiatives out there that firms can implement.
Role Models and Networks
The other one was role models and networks. These are really important for career progression. Individuals and firms spoke about the lack of role models in senior positions. So not being able to see people in those positions did have a massive impact. Networking and networks were really important to and this came up quite a lot in those discussions.
Training and Learning
Finally training and learning. It’s important for everybody. There’s some really good training that is been delivered but not everyone was getting the right training or the training was reserved just for HR or senior partners or operational staff but actually everyone in the firm actually needed the training or some level of training that was appropriate to the role that they had in the firm. They also found that very few firms carried out disability training specifically and it was often buried and diluted with equality diversity inclusion trainings. They didn’t really go into the depth that perhaps was needed.
Practice and Policies
So ultimately what we found was there are pockets of good practice and firms did well you know in our findings on one or two areas so there were some firms are really good at implementing these adjustments and were really flexible but perhaps not so good at collecting data or didn’t think that data was important. We did have one firm tell us that they didn’t understand why they needed to know who was working in their firm it didn’t matter to them. So there was a lack of understanding and why we collect data and how data can really drive progress. So what we failed to find or there was only a handful of examples sorry on firms providing or doing lots of things in different areas and all around good practice.
Some of the things that we found was that, for example, more confidence is needed around disability and making these adjustments. What I mean by that is that we found that law firms needed to be confident about putting in place processes so that it was simple and easy for people to request reasonable adjustments if they needed them. So in terms of the law firms making that initiative it was really important that they took that initiative and made that first step in saying you know we are an organisation that support making these adjustments and we want to talk to our colleagues to our new recruits about reasonable adjustments and whether they require them. If they do require them we will support them to put them into place. So having discussions about a reasonable adjustments should be something managers have with their colleagues and it is not only for the person needing them to initiate such discussions, it should be as I mentioned for the law firm, for managers, to initiate those discussions as well.
Sometimes what we found was that for firms those little understanding about the changing nature of adjustments and that these can change with time or that they may be dependent on what a person needs for a particular task for example and small things can make a big difference such as somebody being seated in the middle of a group of people when a meeting is held so that they can hear better. So sometimes those small differences make a huge support for that individual that requires that adjustment.
Disabled solicitors said that those who had positive experiences had worked in firms where the conversation about workplace adjustments was opened early on and that they could easily talk about adjustments that they needed. If these needed to be changed they could explain what they might be and they didn’t feel that they had to keep quiet about their adjustments that they needed. We found that as part of that it was really important to have visible leadership in place and that it is really key that senior leaders promote disability inclusion. When that happens, not only do the individual thrive, but the firms do too.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation allows firms to measure progress and that is monitoring across all areas of disability in terms of disability diversity in the workplace in terms of reasonable adjustments as well. There were a few firms and not very many that looked at their data and disability. It is important that firms do this to identify actions they could take to encourage a diversity of applicants to apply in the first place, and also to track their disabled employees throughout their life cycle in the organisation. If we don’t have the data to show where our employees are sitting within an organisation we’re not able to make any changes that can support people to do their best and to help them to progress in the workplace.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
We found that there is a lot of work that’s being done in the space for mental health and well-being and we know there is some really good practice in this area. Firms are marking national days and weeks such as mental health awareness week. Lots of friends were doing amazing things and firms inviting experts to talk about different aspects of mental health to raise awareness. Also we see there’s a real drive and a push to address stigma and taboo in firms and all this is great work and we encourage that I think it’s really important that this the similar efforts and emphasis put into disability and raising awareness. For example, it could be talking about social model of disability and what that means, or looking at the experience and barriers that disabled people face, or addressing lack of confidence around reasonable adjustments.
Also very few firms provided disability related trainings or specific training and where they did provide it was usually where clients were disabled or it was on mental health problems or mental health experiences of individuals. Where they would provide that training to all that really centered around employees it was more embedded into equality diversity and inclusion training. So perhaps just a little section on disability equality and being inclusive. Also we found that training told you to focus on preventing discrimination as opposed to being proactive and looking at ways to be proactive and raising awareness.
