Our people and diversity
‘Freshfields’ second CSR report demonstrates continued progress in the
firm’s commitment to retain its leading position in CSR reporting in its sector.’
– The Corporate Citizenship Company
Winner CSR Firm of the Year 2007 Legal Business Awards
Business in the Community Big Tick Award 2007 for our programme for homeless people
Certified CarbonNeutral® by The CarbonNeutral Company across all our offices
Winner Law Society of England and Wales’ Excellence in Social Responsibility Award 2007
‘We would like our firm to be more diverse at all levels for
a whole host of reasons. We recognise this will take time and that it involves investment
in the community and the active engagement of the people who work here and the clients
we work with to evolve solutions. We are committed to finding ways to achieve our
aims.’
Hugh Crisp, partner with responsibility for diversity
Our people are our most valuable asset and key to our ability to providing outstanding client service. There are many good reasons for us to take diversity seriously.
Broadening the diversity of our people is important to the success of our firm, as we recognise that diversity of cultures, backgrounds, nationalities and ideas improves the quality of our work and enriches our working experience.
We want our firm to attract, develop and retain a range of people in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age or disability. To this end, we work hard to ensure we recruit and advance people solely on their ability, to promote equal opportunities and to avoid discrimination and harassment of any kind. Key to this is our commitment to promoting equality and diversity in our policies, practices and procedures.
We are an international firm working for international clients and would like the people who work here to reflect and reinforce this diversity.
As we operate in a competitive environment where the demand for talent is higher than ever, we want to recruit from the widest possible pool to ensure we continue to provide outstanding service to our clients.
We also believe a diverse and inclusive workplace is more enjoyable, more stimulating and more likely to produce imaginative solutions to problems, both legal and practical.
Diversity training
Training is important to our diversity strategy, beginning with the induction of all new staff. Equal opportunities training is provided to all London staff, in addition to training for new partners, appraisers, interviewers and members of our human resources team. Two-thirds of our partners and other employees in London have completed diversity training. We plan to review our diversity training and introduce it to other offices over the coming months.