EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
Sponsored by: Brands with Values
Winner: Matheson
A fantastic example of truly cross-firm people development that has strengthened the firm’s community and culture. The initiative pivoted away from role related programmes to sessions chosen by the firm community. The sessions involved people from legal and support service divisions learning together, and in cohort groups, to match the needs of the post-pandemic working environment.
BEST ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE INITIATIVE
Sponsored by: The Sustainable Recruitment Alliance
Winner: Shoosmiths
The judges were impressed by the innovative and practical steps this firm has taken to help achieve their net zero strategy. Including re-investing funds from a business travel carbon levy and introducing a travel spend metric as part of employee bonus award considerations.
BEST CSR Initiative
Winner: Ward Hadaway
This entry involved the successful delivery of mentoring and business skills, and not a little inspiration, to a local school community. It also fostered a deep understanding of community impact within the trainee cohort responsible for running the scheme. A fantastic return on a £2,000 budget.
Highly Commended: Ashurst
BEST SOCIAL MOBILITY INITIATIVE
The winner in this category revamped their long-standing early career social mobility initiatives to deliver continued impact on trainee lawyer offers to under-represented groups. The revamp also focused on establishing better tracking data so that a wider range of outcomes for participants can now be monitored – whether those outcomes occur within or outside the business.
EXCELLENCE IN ED&I
This initiative was a bold example of taking on the challenge of embedding “inclusion for all”. D&I action plans, backed by strong data collection and reporting, were put in place by every team in the firm. Meaning everyone in the business is responsible for D&I effort and success.
Highly Commended: Clifford Chance
Highly Commended: Trowers & Hamlins
BEST INNOVATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Sponsored by: Performance Leader
Winner: TLT
The winning entry demonstrated how the innovative use of technology can deliver a sophisticated and ambitious multi-functional recruitment system. The well documented outputs include impressive efficiency gains, cost savings and a greatly enhanced user and candidate experience.
EXCELLENCE IN REWARD & RECOGNITION
Sponsored by: Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing
Winner: DLA Piper
This was a well run programme with a project team guided by a partner steering group and external consultants. The firm differentiated their pay stances in the London market and the Regions and led the way for other regional firms to potentially follow suit. The success has been measured by improved reward and wellbeing scores in the engagement survey and reduced attrition across the UK.
Highly Commended: DAC Beachcroft
EXCELLENCE IN RECRUITMENT
Winner: Stowe Family Law
This highly effective initiative deployed smart lateral thinking, built on thought leadership, to radically improve the firm’s hiring efficiency. Backed by strong data collection, the programme was able to demonstrate significant time to hire benefits and overall recruitment cost reduction.
Highly Commended: DLA Piper
BEST EARLY TALENT RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN
Winner: Clifford Chance
The bravery, honesty and emotive connection of this winning entry greatly impressed the judges. Brilliantly executed and with over a million views of the launch video, the standout winner in this category is Clifford Chance and “Getting Real”.
Highly Commended: CMS
Highly Commended: Mishcon de Reya
MOST INNOVATIVE PEOPLE INITIATIVE
Winner: Clyde & Co
A wide ranging and innovative initiative, involving significant investment in pastoral and development support to a large, global, partner cohort. It created a safe space for partners under stress and feeling vulnerable. Backed by strong data collection, the programme has evoked a very strong and positive sense of engagement from the partner group.
BEST PEOPLE PROFESSIONAL
Sponsored by: Oakleaf Partnership
Winner: Dan Belli, DLA Piper
This award goes to a people professional who has taken on and succeeded in one of the toughest and most complex challenges in our industry, launching a global HR system and service model. The system launched simultaneously in 28 jurisdictions, on time, on budget, with no major incidents and first year cost savings targets met. Their incredible capacity to absorb and retain detail, while never failing to keep the big picture and strategic objectives in mind, were key factors in the effective delivery of such a complex project. There will be many in this room who recognise this as a very significant achievement.
Highly Commended: Jacqui Bernuzzi, Trowers & Hamlins
RISING STAR
Winner: Emily Green, Trowers & Hamlins
This rising star has had a phenomenal impact in their first, full-time, work role. Concentrating on early talent programmes, they are persuasive, modest, emotionally intelligent, and have first rate analytical skills. They have presented and explained concepts and proposals across the firm and at board level and driven, ground-breaking projects with major cultural impact. The range of their input and impact has been huge. The judges were extremely impressed by the start they have made in legal HR.
BEST PEOPLE LEADER
Winner: Melinda Giles, Giles Wilson
This award goes to an inspirational people leader who, faced with a major business succession challenge, prioritised their firm’s independence and culture above an easy exit. This involved adopting an ownership structure that gave control of the business to its employees and a huge personal commitment to the work and investment needed to make the transition to an Employee Ownership Trust a success.
HR TEAM OF THE YEAR
Winner: DLA Piper
This HR Team has had an amazing year – they are real strategic players at the centre of their business. The judges recognised, not only the impressive roll-out and embedding of a new service model across multiple jurisdictions, BUT, also the ambition of the HR transformation it has been part of, and which ranges across recruitment, ESG, and reward and recognition.
GRAND PRIX