Initiatives
We think initiatives around mental health in your firm’s is really key to helping employees do well, but we do want to say that as part of those initiatives firms should be committed to putting in place initiatives around disability equality as well. So all of those three things should come together. You should not simply be looking at mental health or simply be looking at well-being, you should be looking at disability, mental health and well-being. There are few firms that provide training on workplace adjustments and this is an area where disabled staff thought firms could do more. They thought that the training that could be provided should be provided by experts, should be provided by disabled people themselves and it shouldn’t be ad hoc and just provided to a few people in the business. It should be rolled out across the business. From people who are associates to senior leaders to people working in the HR team for example. Firms can record and monitor workplace adjustments and requests. It is important that they do that, and that they monitor those adjustments and those requests for clients as well. That will help them understand what kind of requests are coming into the organisation and if there’s something a wider piece of work that they can do do around that to support that. So for example, if there are more people that have been identified that they need support around dyslexia – what can the firm do to provide a more holistic approach to those employees that require that support?
Monitoring and evaluation of workforce diversity data allows the firm to track that progress and to develop evidence-based policies and initiatives and it helps to identify if an organisation has been successful in achieving its aims. It also supports how we can appropriately identify what more can be done to promote those inclusive practices. So for example, drafting a policy and setting out actions and disability inclusion that helps you improve employees experience and their well-being as well.
A Leadership and culture of support of senior leaders is key to making progress and promoting values and behaviors that specifically address disability. It was really important and senior leaders should demonstrate that support by attending training and events and also to initiate conversations on reasonable adjustments and workplace adjustments as well because it’s not only leading by example but advocating and promoting values and behaviors that support and disability-inclusivity. If you can show that you are doing that other people can see that as a role model in you as well and so by including disability actions and targets in organisational plans and strategies and managers can be trained on disability inclusion and also in terms of supporting and sponsoring disability staff networks and to make sure that any actions that come out of staff networks feed into management meetings. It is quite important to build those networks into a firm and to make sure that where support is needed around disability inclusivity it is there and it’s available. So I’m just touching on that management meeting point, I think we often find that firms or in the past have said we include an EDI or disability inclusion or gender inclusion as an agenda item or standing agenda item in our meetings but actually there’s little or no substance sometimes. So for example it comes to the agenda item and people are asked to do they have anything to say on that topic and people don’t or don’t feel comfortable or confident enough to bring up any matters that they want to talk about. So if you’ve really talked about it, set your targets and you’ve included it in your strategies and you’ve got focus, this will really help you with your management meetings and you’ll have a meaningful discussion around what you can do in the room about disability inclusion. Some of the firms that we talked to also included specific questions on disability in their staff surveys. This is something that’s a really good suggestion and something that we can do to promote disability inclusion. It gives you an idea of how people are feeling and how well you’re doing on disability inclusion.
Conclusion
What we want to completely conclude is that to support individuals and to support staff it’s really important to provide that support and help from a senior level. So for example in terms of Staff Networks sometimes the onus is an on an individual or on a few individuals to promote that Staff Network, to take that Staff Network forward. So identify the actions and the issues that they want that Staff Network to promote but in terms of the law firm as a whole if senior leaders can support, that support can open up the conversation in terms of events or in terms of training, to do small things like post blogs on the intranet, to post on Twitter and to post on social media, to show that their law firm is taking disability equality seriously. I think that’s a really an important step in the right direction and we want to move away from the tick box, we want to move away from saying yes we are a disability inclusive firm because we have disabled people working here. But it’s not about the disabled people working there, it’s making sure that those people that are in that firm are treated in a way that they can do the best work that they can do if they need for example reasonable adjustments and flexible working, if they need to work at different times, if they need to work more at home, then that can be facilitated and that support provided to those individual people.
We would like to hear more from you all and if you would like to support this work and we are continuing in terms of trying to raise awareness and to identify good practice and we’d really like it if you got into it with us. You can see the videos that we’ve produced already and the case studies and report already published on our website at SRA Disability Inclusion.
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